Cruds alert!*

 (*Not really)

We're in the last week of the regular season in Major League Baseball season, and exciting news, fans of a team none of you care about: The Pittsburgh Not-Really-Cruds-Anymore Cruds at NOT going to finish last in the NL Central this season.

No way, Vandelay. With five games left in the season, they're four games up on the fourth-place Cardinals and seven games up on the cellar-occupyin' Reds. It'll take a collapse of Cruddian proportions for them not to finish third in the division.

Third in the division! And you thought they were doomed when Paul Skenes unaccountably lost his mojo this summer.

(And, no, I don't know why Skenes suddenly became ordinary. I don't know why Pittsburgh immortal Steve Blass suddenly couldn't throw a strike, either, six months after pitching the Buccos to the 1971 World Series championship. Pitchers are just weird.)

Anyway, the Cruds are no longer Cruds, but good honest Pirates again. And you know something else?

"No, and we don't want to," you're saying now.

Well, TOO BAD. Imma tell you anyway.

With five games to go, the Bucs are three games north of .500. This means (once again absent a major fold job) they're going to finish with a winning record for the first time in eight years.

Last time it happened was in 2018, when they went 82-79 and wound up fourth in the Central. It's been a full decade since they finished higher than that; they were third in 2016.

And now?

Third again. Probably.

Makes me want to pull my Roberto Clemente jersey out of the closet and slip that puppy on. Yessir.