First-place Pirates

It only took Jeff Karstens 83 pitches to shut down Houston Friday night in Pittsburgh's 4-0 victory at Minute Maid Park.
Comine that with St. Louis (49-44) and Milwaukee (49-45) losing, and the Pirates (48-43) are in first place in the NL Central. The last time the Bucs were in first this late in the season was in 1997.
Karstens (8-4) allowed five hits and had two strikeouts to lower his ERA to 2.34. Karstens' ERA is the third lowest in the NL. He also won his fifth straight start.
Karstens didn't allow an extra base hit and the Astros had runners in scoring position only two times.
Pittsburgh, who has won all four games at Minute Maid Park this season, came out swinging early and used good fundamentals to take a 1-0 lead in the first inning.
Alex Pressley led off the game with a single, stole second and moved to third on Chase d'Arnaud's sacrifice fly. Pressley scored on Neil Walker's RBI single.
Pittsburgh added on two more in the third when Andrew McCutchen's RBI triple scored Pressley and d'Arnaud.
Pressley was hit by pitch to lead off the inning, while d'Arnaud collected his second single.
Brett Myers (3-10) took the loss for Houston. He allowed three runs on five hits. He struck out 11 and walked three in six innings.
The Pirates are 21-12 against the NL Central. A sweep would be nice with Cincinnati and St. Louis coming to town next week before the Bucs travel to Atlanta for four games and Philadelphia for three.
For everyone putting a downpayment on playoff tickets I say: Take a deep breath and relax. It is nice to be in first, but the season is far from over.