Chicago at Pittsburgh

The Pirates turned the corner a year ago, winning 79 games. They were a team that had been dormant for a couple of decades and have things heading in the right direction. The same can't be said for the Cubs who lost 101 games last year and their prospects for improvement are limited. A.J.  Burnett won 16 games a year ago and looked more like the pitcher he was in Toronto than the one we saw in New York. Chris Samardzija had a good season with quality starts in 17 of 28 appearances, but a 9-13 record was a product of a bad team, and that hasn't changed. The Cubs own 17-48 mark in their last 65 on the road tells the story here, play on Pittsburgh.