They say that by the time you've had 500 at bats in the major leagues, that's who you are, that's the player that you are, that's the player that you're going to continue to be.

500. Now, what if it's 1,384? Good morning to you. Good Wednesday morning. I'm Dan Klovich, with

E.K. Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates, presented by our friends, back home at the North Shore Tavern,

Home of Steak on a Stone.

I say back home because I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina, covering hockey.

If you happen to be into hockey and or football, I also offer daily shots of penguins and Steelers.

Astros 10 Pirates 2 yesterday in Bradenton, Florida. Not at all a great showing for Mitch Keller.

Four innings, six runs on four hits and just as many walks.

He did strike out six, so it's not like he didn't have his stuff, but two of those four

hits cleared fences.

Also unrelated, he's Mitch, so I don't care.

You see how that works?

You hang around long enough, you develop what everybody in baseball refers to as the track record.

And everybody just kind of relies on it. Usually, with success. We don't do that with O'Neill Cruz, though, you might have noticed. None of us do. Not you, not me. Definitely not me.

Because I do the same thing. I watch him, and I see him hit a ball 600 feet. Or I'll just see him go on one of those rampages where it looks like everything that he hits is going to be a rocket.

And I don't care if

it's a home or double single whatever and I'll pay very little regard to everything that

preceded what it was that I just witnessed. He's not the first player. The Pirates have had like this.

He won't be the last. But he is the one that

they've got now. And he is the one that you think, and I think, is going to have some kind of

great, big, booming, super spasmatic breakout just because we're waiting on it.

He went one for three yesterday in the game that I just mentioned with a couple of strikeouts and a steel.

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