Even though their management continues selling off their best players, the Pirates courageously battle on.

They just swept the Mets, finishing them off with an 11-6 slap down. Rookie Andrew McCutchen stepped in for the departed Nate McLouth and delivered two hits, three runs scored and a RBI.

“Everybody’s talking about the future. We’re not looking to the future. This is the now,” Pirates manager John Russell told reporters. “We’re very excited about where we’re at, and we added a very talented player.”

True, McCutchen can play. He was overdue to get his chance, as MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann noted on his baseball blog. The kid could easily have made the team out of spring training.

The Pirates could have used both outfielders in their lineup. Or the team could have made a better deal for McLouth, since other teams were interested.

But what is done is done. McLouth is in Atlanta and Pittsburgh won big without him Thursday.

Naturally, the Mets felt humiliated by the proceedings.

“The reality of this is coming here to Pittsburgh and getting swept, me, I feel embarrassed,” outfielder Carlos Beltran told the New York Daily News. “I don’t think it’s fun. I think we should find a way to play better and to focus more on what we need to accomplish.

“We have to play better. There’s no doubt we have to play better. I mean, we have to take this personally. It can’t happen. It can’t happen us being able to come here and lose three games just like that. It just can’t happen. Three games with this team — I know they’re a big-league ballclub, but we’re better than them.”

As for the Pirates, well, at least their mascots can act.

THE PROBLEM WITH T.O.

Terrell Owens is doing his best to turn the mediocre Bills into a must-follow team, if only for his antics. In his latest bit, T.O. accused Cowboys owner Jerry Jones of betraying him.

“I was very disappointed,” Owens told Fanhouse, “especially when you established a lot of trust gained for three years that I was there, and when somebody blatantly tells you you’re not going anywhere on two different occasions, and you’ve established that bond. If you don’t have a man’s word, and it doesn’t stand for anything, there’s really nothing left and there’s not a whole lot of trust.

“I was more than 100-percent confident that I wasn’t going anywhere. But it was disappointing. It made me really think about what my grandmother said to me growing up. She told me, ‘Never put trust in man. Put you’re trust in God’, and from that standpoint, that’s how it’s going to be.”

Here’s the thing, T.O.:

• Nobody has a job for life.
• As much as Jones would like to coach the Cowboys, he is NOT the coach.
• When an athlete becomes a 24/7 distraction in the NFL, there is no place for him on a good team. See “Burress, Plaxico” and “Shockey, Jeremy” for supporting evidence.

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while waiting for Ryan Ludwick, Rick Ankiel or Chris Duncan to get another hit when it matters:

• Since Albert Pujols and Chris Carpenter earn a third of the total Cards’ payroll between them, isn’t it fair to ask them to win some games all by themselves?
• So what does the eight-man Cards bullpen do while Carpenter pitches? Do they play chess? Poker? Pictionary?
• How will history remember the Blaine Boyer Era with the Cardinals?
• What can NBA officials do to make the Finals more competitive?
• Must fans resort to playing drinking games to make the Finals more fun?
• Has their ever been a weirder coaching match-up than the Zen Master, Phil Jackson, against the perpetually disheveled Stan Van Gundy?

NOT-SO-BIG PAPI

David Ortiz actually got a couple of hits as the Red Sox swept the Tigers, but he is still well below the Mendoza Line at .187. So, yes, he may get his eyes examined.

“I’ve been thinking about getting my eyes checked — for real,” he told reporters. “My vision has always been 20-20, and I’m not feeling anything crazy, but I’m going to get it checked out.”

QUIP ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

Jay Mariotti, Fanhouse: “He was growling, I swear. Mouth agape, eyes possessed, teeth poised like sharp fangs ready to devour your blood, Kobe Bryant stalked the court with such hostility that Jack Nicholson stood in awe and applauded as Kobe walked by. This is the same Nicholson who has scared the living hell out of us in horror flicks — see Jack Torrance, The Shining — yet in Game 1 of an NBA Finals that he threatens to dominate like no one since Michael Jordan, Bryant somehow was scarier.”

Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports: “They had started making excuses for him, Sidney Crosby’s teammates and coaches and supporters, and it was all rather unbecoming. Pretext does not work for superstars. They perform or they don’t, and for the first three games of the Stanley Cup Finals, the man on whom the National Hockey League foists its everything disappeared like he’d been swooped into witness protection. As much as the ineffectiveness bothered Crosby, the explanations did likewise, because he is one of the planet’s best hockey players, and his play ought to speak for itself. And so it was a different Crosby on the ice for Game 4 against Detroit on Thursday night, the sort that Pittsburgh needs to dethrone the Red Wings, the one whose contributions were tangible and not shadowy pronouncements.”

Rick Reilly, ESPN.com: “It’s been almost A year since the dinghy nearly sank the battleship, since the stand-in nearly stole the movie, since golf nearly went giddily, happily nuts. That was during last year’s U.S. Open Monday playoff, when a Joe PotRoast kind of guy named Rocco Mediate took America on a joyride—and Tiger Woods to the 91st hole—before finally losing. But here’s the weird thing: The world acts like he won . . . It’s been almost a year since he’s had to buy a drink. Almost a year since he’s gone a full day without hearing, “Thanks for last summer, Roc!” Almost a year since the guy who looks like a plumber nearly flushed the god of golf. And yet people keep patting him on the back like his name’s on the trophy.”

Greg Cote, Miami Herald: “Kobe Bryant and his wife are suing their former housekeeper, who they say violated a contractual agreement by talking to the media about the family’s private affairs. Bryant, like most men, prefers to keep his affairs private.”

MEGAPHONE

“Actually the only time I miss it is during the football season, not calling my bookie every Saturday and Sunday. But as far as the casino goes, I haven’t missed it. And I’m going to start gambling again whenever I get ready, to be honest with you. … I like to gamble. When I’m ready to go back to gambling, I will.”

Charles Barkley, to the Seattle Times, proving he is a slow learner.