Giants 7 Pirates 6- "God told me if you give the saxophonist enough money the Pirates might win."

The Good:
6 runs
Cota homer
Freddy Sanchez playing and killing the ball
The Pirate Parrot's flying body slam of Lou the San Francisco Seal to let Cheese Chester win the Pierogie Race

And that was about it. The one night of the year the Pirates decide to draw walks we score 6 runs but still manage to leave 10 people on base. And Lloyd decides that Rick White is both his setup guy and his long relief man, which means that Rick White took the mound for the fourth consecutive game tonight. Seeing as how he hadn't given up any runs in the first three performance, there was a general feeling of unease in the ballpark when he took the mound tonight with two runners on base and a one run Bucco lead. On the second pitch he gave up a double and the lead was gone for good. He then gave up two runs of his own, you know just for good measure. Why Rick White needed to pitch for the fourth straight game when Torres, Grabow, Gonzalez, and Vogelsong all hadn't pitched in just about a week is beyond me. To add to the "I can't believe I paid to come to a baseball game and then Lloyd goes and does THAT" file, with a runner on base and two outs, he brings David Ross up to pinch hit. Felipe Alou counters with a right handed reliever, so Mac calls Ross back, which is good because Ross can't hit at all. This is a perfect place to bring Bobby Hill up, thinks all 23,000 fans in attendance. Instead, Lloyd decides that it's a perfect place for Tike Redman, while 23,000 fans in attendance wonder if they can charge the Pirates with theft, because forcing paying fans to watch Tike Redman bat in key situations with alternatives is probably a felony theft in some states.

One other positive from the night (besides the hilariously drunken man behind us screaming to his female friend on his cell phone about her large, ummm, chest area and the little redneck kid in front of us that looked EXACTLY like Chunk from Goonies... man I love Pittsburgh) was Felipe Alou's pitcher management. Somehow, one night after stretching Brett Tomko out for nine innings, he used all seven pitchers in his bullpen. One time he changed a pitcher ONE PITCH INTO AN AT BAT. With a righty on the mound (no idea who it was, there were too many pitchers to remember), Mackowiak comes up to the plate. He takes ball one and Alou comes out of the dugout to switch pitchers. The best we could figure was that Alou fell asleep in the dugout and forgot Mackowiak batted left handed. By the time he woke up it was one pitch into the at bat. We also wondered if when Felipe walked out the mound he told the umpires (in his best Yoda voice, of course) "A double switch we need. Hmmph. Bring in Alfonzo at third and Christiansen to the mound I will."

Bottom line: Yet another game the Pirates could have won with just one more key hit. Last year in 12 games in person I saw the Pirates go 7-5. This year so far in 5 I've seen them go 1-4.

Honus Wagner Replica Statues!

All I can say is these things better be nicer than the Jason Bay Bobbleheads. Will report back later.

Runs

I'm fairly sure Lloyd McClendon didn't read Sports Illustrated's article about making lineups and who hits where in their baseball preview issue. Ok, I'm positive he didn't read it. The truth is, the Pirates probably don't have ideal hitters to fill all eight slots in a lineup perfectly, I won't argue with that. The problem is that most nights of the week, Lloyd makes out a "wish" lineup. Last night was a perfect example. After Lawton, Mackowiak, Bay, and Ward he batted Tike Redman 5th and Bobby Hill 6th. I'm sure the thinking was, "Well, if Tike gets a hit, that puts an extra runner on base for Hill." Of course there's a huge problem with thinking like that. Watching my dad manage kids at various ages between 8 and 12 for six years, there was one thing that he learned very quickly, batting bad hitters between good hitters hoping that they'll get a hit is a recipe for not scoring. Anytime you have to HOPE someone gets a hit to extend a rally, chances are that person isn't a good hitter and that hit isn't coming. The only way to get any offense at all, especially on a hitting challenged team like the Buccos, is to bat all of your best hitters in a row. Would Bobby Hill batting fifth have won us a baseball game yesterday? Maybe not, but then again, in the 4th inning with runners on second and third and one out, Hill is much more likely to double in the gap and score both runners than Redman is. As it was, Tike hit a sac fly and Hill then made an out stranding Daryle Ward at second. It would have also changed the way Tomko pitched to Ward last night. Ward was seeing the ball very well, crushing a double that was very nearly a three run homer in the second, and later in the game fouled off about 7 pitches waiting for one in the "Daryle Ward home run zone", as I like to call the one portion of the strike zone he can actually hit the ball in. The problem is there was already two outs and Tike Redman was on deck. Ward fouled off pitches until he worked Tomko for a walk. Tike weakly grounded out and the inning ended. I can't say for sure we win last night with Bobby Hill batting 5th, but he was one of our five best hitters in the lineup last night, and batting him fifth certainly would have given us a better chance, and with Lloyd's Little League "wish" lineup in effect last night, a chance was something we didn't have.

Jack Wilson is worth the price of admission

Besides the (post game) fireworks, there was one highlight to last night's Pirates-Giants game. The golden (hint hint) glove of Jack Wilson. In the game last night Jack made two sparkling plays, one that he made look so routine I think maybe only 1,000 of the 24,000 fans at the game last night truly appreciated it. In the 8th inning with runners on first and third in a one run game and only one out, Marquis Grissom hit a ground ball towards the hole in short. Wilson, playing in on the play, took two quick steps back and towards third, picked up the ball, and in the same motion while falling backwards flinged an underhand throw to catcher David Ross off his back foot. Amazingly, the ball didn't sail into the stands but rather hit Ross in the chest. Ross looked surprised to see the ball there, but not as surprised as Pedro Feliz who didn't even slide or evade Ross's tag. Somehow, instinctively Wilson knew that with the way the ball was hit and the runner on first moving his only play was to the plate, and somehow he got the ball there, making it all look so routine no one in the crowd batted an eye. The second play came in the ninth. Jason Ellison lead off the inning with a groundball deep in the hole. Jack flew to his right, scooped up the ball, and again off his back foot turned and fired a rocket throw to Daryle Ward that didn't even bounce. His momentum was carrying him so far in the other direction he landed on his back after firing off the midair throw. When Derek Jeter, a "gold glover", made a similar play earlier this week, commentators raved about what a great play it was by a great player and he was rewarded with the #4 play of the night on ESPN. When Jack Wilson did it he got a polite ovation from 24,000 Pirate fans, but none of us were blown away because it was the type of play that Jack Wilson makes routinely. Despite what anyone else tries to tell me, I've never seen a shortstop with such a nose for the ball and such a cannon for an arm. And as I've said before, I think that his glove coming back so strongly this week is a sign that he's feeling much better and his bat should be making a permanent return any day now. And with Renteria in the AL this year, if Jack Wilson doesn't win a Gold Glove, I think I'm going to feel personally insulted.

Giants 3 Pirates 2, the view from 144

Walked into the ballpark with the Pirates lineup being announed and was immediately disappointed. As I said yesterday, my worst fear for Craig Wilson was for him to get benched and he did. But not just that, Lloyd was also playing the "weak up the middle" lineup with Rob "I swear out of 400 career games less than 40 have been at second base why do you keep playing me here" Mackowiak at second and Tike "No one ever taught me how to catch a flyball with two hands over my shoulder properly" Redman in center. To make things worse, Mark Redman had absolutely nothing on the ball tonight. In the first the Giants strung a few hits together and put a 2 up on the board. They stung line drives all over the ballpark tonight, two of which would have been homers in any other park but were instead tracked down in the left center notch by Bay and Redman. We put together a mini-rally in the 4th with Daryle Ward coming as close to humanly possible to hitting a homer without doing it on an RBI double to deep center followed by a sac fly to bring in Bay and knot the score at two. After 5 Mark Redman had thrown 90 pitches and was having control problems and was getting hit very hard. How the Giants only had 2 runs to that point was beyond me. Anyways, after David Ross's 1 out double, it seemed like a perfect place to hit for Redman. He was obviously struggling and the bullpen was very well rested after two great starts, a day off, and a rain out. If there's been any night all year our bullpen was ready to go 4 innings it was tonight. Instead Redman (maybe the worst hitting pitcher ever, I'm not lying, look it up) struck out and so did Matt Lawton. Redman then responded by serving up a homer to Mike Matheney, the career .239 hitter with a grand total of 51 homers in 11 Major League seasons. Not that anyone was surprised. The Pirates went down quietly, not getting a hit the rest of the way out on their way to getting four hit by BRETT TOMKO (who had nothing on the ball at all after the fourth inning, I might add). In the 8th inning Lloyd made the curious choice of bringing Freddy Sanchez up to pinch hit instead of all-time Pittsburgh Pirates career pinch hit home run hitter Craig Wilson, who happened to be on the bench this evening. This was especially baffling because the top of the order wasn't hitting well tonight, so it's not like on base specialist Sanchez would've done us a lot of good with a walk (or with the flyout that he hit for that matter).

On the positive side, the post-game fireworks were awesome. They seemed to go on a little long, maybe to make up for the lack of fireworks during the game.

Looks clear...

Looks like the rain will hold off, that means it's on for Redman and the Buccos to try and bring in win number 3 in a row and 5 out of 6 tonight. It also means I'll be at the game, so there will be no updates during the game tonight. Should be a big crowd for fireworks night so let's hope Lloyd puts his best team on the field, for everyone's sake.

Reasons Pirates fans shouldn't complain

The 5-17 Royals called up Ken Harvey today. That's right, their only All-Star from last year spent the first month of this season in AAA for no particular reason while the team went 5-17. I guess that means things could be worse for Bucco fans. Then again, the Royals had a winning season 2 years ago, so maybe we should just be embarassed.

The Giants

Last year we went 5-1 against the Giants and they lost their division by 2 games. Not sure that means anything this weekend, but it means we kept Barry Bonds out of the playoffs last year, and that makes me happy. More random Pirates/Giants facts in todays PG scouting report.

If the rain holds out, the Pirates go against Brett Tomko tonight for a shot at our first winning streak (aka 3 or more wins in a row) on the year. Mark Redman has a chance to endear himself to a large Pittsburgh crowd on fireworks night. Assuming the rain doesn't get to him first, of course.

Coming this weekend: Omar vs. Jose part deux

Let's face it, most Pirates fans are already disappointed about this upcoming weekend series. Barry Bonds won't be playing for the Giants and the weather is supposed to be bad. Without Barry the Giants are pretty much just a bunch of guys that should be using walkers to get around managed by a guy that bears a pretty uncanny resemblence to Yoda. I've never seen them in the same room, that's all I'm saying. There is one thing to look forward to, however. Jose Mesa vs. Omar Vizquel. To give a little backstory, in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series (Vizquel and Mesa were teammates on the Indians then) Mesa blew a one run lead in the ninth, allowing the Marlins to tie the game and eventually win the series in the 11th inning, blowing the best chance the Indians juggernaut of the 90s had at a championship. When Vizquel wrote an autobiography about two years back, he claimed that Mesa wasn't focused on the game and it was his fault the Indians lost. Mesa was not pleased. When Mesa (then with the Phillies) played Vizquel's Indians in interleague play in about 2000, Jose gave us this gem:

"I will not forgive him. Even my little boy told me to get him. If I face him 10 more times, I'll hit him 10 times. I want to kill him."

Now I don't have the numbers on this, but I do believe that makes Joey Table the only current MLB player to threaten the life of another player. Only the Pirates will sign a guy after he's threatened someone's life. Mesa claims in the same article to have softened his feelings about Vizquel, but honestly, does Jose Mesa look like a guy that forgives very easily? We could see some thunder this weekend and I'm not talking about the weather...

Thoughts on an off day

With no game today and the Pirates playing well, there seems to be one thought on all Pirates fans minds, what's wrong with Craig Wilson? If Craig Wilson was swinging the bat well, there's a chance columns like this never get written because the Pirates win 4 or 5 to nothing yesterday. While it's true the Pirates will win 2-0 more than 11-10, there's no way they can keep up their tepid offensive pace and stay out of the cellar this year. Two runs a night simply won't get it done against teams that are better offensively than the Astros (and that's just about everybody except the Pirates). Sometimes problems like this can be pinpointed to one source and right now the Pirates offensive woes seem to be resting squarely on Craig Wilson. Depsite his summer swoon last year, he still hit 29 homers and drove in 82 runs, good numbers for someone who had never played full time before. He crushed the ball this spring in Florida, but his power seemed to stay in Bradenton when he went north. I think Wilson's struggles started with the home opener. Before last year Craig Wilson put up two fairly solid years as a pinch hitter/outfielder/first baseman, but could never crack the starting line up. He was given a chance to start with the opener last year and was so hot in April even Lloyd couldn't ignore it, effectively giving Wilson the first base over Randall Simon. Wilson cooled off at the end of the year and set out to prove himself again this spring. He had a great spring, but despite that, Daryle Ward was given the Opening Day start over him at first base. Lloyd claimed it was a matchup thing, but Wilson made his disappointment publicly known. Despite all his hard work, it still appeared he hadn't proved himself to Lloyd. Right after this, McClendon moved Ward to first and put Craig Wilson in left field, where he's a fish out of water. Any time a player is as badly out of position as Craig Wilson is in left field at PNC Park (which is vast compared to right field where he played much of last year), they tend to focus so much on fielding that hitting gets lost in the shuffle. Now that he's back at first Wilson seems to be trying too hard to get his power stroke back. His trademark swing was a short flick of the bat that sent fastballs rocketing to left center field so fast most fans didn't know what happened. This year he's swinging mightily and missing fastballs badly, which seems to be messing with his head even more. It's pretty obvious Wilson is a superstitious guy, just look at the whole hair thing. It's also clear that he doesn't have much self confidence. Not getting a starting a spot while performing for two year messed with him pretty good, and losing his Opening Day start to Ward did the same thing. What Craig needs right now more than anything is to run headlong into a fastball and hit it a mile. Once he does that I think he'll ease up he'll be fine. Until then he's going to keep trying too hard for his own good. With Sanchez joining Lawton at the top of the lineup and Bay tearing the cover off the ball in the 3 spot, the Pirates are one big bat away from having a respectable (and by respectable I mean I think they'll score more than 3 runs regularly) offense, and I still think Craig Wilson is that bat. I just hope Lloyd keeps him in the lineup to let it happen.

Pirates 2 Astros 0 again

Another solid start from one of our top pitchers. Today Kip Wells went 7 innings on only 104 pitches (usually 104 pitches only gets Kip through the 5th) giving up 4 hits and (this is the key) only ONE walk.

These last two games have been very encouraging because lets face it, the Pirates are going to win more games 2-0 than they are 11-10. If Kip and Ollie can anchor this staff, we might be able to get away with only scoring 4 runs a night and still being a respectable team.

Today also marked one Wilson coming out of his season long funk while the other remains mired in his. Craig struck out twice with runners on third and one out today, while Jack had two more hits including an RBI triple. Craig Wilson wasn't the only person not coming through in the clutch today, he and Mackowiak combined for 7 of the teams 16 LOBs today. Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez both made outs with the bases loaded and two outs (in the 8th and 4th innings respectively) but we can't complain about them because they both got hits earlier in the game at key positions. Jason Bay killed the ball again, going 3-for-4 with a triple and an RBI single in the first.

Again, Rick White and Jose Mesa closed down the 8th and 9th. Today was extra-special for Jose as he became the 19th closer in history to record 300 saves. As much as I dislike him as our closer, he's been absolutely lights out this year and 300 saves is nothing to sneeze at.

The bottom line is, this series against the Astros is exciting because if the Pirates are going to be any good this year, this is how they have to win. The simply aren't going to score 10 (or 8, or maybe even 6) runs a night, but if they can play good defense behind their good pitching (and if Perez and Wells can pitch like the aces they are), they'll win their share of games.

This win is important for another reason, if the Cardinals keep their lead today (up 6-3 in the 9th) today will be the first day all year the Pittsburgh Pirates are not in last place!

Three straight innings

We've left a runner on third base (a runner that got there with 1 out or less) in all three innings so far today. This is a bad sign. Either that or we're due.

Jumpin' Jack

Jack Wilson RBI triple in the second! Is Jumpin' Jack back?

After One

Kip Wells: 1 inning, 26 pitches. Hope the bullpen is ready.

And of course after yesterday's Stats Geek column, the one that proclaims that Rob Mackowiak has one of the all time lowest double plays per at bat ratios in MLB history, in his first at bat, Mack-o-wack grounds into a rally killing double play. But we still get a run from three consecutive hits from Lawton, Sanchez (remind me again why there's a debate as to why he should play) and Bay to put us up 1-0.

Look who's in the lineup (again)

This may seem redundant, but unfortunately, Lloyd didn't get a lightning bolt of common sense last night. He's still playing Wigginton against Pettitte today. I know this is redudant, but Bobby Hill is a lifetime .257 hitter from the left side of the plate and a .297 hitter from the right side of the plate (look, it's true, it's right here). The sample size as a right handed hitter is smaller, but that's because LLOYD WON'T PLAY HIM AGAINST LEFTIES! Honestly, anything at all is better against a left handed pitcher than Ty Wigginton. HE'S HITTING .143 THIS YEAR!!! Even Orlando Merced, the worst switch hitter in history, could hit .143 from the right side of the plate (when I find his career splits, I'll link to them, but take my word for it, Merced was so bad from the right side of the plate as a switch hitter that about 5 years into his career he quit switch hitting and just went all lefty all the time).

Today's Pirates Q&A

I really want to know what the obsession with Graham Koonce is. In today's Pirates Q&A with Dejan, there must be four questions about him and why he isn't playing. Let's see, oh yeah, HE'S 30! Craig Wilson just turned 29 in November, even Daryle Ward won't turn 30 until July. At the age of 30 with 8 major league at bats under his belt, that would suggest to me that he is exactly what Dejan speculates that he might be, Adam Hyzdu. Honestly, does anyone want to see Adam Hyzdu at first base every day, even if Craig Wilson isn't hitting well right now? I know I don't. There are also more cries for Freddy Sanchez to play every day, but Kovacevic's response that management "hopes he can blossom into a starter" baffle me. This guy was the second basemen of the future for a team that won last year's World Series and had he stayed in Boston may have been the starting second baseman last year(my friend from Boston is very adamant that maybe the only trades Epstein has made that haven't worked out are the two with us that resulted in us getting Sanchez and keeping Mike Gonzalez for Saurbeck and Suppan). Why does he have to prove his worth over Jose Castillo? Despite everyone's raves over Castillo's glove and bat last year, I thought he struck out a lot and had range at second base similar to what I imagine Wigginton's range at second would be like (God help us we'll never find out what that would look like). Castillo suffered from "Kevin Young disease" at second. With no real range or reaction time he turned routine plays into amazing diving stops. He could never reach the tough balls to make errors on them and because of this, he became "an amazing defensive second basemen" or even (according to Lloyd) "the best defensive second basemen in the league." And not only did Castillo strike out 92 times in 129 games, keep in mind that Castillo walked 23 times all year and Randall Simon walked 15 times in 61 games for us. We don't need another iron gloved infielder that is allergic to first base. We need Freddy Sanchez.

The little things

Usually rain outs like tonight don't get a lot of attention, and this one won't either, but you have to feel bad for Ezequiel Astacio. The Astros call the kid up from AAA to start in tomorrow's game, but with tonight's rainout his spot got skipped in the rotation. As soon as he got to Pittsburgh tonight he was shipped back to Round Rock, Texas and AAA. Talk about a let down.

Nevermind...

The Pirates are rained out for tonight before the rain has even started.

Guess who's back in the lineup...

The Buccos are 3-1 since Bobby Hill was inserted in the starting line up. As mentioned earlier today, Bobby Hill hits better from the right side of the plate than the left, and he's been killing the ball from the left side of the plate lately. Oh well, Lloyd is sitting him against Pettite tonight anyways. And Humberto Cota too (even though David Ross doesn't have a hit since his second homer over a week ago). I guess all we can do is hope for rain, which is in the forecast for the evening (just like a loss is with the lineup Lloyd's put together for the night).

Does Bobby Bradley have Steve Blass Disease?

Despite a favorable outlook on Rotoworld, Bobby Bradley is off to a terrible start in AAA this year and has completely lost his handle on the strikezone, culminating in his last outing from Indiana's pen when he hit three straight batters and threw a wild pitch, according to today's PG. It's been a rough go of things for the Bucco's first round pick from 99, as he's battled through two arm surgeries and now this. Seeing as how he's one of the young arms we're supposed to build our future on, we really have to hope he can pull through this. It may be the nerves of pitching in AAA, hopefully we don't have another Rick Ankiel on our hands.

I'm not alone

Today in the Post-Gazette both the Stats Geek and Dejan Kovacevic in the Pirates Notebook wrote items that lobby for more playing time for Freddy Sanchez, something I've been calling for for quite some time now. The Stats Geek applauds Lloyd for finally moving Jack Wilson down the in the order and believes Sanchez as a two hitter might be the remedy the team needs at the top of the line up due to his ability to get on base (despite Matt Lawton getting on base almost 40% of the time this year, he's only scored 6 runs, once by way of a home run). He joins the rest of Pittsburgh in clamoring for Bobby Hill to play every day (not just as a platoon player) and points out that Hill actually hits better from the right side of the plate than the left, though Lloyd only plays him against right handing pitching. This is of course because Hill is a natural right-handed hitter, which is a rarity for switch hitters (most switch hitters are natural lefties that look for an advantage in the rare occasion a southpaw is on the mound that generally don't hit as well right handed and are in fact sometimes downright awful from the right side of the plate, remember Orlando Merced?). We'll find out how serious Lloyd's commitent to Hill is tonight with Andy Petite on the mound for the Astros. Lloyd hasn't stuck with a lineup win or lose all year on consecutive nights so I doubt tonight will be much different, but it would be nice, and it's nice to know I'm not the only person that thinks so.

Pirates 2 Astros 0- A win to be excited about

Tonight was a win to be excited about for Pirates fans (maybe the first one all year). First off, OLLIE'S BACK!!! The Oliver Perez of last year finally made an appearence going 7 and 2/3 shutout innings with 4 hits and 9 K's with only three walks. Dave Littlefield said during the game they think Ollie has turned a corner and just about anyone watching the game would agree. Playing what I would consider to be the best lineup he's trotted out all year, the defense was solid the whole game (highlighted by Bobby Hill at third) and scrapped out two runs against one of the NLs premier starters, Roy Oswalt. Two runs may seem like more of the usual for the Pirates, but against Oswalt it's nothing to sneeze at. The bottom line tonight is that Perez was back to his old self and the defense was superb, making two runs enough. If he keeps these eight guys on the field on a regular basis they will save more runs in the field that Ward and Wigginton's bats will produce in the lineup. If the pitching stays as good as it's been to this point in the year, wins will come.

Also: Jack Wilson had 2 (that's TWO hits) tonight. With his defense making a turn for the better, this could be a sign of positive things to come for Jumpin' Jack. Hopefully Lloyd keeps him low in the lineup for awhile to let him get his swing back.

THE LINEUP

Lawton, Sanchez, Bay, Mackowiak, Hill, CWilson, Cota, JWilson

For the first time this year I can look at the Pirates lineup and say with no reservations that it is acceptable! And Jack Wilson just got a hit! And Perez, well, shhh!!!

Ollie, Oswalt, and the Fogg

Ollie and Oswalt tonight, another chance for Ollie to turn things around. Unfortunately for Mr. Perez, the temperature isn't supposed to be higher than the low 50s for gametime tonight, and we know Ollie hates to throw in the cold. Oswalt, however, has been lights out this year. Couple that with the cold weather and our anemic offense and things could get ugly tonight.

Also, Josh Fogg is OK and will start Wednesday, though his hearing is still a bit "Foggy" (not my words). Nothing serious though, which is a good thing for both Fogg and the Buccos (since Fogg has somehow been our most consistent starter over the last three years, as unbelievable as that is think).

Weekly wrapup

It's time once again for my post-week Pirates musings. This was an all around ugly week for the Buccos. We got outscored 18-2 on Monday and Tuesday by the Redbirds and lost again to the Reds on Wednesday before scrounging together two wins (in a row!) against the Reds and Cubs, mostly on the bat of Jason Bay (combined 5 for 8 in those two games with 2 homers). So what did we learn this week? Well...

Bobby Hill should absolutely play every day.

Freddy Sanchez should absolutely play every day (three extra base hits in two days on Saturday and Sunday against the Cubs).

Anyone with the surname Wilson is in a deep funk. Craig can't figure out how to get past first base on any hits. Jack can't get to first base at all. Jack has an excuse (his appendectomy) and his play in the field is starting to turn around, possibly preceding a string of hits (we can hope). Craig looks mostly lost at the plate. I'd attribute this to him being forced to out of position all the time. People underestimate how much energy it takes to play a different position at the field. I say we let Craig play first all the time and see what happens.

Mackowiak is a lot better than he was last year and cannot be benched when Castillo is healthy. I say put him in center, but what do I know.

The whole rotation is solid except the parts of it we thought would be solid, Wells and Perez. Fogg, Redman, and Williams have put a bunch of good starts together. If Wells and Perez come around we'll have quite a staff.

McClendon is a moron. Maybe this is beating a dead horse, but it's still true.

Despite consecutive wins, any shot at .500 is quickly slipping away. Lloyd still plays a different lineup every night, never really sticking with what works (in the few instances that anything works at all). Most nights the team is lifeless, except when superhuman individual performances (see: Jason Bay, probably our only player capable of such performances) lift us beyond the opponent. Bottom line, I've seen nothing in Week 3 to indicate we aren't looking at 100 losses this year.

Cubs 5 Pirates 2, winning streak averted

The Cubs pitching staff couldn't throw strikes today. Wood had no control whatsoever and struck out eight through five innings. The Cubs struck out 12 total today and only walked four, which is sad considering the complete lack of control they showed. Craig Wilson honestly looks like he's never batted before. The only person on the whole team that could hit today was Freddy Sanchez. Add that to Jason Bay's weak attempt to throw a runner out at the plate from center field and I think my Freddy Sanchez at second Rob Mackowiak in center was supported well today. Of course knowing Lloyd, he'll leave Jack Wilson on the bench for the next week rather than letting him try and play through his slump.

Dave Williams looked good today except for the stretch in the third where in five batters he gave a homer to Nefi Perez (second of the year and second against us) singles to Lee and Aramis, and a three-run bomb to Burnitz. He certainly pitched well enough to win, but as per the usual this year the team lacked the spark necessary to actually do that. From what I've seen, the Cubs haven't been impressive at all this year, but their bullpen (minus Hawkins yesterday) has been absolutely lights out against us and somehow Nefi Perez is 9-for-14 against us this year. And as much as I like Hill and Sanchez in the lineup every day, seeing Tike Redman and Ty Wigginton come off the bench as pinch hitters doesn't scare anybody except Pirates fans.

ESPN Summary here

Todays Lineup

Lawton, Mackowiak, Bay, Ward, Hill, CWilson, Cota, Sanchez

Whaaaat? Mackowiak has been hitting the ball way to hard to bat him second in the lineup, a spot Bobby Hill or Sanchez should be in. Ward is batting .231, not exactly ideal for a cleanup hitter when you have other options, even one that has killed Kerry Wood. Batting Hill in front of Craig Wilson makes no sense. I see the idea behind sitting Jack Wilson with the slump he's in but this is such a weak defensive lineup with Mack and second, Ward at first, and the entire outfield playing out of position (except Lawton, who's just an embarassment as an outfielder), that we might need 8 runs to win today.

It's Official

Williams goes in place of Fogg trying to lead us on our first winning streak of the year (2 games doesn't count) and maybe out of the cellar for the first time of the year as well. No big deal as he was slated to start today before the rainout anyways. I'd like to think Freddy Sanchez earned himself a start at second today with his clutch hit yesterday (moving Mackowiak to center), especially because Sanchez is solid defensively and Dave Williams doesn't strike a lot of people out, but that's too much to hope for.

Very undeserving

Inside Pirate Baseball has been glorifying Matt Lawton's performance as leadoff man this year and he's promising us he's only going to get better. No mention of the 4 balls he's misplayed into triples in the outfield this year and the two times he's been doubled off first base on popups because he doesn't look for the ball off the bat on hit and runs. He's cost us just about as many runs as he's created so far this year.

Williams to pitch for Fogg?

Dave Williams might start for Josh Fogg today because of what's being called an inner ear infection according to Paul Meyer's Pirates notebook this morning in the PG. Wouldn't look too much into this, these two are just about carbon copies from opposite sides of the mound so not a big deal, unless Fogg's ear thing is serious.

Smizik again rips into Littlefield today for his talent analysis. He seems to think that the organization would be better off with two more fat, big hit, no field first base prospects. Chris Shelton, who's with the Tigers, is a Craig Wilson clone. Walter Young, who's with the Orioles, is 6'5" weighing in at 300 pounds. If you thought watching Daryle Ward play first was an adventure, I can only imagine what watching this guy play first must be like. He sounds like Calvin Pickering, someone that kills minor league pitching, but will have trouble in the majors. With the presence of Craig Wilson, Daryle Ward, and Brad Eldred I can't imagine how these two would strengthen the future of this organization. The other people he mentions are all middle relief prospects. One guy might close for the Brewers. Because we don't have middle relief prospects in Pittsburgh. Trading for Bay and Perez and keeping Gonzalez and getting Sanchez in the Boston trade more than makes up. The "look at who we protected" point is a decent one, but evaluating prospects is mostly grasping straws. If the Padres thought Jason Bay was going to be healthy and Perez would throw strikes, we would've never seen them. There's a lot about these guys we got rid of that Littlefield knows and we don't. Smizik is again reaching out for something when he clearly doesn't know the whole story, trying to find everything to blame for the Pirates failure except the obvious. I really shouldn't let someone so stupid get to me.

Pirates 4 Cubs 3 (Two wins in a row!)

I'm not going to lie, there was a lot of negative in today's win, namely the mind-numbingly stupid base running and the insane choice to pinch hit Freddy Sanchez for Bobby Hill (which somehow worked out), but today was a good win for a number of reasons.

#1- Mark Redman pitched well again today. It's looking like there is at least some return on Jason Kendall.

#2- Despite being presented with numerous opportunities, they didn't give up today. Maddux was cruising through the line up through 6 2/3 innings today, only giving up Bay's triple in the fourth to that point, when we scrapped together a bloop single by Craig Wilson who advanced on a wild pitch, scored on a nice piece of hitting by Mackowiak (reach out and slapped a single the other way on a down and away pitch) who then scored on a double by the always clutch Bobby Hill. In the ninth (after Torres served up his third homer in 10 innings worked this year), Jason Bay reached out and crushed an opposite field homer to tie things up (something he was TRYING to do, very impressive), then Craig Wilson walked and STOLE A BASE. That's not a typo, I swear. Craig Wilson actually stole a base. Lloyd then made the baffling move of pinch hitting Freddy Sanchez for Bobby Hill (aka Mr. Clutch in the last week, or at least when he gets the chance). Sanchez responds with a triple in the gap (just because it worked out doesn't make it smart, Lloyd). Bottom line is, they were down twice in this game and refused to give in, something that the lineups featuring Daryle Ward and Ty Wigginton have done repeatedly this year.

#3- I honestly can't believe I'm saying this and someone may want to check my health but John Grabow and Jose Mesa have both impressed me this year. Mesa is still hitting 95 on the gun (even in 30 degree weather today) and Grabow hasn't been completely awful!

#4- In the words of Lou Brown

Well, we won tonight, that's one. If we win tomorrow that'll be two in a row. One more after that and we'll have ourselves a winning streak. It has happened in the past.

Can the Pirates assemble a winning streak? Josh Fogg vs. Kerry Wood tomorrow, and Wood hasn't pitched well this year so anything's possible I guess.

Summary

An entire tee-ball team might be better than the Pirates

Wow. When have you ever seen a team get doubled off on fly balls they had no business running on not once, but twice in the same game? Today, that's when. Matt Lawton hits a routine flyout to center field and Alfredo Amezaga just takes off. Result: double play. Twice in the same game, thrice in a week. I don't even know what to say.

Why a tee-baller is better than Matt Lawton

OK, so the first thing you do as a baserunner on a hit and run is look for the ball after the crack of a bat, right? I mean this is basic Little League stuff here. So Tike Redman hits a towering pop-up and Lawton doesn't even look for the ball. He doesn't look for a coach. He just runs. By the time he realizes the ball is popped up, it's in Derrick Lee's glove and he's out on a mind bogglingly stupid double play for the SECOND TIME IN A WEEK. Next batter, Jason Bay, crushes a triple. Please stop complaining about Bay's lack of RBIs, it's not his fault.

Todays lineup

Lawton, Redman, Bay, CWilson, Mackowiak, Hill, JWilson, Ross

Well, this is actually an improvement. Almost the strongest defensive lineup, though I'd still argue for Sanchez at second and Mackowiak in center. At least Wigginton is on the bench.

Interestingly enough, if I managed the Pirates this one be the one day a week I'd have Daryle Ward in my line up. Maddux doesn't throw hard and lefties hit him at a .393 clip this year. This is why McClendon drives me insane. Instead of playing Ward one day a week in an extremely favorable match up he plays him six days a week and sits him on the one day playing him might actually be beneficial. I don't know if I'll ever understand.

A new ideal lineup

After seeing the Pirates play for almost three weeks, I have a new ideal lineup that I will only see in my dreams:

1- Lawton, RF... He may be playing like crap in the field, but he's been getting on base and I'd rather have him in the lineup than Daryle Ward

2- Bobby Hill, 3B... Time to drop Jack in the order until he gets healthy (and he's still feeling it from the appendectomy, Boswell thinks we should DL him and let him rehab, I might actually agree). Hill's been tearing the cover off the ball and getting on base. He goes here.

3- Jason Bay, LF... Your best hitter goes third. Bay is our best hitter.

4- Rob Mackowiak, CF... Hustles all the time, tearing the cover off the ball, has a cannon for an arm. If Bay can handle center so can Mack.

5- Craig Wilson, 1B... He drops even further if he can't hit anything other than singles, or maybe (gasp) Daryle Ward goes here.

6- Humberto Cota, C... Showed flashes of being able to hit in the past in short stints as catcher. Let's see what happens when he gets a full time gig.

7- Freddy Sanchez, 2B... Honestly, I think if this guy gets a shot at playing every day he's gonna be good.

8- Jack Wilson, SS... Appendectomies aren't minor surgeries. Jack won't play well untill he gets better. Until then it's either DL or put him 8th because he's been worse than some pitchers at the plate this year.

I know this lineup is way to much to hope for from Lloyd, but I think it puts our best hitters on the field. David Ross simply is not a good hitter. He got lucky early on, but since his 2 homer night light Friday he's 0-for-11. Cota has much more of an upside and a good rapport with the pitching staff (especially Perez). Doesn't leave much for our bench, I know, but it's better to keep people like Hill and Mackowiak playing every day and getting at-bats then seeing them pinch hit once a day. Daryle Ward isn't consistent enough to play every day, and I simply don't like him. Until he proves something to me, I don't feel like he should be in the lineup every day. Not that I have to worry about any of this because even with all these different lineups, this is one I promise you will never see.

A pickup

Pirates pickup some guy named Antonio Amezaga off waivers. No big deal really, probably a good move to get Duffy some ABs in AAA rather than sitting on the bench in Pittsburgh. Seeing as how this guy is a 3B/SS I'd guess he's going right back on waivers when Castillo gets healthy.

Thoughts for a rainy day

Todays game was rained out, so as per some recent conversations I've had and the basic need to not be so entirely negative (which has pretty much been the theme of this blog since it started) I'm going to asses where the Pirates are, why I think the Pirates are where they are, and where they're headed (this means I won't tear apart today's defense of McClendon in the PG by Gene Collier, because a.) it's not as stupid as Smizik's, b.) I hate being redundant, and c.) I just like Gene Collier more than Bob Smizik). So let's make some bold headings and break this thing down.
Warning: This is really really really long.

Where the Pirates are right now
They've just opened up what is now almost certain to be the 13th consecutive losing year in Pittsburgh. If they play the rest of the season the way this first 2 1/2 weeks has gone, not only will this be a losing year but it's going to be the worst year of this losing streak that started before the lives of every single kid that will play Little League in America this year.

Why the Pirates are so bad (the money answer)
Several reasons, first off, the obvious. The Pirates are on a tight budget. The Marlins, A's, and Twins have all proved it's possible to win on a tight budget, but it's not easy, especially with the hole dug by Cam Bonifay. When Dave Littlefield took over in 2001 he inherited a team on a budget paying Kevin Young $6 million a year, Jason Kendall $5 million (on a contract that escalated every season to a peak of $8 million+ last year), Derek Bell $5 million, Pat Meares almost $4 million a year (with a debilitating injury that kept him from every playing again), and Omar Olivares $4 million to have the highest ERA of any starter in the NL. The bottom line is, Littlefield inherited a team on a tight budget that was flushing money down the toilet faster than they could get it. That meant his teams were going to be young. This would be fine, except Bonifay also left the minors devoid of talent. This left Littlefield with what we've seen the past few years, free agent castoffs and mediocre minor league talent, some which has blossomed, but most which hasn't.

The Lloyd Problem
In 2001 Pittsburgh ran Gene Lamont out of town. They started interviewing for the opening, interviewing people such as local baseball lifer (and current A's manager) Ken Macha, and defending World Champion manager Terry Francona. It was rumored that the Pirates resident color man/baseball guru Bob Walk asked for an interview and was turned down. Despite all these seemingly solid candidates, they settled on Lloyd McClendon. Lloyd's only coaching experience was 4 years as Lamont's hitting coach. This meant he would be cheap. Lloyd provided a link to the team's most recent glory years (he was a very likeable utilityman on the division championship teams in the early 90s that had a knack for getting clutch hits). Lloyd also added a positive story line for a franchise that had very little positive going for it, he was the team's first ever black manager. In June 2001 the reign of Cam the Terrible was brought to an end, and Dave Littlefield was quickly hired. I would guess that he asked management for permission to hire his own manager (which is a standard MO for Major League Baseball, a new GM means a new manager probably 9 out of 10 times). He was obviously turned down for reasons which I can only speculate. My guess is that first off, Lloyd was popular with the fans (the base-stealing incident was early in the summer of 2001), cheap, and firing him during or after his first year (from a team that was simply awful) would just be bad press (I'm not trying to be racist, I'm just trying to piece things together). That means that going into 2002 Lloyd would be untouchable. In 2002 they won 10 more games than they did in 2001, keeping him untouchable. In 2003 they finished up 54-50, to improve Lloyd's record again, and keeping him untouchable. That brings us to our next bold heading.

Why wasn't Lloyd fired after last year?
If Lloyd was untouchable through 2003, he shouldn't have been through 2004. A team that showed a ton of promise was inconsistent all year (hot in May and July, cold in June and August). They didn't always live up to Lloyd's promise of a team that would always play hard, and Lloyd was even quoted several times as saying things like "Well, what do you want? We're supposed to lose to the Astros. Their payroll is much higher, all we can do is hope to not get blown out." True or not, sarcastic or not, this is not something your manager should be saying in public. And yet he wasn't fired. So what's the reasoning?

Why Chris Duffy is in Indianapolis or How Dave Littlefield stopped screwing around and decided to build for the future.
The beginning of this year has been despicable and is leaving people with questions. If we're so bad with these players and our AAA team is supposed to be so good, why not ditch Redman and Ward and one of our average catchers and a couple starters and take a good long look at Chris Duffy and Ryan Doumit and Brad Eldred and Zack Duke and Brian Bullington and Bobby Bradley? I can't say for sure, but I have my guesses. After last year, Littlefield looked at his team and looked at his minors. The cream of the crop wasn't going to be ready this year, and Burnett and Van Benschoten were both going to miss a year with arm surgeries. Obviously 2005 won't be the year to have the changing of the guard. Since players like Daryle Ward, Tike Redman, Ty Wigginton, and Rick White are cheap, Littlefield figures he can he can plug the gap that this year presents without having to worry how they play or if they develop. This year he's given Lloyd the rope to hang himself with and Lloyd is obliging. In the past, a keen observer would watch Lloyd screw up on the same things for a week and then fix what he was doing wrong. I'm guessing Littlefield had weekly talks with him about what he was and wasn't doing right as a manager, and I'm guessing those talks have stopped. Lloyd is in complete control of the team and his future. This way, Littlefield can make a public example of how bad Lloyd is and easily ax him at the break or after the year. So why not bring the young guys up anyways? Well, during Lloyd's tenure Pirates fans have seen Kris Benson, Kip Wells, and Aramis Ramirez, all can't miss prospects, miss in Pittsburgh. We've seen Brian Giles and Jason Kendall so soured on the Pirates they went out of town kicking and screaming about how awful Pittsburgh was. Oliver Perez is in the process of being ruined, as is Mike Gonzalez. Rob Mackowiak, Jack Wilson, and Craig Wilson might never reach their potential in Pittsburgh. What's easy to see is that Littlefield doesn't want to bring up one more can't miss prospect in this terrible losing atmosphere. He knows that he has a crop of pitchers, between Perez, Burnett, Van Benschoten, Duke, Snell, Bullington, Bradley, Peterson, and Maholm to put together a rotation that has the potential to mature into an absolutely dominating group. He knows that with Jason Bay, Jack Wilson, Brad Eldred, Jose Castillo, Freddy Sanchez, Ryan Doumit, Chris Duffy and maybe even Craig Wilson and Mackowiak he's going to have a lineup that will be able to put runs on the board. He knows this isn't going to happen with Lloyd McClendon managing, and he knows that the longer these players are exposed to Lloyd's teams, the better the chance is that they all turn into Chad Hermanson. The problem is this year. This year is a gap year. A bunch of cheap mediocre players are filling up the lineup. They aren't playing hard for a manager they don't like, and that makes for some ugly baseball. Next year the team might not be very good, but they'll be young and there will be hope in Pittsburgh again. Best case scenario Lloyd gets fired in June this year and the young guys get some playing time as we come down the stretch, meaning next year might not be completely lost.

The Bottom Line
This year will not be the year the Pirates finish .500. The year is being sacrificed by Littlefield as the final cleanup of the mess he was handed by Cam Bonifay in 2001. When Bonifay was canned, Peter Gammons said it would be 2006 until anyone dug out of his hole and right now in April 2005 we can only hope that Dave Littlefield still has us on schedule. If Littlefield has us on the schedule that I think he does, in 2006 we'll see a team lead by an electric young pitching staff lead by Perez, Burnett, Van Bencshoten, and Duke that is well managed and plays hard every day. We might even see a winning season if everyone develops and heals according to schedule. Just don't hold your breath for 2005.

Of course I could be wrong, but if I am, that means Littlefield has no discernible vision whatsoever and this team is in more trouble than any of us could possibly imagine.

Bad news...

It's being reported on ESPN.com that the Mets are very interested in Mike Gonzalez and that the Pirates are listening to offers that include us getting someone that can hit. This has "fleecing" written all over it for us.

Pirates 4 Reds 2

A win, but not much positive. I didn't see or hear any of the game today (no telecast and I was in class) so I can only go off what I read.

A certain someone decided that the best place for Jack "Under the Mendoza Line" Wilson wouldn't be down in the order, but instead lead-off. He responded with an 0-for-4 and is hitless in his last 15 or so bats (or some similarly ridiculous number). It seemed to me that the only thing Matt Lawton was doing well this year was bat leadoff, but Lloyd disagreed.

After starting Bobby Hill for 2 straight nights and being rewarded with solid to spectacular defensive play and actual hits, the Pig returned to third today and went 1 for 4. He did have an RBI but it was on a groundout and those shouldn't even count.

Kip Wells threw 104 pitches in 5 innings. Does anyone honestly think he has any future at all in Pittsburgh. I can't wait till we trade him for someone that won't produce and watch him blossom into an ace somewhere.

Wait, can this be right? We tried a suicide squeeze with David Ross at the plate? And it worked? Wow.

As you can tell, the win today didn't really make me a whole lot more positive, but how can you be excited with all the stupidity that surrounds this team? Even a blind squirrell finds a nut every once in a while.

ESPN summary here

Worst record in baseball!!!

With the Rockies win in Philly tonight that means your 2005 Pittsburgh Pirates are officially the worst team in baseball!!! Sadly I think this may be a post we hold for quite some time. Good thing it's not Lloyd's fault.

Oops, there I go with the sarcasm again.

Reds 6 Pirates 4

The Reds did everything wrong tonight. They were sloppy in the field and on the basepaths. They handed us runs and took runs off their own total. They still managed to beat us. Oliver Perez had absolutely nothing on the ball tonight after three innings and gave up homers to Wily Mo Pena and Rich Aurellia in the fourth, which tied the game up at three. Salomon Torres came in in the 7th and promptly gave up homers to Wily Mo Pena and Rich Aurellia, making the score 6-3 and sealing up the win for the Reds. We scored a run on Daryle Wards miracle triple in the 8th, but when Ward came up in the four slot in the 9th with two runners on, he grounded out to end the game. Told you Mackowiak should've been hitting cleanup.

Bobby Hill got his second consecutive start and went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and an RBI. He's now batting .444 on the year and Greg Brown and Bob Walk must have said five times tonight that Hill was "really making a case to be in the lineup every day." Let's see if Lloyd listens.

Just another listless game for this lifeless team. Jack Wilson struck out three times tonight and couldn't have appeared to care less, just staring vacantly into space after each one. If you thought today strongly resembed a home run derby in the Great American Ballpark, just wait till Kip Wells takes the mound tomorrow.

For those that still care, ESPN summary here

Someone is playing stupider baseball than us!

Forgetting to tag up.

Letting pop ups drop.

Passed balls.

This must be what it feels like to play us! The Reds look absolutely awful.

Mackowiak 2 RBIs out of the 7 spot, shows how much I know.

Tonight's lineup

Bobby Hill is in. Good

Ty Wigginton is not. Good

Tike Redman is in instead of Craig Wilson. Bad

TIKE REDMAN IS BATTING THIRD. Awful

And why is Mackowiak batting seventh?

Honestly, how can you complain to the newspaper about your team getting hits and then start Tike Redman over Craig Wilson and bat Redman third? It's OK though, because it's not Lloyd's fault.

I hate Jim Rome but...

He thinks Lloyd needs fired!!! Woohoo! Someone else is on the bandwagon!

But really, I still hate Jim Rome. A lot. A whole lot.

Not the Pirates but....

Everyone should read Paul Lukas's Uni-Watch on ESPN.com's Page 2. I only say this because I personally love sports uniforms and all the history behind them.

In fact the only bright spot of the Cardinals series was that the Pirates managed to wear the same uniform two days in a row, which is way things should be.

Bob Smizik makes me angry

Bob Smizik is at it again. For what seems like the millionth time, Smizik is telling us that the reason the Pirates suck isn't Lloyd McClendon, the reason is that his team is full of people that don't know the fundamentals of baseball. Pardon me if I'm wrong, but ISN'T IT THE MANAGERS JOB TO MAKE SURE HIS PLAYERS KNOW FUNDAMENTAL BASEBALL? Spring Training isn't just some excuse for all of Major League Baseball to go soak up the sun on spring break, it's so the players can go somewhere and work on fundamentals before the season starts. And who's in charge of this whole process? The manager. When Josh Fogg throws the ball to someone that isn't covering second base, it's not a sign that Josh Fogg doesn't know fundamental baseball, it's a sign that the team he's playing on hasn't sufficently covered a comebacker and there is confusion as to whether the second basemen or the shortstop covers the bag. That play to me looked like Mackowiak was standing too close to the base, unsure of whether to cover the base or not and causing confusion for Fogg. Since Mackowiak is generally an outfielder being thrust into a position he has no business playing, THIS ISN'T HIS FAULT. Lloyd could easily put together a line-up with Mack in the outfield and Freddy Sanchez on second base, eliminating the confusion. If he feels that it's a necessity for Mackowiak to play second base, IT'S THE MANAGER'S JOB TO MAKE SURE HE KNOWS THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE POSITION. The point is, that most of the situations where sloppy play was a result last night could have been eliminated BY THE MANAGER. Daryle Ward drops a double play ball, but everyone knows he should be on the bench. Craig Wilson is competent enough at first base to field a ground ball. If Craig Wilson is at first base, he can't be in left field (where he doesn't belong) to screw up the Pujols pop-up. Mackowiak (who is an average to above average defensive outfielder) makes that play, and has enough of an arm and enough hustle to get the shot down the line that Craig Wilson misplayed into a run scoring double. Now if Mackowiak's in left field he's not at second base to cause confusion for Josh Fogg, and Freddy Sanchez (a natural middle infielder) doesn't make the same mistake. Getting rid of those plays changes last night's game from a 7-1 laugher into something considerably closer. Yeah, this lineup doesn't have Ward in it, thus eliminating our only run (a Ward homer) but it also saves us at least 3 runs in the field. Maybe that doesn't help last night against the Cardinals, but maybe it's a difference tonight against the Reds, or next weekend against the Giants. In terms of fundamentals, not knowing your players is every bit as grievous an error as going back on a popup in front of you or dropping an easy double play ball. Managers should be held to the same standards as players when it comes to fundamentals. And if you can't recognize that as a sportswriter, you shouldn't be writing about baseball.

Cardinals 7 Pirates 1

And you didn't believe me when I said it would get worse. The team seems to have commited themselves to mutiny against Lloyd, or at least one would hope so after a game as ugly as tonight. Josh Fogg threw one double play ball into centerfield and another right to Rob Mackowiak (who thankfully got the start tonight), who was unfortunately not covering second on the play. Luckily Mack thought quick and flipped the ball to Jack Wilson who was covering second, saving one out on the play. All in all Fogg gave up 6 runs but only 2 earned and dropped his 7th straight decision against the Cards. How bad was the game tonight? Lanny Frattare spent the better part of his night in the booth in dismay and gave us the following gems:

"Just a terrible throw by Lawton to the plate. He's been awful in right field this year."

"You know, with any kind of defense at all, this game is 1-1."

In his years, Lanny has seen a lot of bad baseball teams (almost all of the 80s and now the last 12 years) . If he's upset, they must really be playing awful.

Craig Wilson looked bored in right field tonight. On a popup hit by Pujols that ended up landing maybe 50 feet in front of where he started Craig took 4 steps back to the warning track, then sprinted in at full Craig Wilson speed, ending up further away from the ball Jack Wilson. Then on a ground ball down the line and into the corner, Craig slowly jogged to the ball, allowing a runner to score from first. Thanks for caring, Craig.

Final score for the series Cardinals 18 Pirates 2. Yadier Molina had five hits in two games. He had one hit all season coming into the series. Abraham Nunez (not the one and only since there is another player by the same name, but the one who had been moping around our infield since 1997) went 4-for-4 tonight.

Stay tuned as things get worse...

ESPN summary here

One final thought

You know you're getting crushed when Abraham Nunez gets into the game. Yes, THAT Abraham Nunez.

Cardinals 11 (ELEVEN!!!) Pirates 1

The amazing thing is I don't think we've even hit rock bottom yet.

Tonight was a joke, plain and simple. Rob Mackowiak sits because he can't hit lefties, but Daryle Ward plays (Mack was 4-for-13 against lefties going into tonight, Daryle Ward has 5 hits all year), but somehow Mackowiak is good enough to hit against Mulder in the bottom of the 8th when Lloyd wants a homer. I'm honestly so upset about this I'm shaking with rage just thinking about it.

Anyways, unsurprisingly Mark Mulder found the form that has eluded him since the All-Star break LAST YEAR. It's not hard for pitchers to hit their stride against the Pirates this year. Gary Glover did it, so it's not exactly a shock Mulder did. (When the Cards went up 2-0 in the second I commented that they might as well stop playing because the Pirates wouldn't score 2 runs all game, and I was right).


Then there's the ninth inning. After Rick White had a career 2 innings (6 up, 6 down, dropping his ERA to 7.94), Brian Meadows came in to hold down the fort in the 9th. He instead gave up 6 runs in 1/3 of an inning. With three runs already in and the bases loaded with no outs, McClendon decided it was an ideal opportunity to give Ryan Vogelsong his first work in a week (Vogelsong and Bobby Hill must attempted to kill Lloyd's entire extended family or something; Hill sat the entire game again, and is 0-for-0 with a walk since going 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs, 2 runs score, and a game winning double on Friday). Anyways, as anyone that knows baseball already knew, bringing Vogelsong in at this point could only end badly, and it did. He allowed all three of Meadows runners to score, as well as three he put on base all by himself. The fielders pretty much quit attempting to get to balls out of their immediate reach and the end result was nine in the ninth.

Poor Dave Williams makes a solid start only to watch the offense stand around with their hands in their pockets so the bullpen can make the lead big enough they don't have to try. Lloyd called an immediate team meeting after the game, but he emerged to talk to the press 10 minutes later which unfortunately means the players didn't lynch him on the spot. I'm sure he had some inspiring words for the team tonight. Like I said, things are only going to get worse.

ESPN link for all the masochists here

For those of you keeping score at home

Matt Lawton just misplayed ANOTHER line drive in the outfield into a triple. That's FOUR by my count this year. If a lightning bolt hit him right now I think I might go dance in the street.

Tonight's lineup...

Does not feature Rob Mackowiak. Right now he's our best hitter and the only person on the team that seems to give a crap if we win or lose. Of course Lloyd's excuse is that he can't hit lefties, but he turns around and ignores the fact that neither can Daryle Ward, and he's on first tonight. Looks like Mulder will magically find his form again tonight, and we'll score 2 runs or less... again.

My thoughts after 2 weeks

We're two weeks into the season now, and I'm pretty much disgusted with the Pittsburgh Pirates already. Last year through May and even in July and August they were a team that may have been short on talent, but they had a ton of heart. We were lead to believe that without clubhouse cancer Jason Kendall the increase in chemistry and heart on the team would make up for the crushing loss of his bat. Instead, we have a team that desperately misses Jason Kendall's bat and couldn't seem to care less. I can't complain about Jack Wilson because of the whole appendectomy thing, but he really is not the same player as last year. Ty Wigginton and Daryle Ward are complete jokes. Neither can hit, neither can play defense, and neither belongs within 10 miles of a baseball stadium, much less a daily spot in a starting line up. Matt Lawton is hitting well because he knows come July, some contender will want a good left handed bat for their outfield. He also knows they won't pay attention to defense or baserunning at that point, or at least he hopes. He runs under fly balls, cuts off gappers, throws, and runs the bases like a tee-baller. Jason Bay and Craig Wilson are hitting, but they're hitting singles with nobody on base. Put them up in a pressure situation and it's a guaranteed K. The lone, shining exception on the whole team is Rob Mackowiak (you know, the guy that lost out to Tike Redman for center field in spring training, then almost got dealt away by Dave Littlefield). Mackowiak plays hard in the field, puts everything he has into every at bat, and runs out every ground ball, no matter how trivial. It will be a crime if he gets benched when Jose Castillo gets healthy. The pitching has been decent and sometimes even good, but it's not the starters fault if they don't come out of the game when they have no gas left. The blame there lies solely on one person, Lloyd McClendon. This may seem redundant, but he has no feel for a pitching staff. He tells reporters Tike Redman was benched for four days because other people were playing better, meanwhile Bobby Hill sits on the bench while Ty Wigginton is playing and batting .180. Freddy Sanchez sits on the bench while Daryle Ward bats .175 (put Mackowiak in left, Sanchez at second, Wilson at first). Lloyd promises us a team that will play hard, after 12 games this year, 11 times he's trotted out a lineup that couldn't care less (with the lone exception being last Friday). Bottom line is, this is a team with very little talent and absolutely no heart that is managed by a moron. Looking at the upcoming schedule (St. Louis at home, at Cinci, at Chicago, Houston and San Fran at home), they're going to be lucky to be 8-20. If he manages the whole year, I think 50 wins is a realistic possibility. Of course maybe that's a good thing, maybe Lloyd will finally get canned if that happens.

Those are my opinions after two weeks. That, and oh yeah, the pinstripes are AWFUL.

Cubs 4 Pirates 2

Different day, same game. Pirates have an early chance to pile runs on the Cubs starter (Greg Maddux today) and come up a key hit short of a rally (instead of 4 or 5 runs in the 2nd, they get two). The Cubs then slowly come back and tie the game up (this time thanks mostly to the Pirates inability to play in the field). Today Mark Redman had trouble in the 7th and worked out of a jam with no runs scoring. Again, like with Kip Wells yesterday only an inning later, Lloyd brings him for one more inning (much to the dismay of every single Pirates fan watching and pretty much most of the Pirates themselves I'd guess) and loses the game. When Lloyd moves to double switch, he again moves Mackowiak to third and puts Sanchez at second base, keeping Bobby Hill on the bench yet again. Sanchez rewarded him with a groundout. The next time the pitchers spot came up was the 9th, as the tying run. Bobby Hill isn't even in the dugout at this point. Daryle Ward hits into a double play, game over (to the surprise of absolutely nobody).

Two days in a row, two games where the general feel was that if the Pirates had put forth any effort at all they would've won. Today a run scored while Matt Lawton let a single bounce past him, Ty Wigginton let a scorcher off the bat of GREG MADDUX handcuff him at third (if a scorcher is a slow ground ball), and the Pirates only rally was started with Mark Redman's 3rd career hit. That's right, Maddux put down 10 hitters in a row from the end of the second through the sixth, but somehow Mark Redman figured him out.

Today's only highlight: Greg Maddux smashes a ball past Wigginton (a separate occasion from Wigg's error) and casually jogs around first and into second, only to be thrown out by Jack Wilson (who had no business being near the ball, but is apparently one of two Pirates showing effort lately) by about 15 feet. Bob Walk immediately follows that with, "Greg, if that's all the faster you can run, your double hitting days are over."

ESPN summary here

More reasons to hate #50

What kind of major league player can't get back to first base on a lazy fly ball to right field because he didn't pay attention to the ball coming off the bat? Matt Lawton, that's who.

UPDATE: Matt Lawton's lazy play in right field just allowed Aramis Ramirez to score from second on a single to shallow right that landed right in front of him, yet somehow bounced back to Tike Redman. Anyone that remembers Aramis in black and gold knows that he should never, ever, score from second on anything, much less a ball that is hit right too somebody.

The Pirates are wearing pajamas!

Wait, no, it's just their crappy new ploy to sell more merchandise, the pinstriped uniform. Now we can join the Houston Astros and all the other proud Major League teams that can wear three different uniforms during a three game home series.

Major League Records the Pirates may set this year and should not be proud about

Matt Lawton: Most balls misplayed into triples

Kip Wells: Most full counts reached

Kip Wells: Most full counts reached after going up 0-2 on a batter

*Rick White: Worst baseball player to ever wear #88

Lloyd McClendon: 162 games, 162 lineups

*Ty Wigginton and Daryle Ward: Least athletic pair of corner infielders in history

Rob Mackowiak: Most constantly out of position player

Bobby Hill, Rob Mackowiak, Freddy Sanchez: Players benched the most for people considerably worse than them (Ty Wigginton, Daryle Ward, and Jose Castillo).

Full team: Most times loading the bases without scoring

*- denotes record has already been set

Cubs 4 Pirates 3

The View from Section 103:

We decided to go to the game at about 6:05 tonight, and at 6:30, much to our surpise, a giant line greeted us as we came over the Roberto Clemente bridge to wait in line for tickets. We got our tickets and were in our seats just as Kip Wells threw the first pitch to Corey Patterson. We looked around the ballpark and quickly realized that there were more people in PNC for the Fleece Blanket Night and the Kip Wells/Ryan Dempster pitching matchup than there were last night for Jason Bay Bobblehead and Oliver Perez/Carlos Zambrano (almost 6,000 more people in fact). This should be a message to the Pirates, if you win, they will come. Seeing this, we figured Lloyd HAD to have gone with the same lineup that worked so well the night before. Of course much to our dismay, the third basemen was short and fat, ruling out the possibility that it was Bobby Hill and narrowing it down to, well, Ty Wigginton. Because why stick with the lineup that scored 5 runs against one of the best pitchers in the NL and 8 runs total, that would make sense and Lloyd McClendon does a lot of things, very few of which make sense. Kip Wells was cruising along until the follwing incident in the third inning:

Me: Well, if Kip walks Nomar here, there's gonna be two runners on for Aramis. That's bad.

Kip: I'm gonna go ahead and walk him anyways.

Aramis: (doesn't speak, just crushes a three run homer) At this point we look for Bobby Hill who is still sitting on the bench. Will Hill ever be an adequate replacement for Ramirez? We'll never know with him on the bench, that's for sure)

The Pirates still claw back, with a homer from Matt Lawton, who seemingly only tried at the plate, because who looks at fielding stats when trying to trade for an outfielder anyways? They then tie the game up on an RBI infield single for Rob Mackowiak. If Mack ends up on the bench when Jose Castillo comes back, someone is getting punched. That's all I have to say about that.

Anyways, David Ross, the 8 hitter, makes the last out in the bottom of the 6th. Seeing as how Kip's last pitch in the top of the 6th hit 66 on the gun and his fastball was topping out at about 90 after 105 pitches, 34,000 of us thought Kip would be hitting the showers. Lloyd McClendon disagreed and didn't take him out of the game until we were behind 4-3. Curiously, when he did replace Kip he took Wigginton out, but didn't replace him with last night's hero, Bobby Hill, instead switching Mackowiak to third and putting Freddy Sanchez at second. This meant Hill got one at bat as a pinch hitter (and walked) while Sanchez went 0-2. Why? Beats me.

The Pirates went down mostly without a fight (note: only the Pirates can load the bases in the 8th and put a runner in scoring position in the 9th and leave people feeling like they never threatened to score). They did succeed on taking another step on their quest to load the bases the most times in one season without scoring (I think they're up to three already). In the 9th I thought to myself "This is sad, we have the top of the order up and that WORRIES me." The only thing of note in the 9th was Jack Wilson's single to left, which in the split second pause by Jose Macias in left took second on the play. Nice to see that Jack is still hustling, even if he can't hit. Jason Bay weakly grounded out, sealing up a nice 0-4 night for him and a 4-3 loss that 34,000 people came away from feeling like we probably could have won if everyone in Black and Gold cared as much as Jack Wilson and Rob Mackowiak.

ESPN summary here

Pirates 8 Cubs 5

Observations on tonights game from Section 129:

Matt Lawton needs to be on the bench. He puts forth absolutely no effort whatsoever in playing the outfielder and cost the Bucs a run tonight.

David Ross? 2 home runs? He is killing the ball, and will probably fail a steroid test by May 15th.

Mackowiak with some big hits, see what happens when he plays every day, Lloyd?

Ty Wigginton finally sits out a game and what happens? Two hits for Bobby Hill including a game winning double.

Perez didn't look bad. He had it against the good hitters (striking out Aramis on a pitch with a smoke trail with the bases loaded and one out) but let the bad hitters beat him (homers for Dubois and Nefi Perez, a murder's row). The fifth run was not his fault as Lawton and his sloppy play turned a single or flyout into into a triple.

Meadows, Mesa, Torres. 3 innings, no runs, 25 pitches. Mesa hit 96 on the gun. Nuff said.

They fell behind 5-3 after five and half and actually showed life, scoring 1 in the 6th and 7th to tie things up before rallying for three in the ninth with a bunch of clutch hits from Mackowiak, Daryle Ward(????) , Bobby Hill, and Chris Duffy (first big league hit is an RBI double in the gap).

All in all a really, really good come from behind win. They showed a spark of life that's been missing so far this year. The offense came alive against Zambrano, someone that killed them last year, Perez was sufficent and the pen was absolutely lights out. 29,000 loud fans defintely got their moneys worth tonight.

ESPN summary here

My case against Lloyd McClendon

No game today, so I suppose this is as good a time as any for this (this is pretty long).

What is happening right now in Pittsburgh blows my mind. Going into last fall, Bill Cowher went into training camp with a lifetime record of 115-76. He had made the playoffs 8 times in his 12 year career and taken one team to a Super Bowl in which they very nearly pulled off the upset of the decade. He did all this with teams quarterbacked by Bubby Brister, Neil O'Donnell, Mike Tomczak, Kordell Stewart, and Tommy Maddox. Despite this, there was a very real feeling in Pittsburgh that if the Steelers didn't perform, Cowher should be fired. He in turn lead the Steelers to the first 15-1 record in AFC history despite many key injuries and a rookie in the most important position on the field. Despite all this, people still called for his head after the AFC Championship game loss in January, a game where his team was clearly in over their heads.

In October 2000 Gene Lamont closed out Three Rivers Stadium with the Pirates. Over the past four years he lead the team to one season with 78 wins and one season with 79 wins, a team that finished only two games out of first place. In his other two seasons he won only 69 games, but for a Pirates manager, that isn't exactly substandard. He did this with teams lead by players Jason Kendall, Kevin Young, Kevin Polcovich, Al Martin, and only two years of Brian Giles. The best pitcher we saw in any of the four years? A 15-9 Todd Ritchie. The rest of the pitching staff was made up of the erratic Jason Schmidt, a very young Kris Benson, and a bunch of Latino journey men between the ages of 50 and 75. The only outcry when his contract was not renewed in November 2000 was that he hadn't been fired sooner.

This Spring Lloyd McClendon went into camp with what seems like full job security. Every time someone mentions firing Lloyd, the media screams "It's not Lloyd's fault! The players suck! Don't blame Lloyd! He tries harder than anyone!" In the four years leading up to this one, McClendon lead the Pirates to records of 62-100, 72-89, 75-87, and 72-89. A grand total of 281-365, a full fourteen games worse than Lamont's 295-352 record after four years. Lloyd's teams have been lead by Kendall, Giles in his prime, an Aramis Ramirez that put up 34 homers and 110 RBI in a year, Jack Wilson, a year with Reggie Sanders and Kenny Lofton, and pitchers like Oliver Perez (for a year), Kip Wells, an older Benson (healthy for 2 of Lloyd's four years), steady Josh Fogg (10+ wins each of the last three years). A fairly simple glance at the players shows that Lloyd has had much MORE talent to work with than Lamont, and yet has lost an average of almost four more games a year (not a lot, but add four wins on to each year of Lamont's years and he's over .500 twice with one division title). Maybe some excuse can be made for Lloyd in that he has no experience. That's fine, but after five years on most jobs you would expect to see some improvement, yet this year he seems to have taken 5 steps back. He has no concept of making a lineup and sticking with it. Maybe last year Tony LaRussa wrote out 100+ line ups, but just about every day after July you could find Walker-Rolen-Pujols-Edmonds batting 2-5 for the Cards, in that order. This year Jason Bay has batted any where from 3-5, Craig Wilson bats anywhere from 4-6, Tike Redman bats anywhere from 2-6 (except 4th), with no rhyme or reason to it, yet Jack Wilson bats second every day with his .182 average. There is no concept of continuity at all, and Lloyd feels the only way he can create runs is by stealing, bunting, and with hit-and-runs, yet all last year Pirates fans watched Lloyd cost us countless runs by taking the bat out of the hands of Jack Wilson and Jason Bay on mindless hit and runs and sac bunts because it was what "convention" called for, nevermind that Wilson got 200 hits, a great majority of which did not come on bunts, and Bay tore the cover off the ball from June through August. On top of that, Jason Bay batted sixth into July last year!!!

There's also no concept of how to manage a pitching staff. Some nights (like Tuesday) it takes 5 relievers to get through three innings, while on other nights Rick White or Ryan Vogelsong won't come out no matter how bad they are. He can't tell when a starter has nothing left, or when to leave a starter in for another inning. You will often hear Bob Walk say "Well, looks like Kip's had it for the night, Lloyd better get him out of there," only to watch him stay in and serve up a three run dinger. He pays no attention to meaningful stats like Rick White and Mike Gonzalez's splits against righties (see yesterdays game), and sometimes in a key situation with a power hitting lefty at the plate and Mike Gonzalez rested in the pen we see John Grabow on the mound.


They say a good manager only wins you an extra 5-10 games a year. Add 10 wins to the Pirates the last three years and we win 82, 85, and 82 games in those years. Each of those totals is over the magic number of 81, and in 2003 if those wins are over the right teams, 10 wins could have given us a division. I think Lloyd costs us more games than that. Not only can he not handle a pitching staff or put together a line up, he has no concept of chemistry. Last year the Pirates were 29-28 when Daryle Ward was called up. Ward played in place of Randall Simon every day, and the Buccos lost 21 of 24 games. Ward got injured, we won 11 in a row and stayed hot for most of July, staying within 3 games of .500 most of the month. Ward, in the meantime, rehabbed in Nashville. A team that was .500 before his rehab dropped 14 games in a row during his stint there. He was called back up to Pittsburgh, reinserted in the daily lineup, and a team that was 3 games under .500 and 4 games back in the Wild Card to begin August finished 72-89, 19.5 games behind the Astros. Would we have won a Wild Card without Ward last year? Probably not, seeing how hot the Astros got, but that isn't the point. The point is that over the last four years, Lloyd has been given plenty of rope, and he's already hanged himself. For some reason, people in Pittsburgh refuse to see it.

I'm so sick of the Red Sox

For some reason they're still talking about Derek Lowe wearing a Red Sox jersey during the Sox ring ceremony during the Dodgers game on ESPN.

If the Pirates win the World Series this year and Kip Wells signs with another team in the offseason, then comes back for a ring ceremony at PNC Park next year in a Pirates uniform, NO ONE WILL CARE. Do you know why no one will care? Well, the ring ceremony won't be nationally televised for one, because by the next April, NO ONE CARES WHO WON THE LAST WORLD SERIES. Yes, the Red Sox won last October, and we were all happy for them and their fans, LAST OCTOBER. To this point in the season there have been six Pirates games on TV and (at least) four Red Sox games (that I've noticed) on TV... IN PITTSBURGH. Note to ESPN: WE ARE SICK OF THE YANKEES AND THE RED SOX. PLEASE STOP SHOWING THEM ON MY TV UNTIL OCTOBER. THERE ARE 28 OTHER MLB TEAMS AND I WOULD LIKE TO SEE MOST OF THEM AT SOME POINT IN THE YEAR. Thank you.

Brewers 6 Pirates 2

I need something explained to me. Last year against Rick White, right handed batters batted .335, but against Mike Gonzalez righties only hit .194. Despite this stat, available to anyone with the internet, today Lloyd brings out Rick White to pitch to Brady Clark and Junior Spivey, two right-handed hitters, before bringing in Gonzalez to pitch. The result? A single followed by a grounder to White who, without realizing Clark ran with the pitch, threw to second late. Everybody's safe. Oh NOW we bring Gonzalez in, since we're in a hopeless mess. Even last year, when he had amazing season (a "statiscal anomaly" as Dave Littlefield called him) he had a 6.20 ERA when coming into the game in late inning pressure situations with runners on base. So what happens? Lyle Overbay lays down a surprise bunt, bases loaded. Four runs later, and we have ourselves another loss in a game we out played Milwaukee for a full 7 innings. Poor Josh Fogg.

Other observations:
Daryle Ward can't hit lefties to save his life. Chris Capuano throws with his left hand. Just because Daryle hit a homer last night doesn't mean he should play today.

Jack Wilson is hitting .182. Today he went 0-for-5 and left 6 runners on base. Not a 2 hitter right now.

Bay, Craig Wilson, Mackowiak, in that order. At least he got something right today.

ESPN game summary here

Pirates 4 Brewers 2

So of course after I complain about Daryle Ward being in the starting line up he hits what turns out to be the game winning two run homer. I still say 1-for-16 is nothing to write home about. Nonetheless, a win with the lineup McClendon put out there tonight is impressive. Other random thoughts throughout the game:

Rob Mackowiak HUSTLES. Even with Castillo healthy he needs to be in the lineup every day. And not batting clean up, that's where Craig Wilson should hit.

Bay looked sick tonight with three bad K's.

Matt Lawton doesn't look like he cares about baseball at all.

Craig Wilson will never see a pitch to hit with Daryle Ward batting behind him.

David Ross, who I had no idea existed prior to two weeks ago when we traded for him, is absolutely killing the ball. And he's under 103 years old. Not saying he has to play every day, but it's a thought.

Mark Redman is a MACHINE. Maybe he doesn't replace Kendall, but seeing someone take a line drive off his knee and finish the inning is pretty impressive.

All in all, for the first time this season there seemed to be effort coming from the Pirates. Craig Wilson covered a ton of ground in left field, made one amazing catch at the wall, and all in all actually resembled a serviceable outfielder. Mackowiak hustled like none other. David Ross showed some fire with three hits (including a homer) and threw out a runner. Maybe the earliest players only meeting in history had some kind of affect on the team.

ESPN summary here

Pirates and Brewers first inning

Bottom of the first and I'm ready to turn this one off already. First Lawton actually gets on base, only to be thrown out on a pointless hit and run attempt, which is immediately followed by the Pirates stringing some hits together and loading the bases for Daryle Ward's weak pop-up to shortstop (it should be mentioned the bases were only loaded because Gary Glover knew he could pitch around Craig Wilson to get to Ward).

The bottom of the inning then sees an "Ole!" from Ward on a routine grounder to first, and a deep fly ball turned into triple because Matt Lawton is certainly not going to risk injuring himself for the Pirates.

For some reason Tike Redman, one of our three consistent hitters to this point in the year, is on the bench in favor of Daryle "0-for-13 and counting" Ward, who is offering some awesome protection for Craig Wilson, the second of our three consistent hitters thus far. The third hitter? Why Jason Bay, protected by the mighty Rob Mackowiak. Even Little League managers know that if your best hitters don't bat together, runs don't get scored.

From the Ridiculous Quote Department

Good news: Ty Wigginton limped off the field yesterday after attempting to break up a double play, probably because he isn't capable of sliding, only bowling people over at 100 mph, or whatever the speed of fat is.

Bad news: No reason to get our hopes up because he isn't hurt which means he will assume his daily lineup position of "I play every day because right now I'm all we have to show for the Benson trade." Plus he was quoted in the PG this morning as saying "I'm fine. You can't hurt steel."

Stunning. Simply stunning.

Week 1 Summary

Since I didn't manage to get this up and running until now, a full week and a day into the season, I'll post my first week impression of our Buccos, as ugly as they may be (a bit long since we're talking about a full week here:

The Good
1. Mark Redman might not suck as much as we first expected
2. Jason Bay can still hit, eh.
3. Jose Mesa and Benito Santiago haven't died of old age, at least not yet.
4. The Fogg appears to not be in his April haze like last year when he opened the season with an ERA of around 47.00
5. Not only did Craig Wilson shear his mullet (which was coming since about last June, when his 0-for-summer slump began), but he grew the greatest sports mustache since maybe the 70s Oakland A's. When I can find a picture of this, I will share it.
6. Freddy Sanchez's mole. I love it.

The Bad
1. To this point in the season, Brewers 25 Pirates 6, and in total Other Teams 43 Pirates 18
2. Tike Redman batting 5th
3. Jack Wilson looks like the 2003 Jack, not Jumpin' Jack Flash from 2004
4. Kip Wells is the same person as Kris Benson, minus the hot wife. This is a bad thing
5. Oliver Perez is either a flash in the pan, or injured. If he's hurt, well let's just say Josh Fogg is looking like he'll be our ace.
6. The net effects of the wonderful Kendall and Benson trades: 1 quality start (Redman), a couple hits (Lawton), and a fat guy (Wigginton).

The Ugly
1. Opening Day, runners on first and second, no outs, Brewers lay down a bunt, in comes Wigginton, no. That didn't just happen. They bunted over his head. He made a 2 inch vertical leap. They bunted over his head. Dear Lord, this is going to be a long season.
2. Tike Redman batting third.
3. Daryle Ward, 0-12. Ty Wigginton 4-25. Both defensive liabilities. The only place these two should be in relation to PNC Park is on the bridge, fighting the saxaphone guy for quarters. And yet we watch them play daily.
4. Lloyd's managing. Somehow he got stupider. Tike Redman has batted 3rd, 2nd, 5th, and 6th and it's only 7 games into the season. He has no concept how to manager pitchers. Instead of starting a "rally" something we haven't seen yet this year he lets Perez bat in the 5th of the opener instead of hitting for him, then lets him start the sixth only to put two runners on, then pulls him for RICK WHITE?? Whatever he's smoking I want. He brings Rick White into a 0-0 game in the 12th inning, only to watch him WALK IN THE WINNING RUN, with Vogelsong still in the pen after his lights out relief showing in the opener. I honestly have no idea what goes on in this man's head, but thus far he's making me root for a 5-25 start, just to see him canned.

After one week, my ideal lineup (which, of the myriad lineups Lloyd has used so far, we've seen zero times):
1. Lawton RF
2. J. Wilson SS
3. Bay LF
4. C. Wilson 1B
5. Mackowiak CF
6. Hill 3B
7. Santiago C
8. Sanchez 2B

Sorry about the length, but the Pirates make me a bitter person and we're only one week into the year.

Welcome

Seeing as how I spend 90% of my time thinking about, watching, or listening to the Pittsburgh Pirates, my thoughts and ramblings about them are really to long to fit into an AIM profile, so they will go here from now on. This is whole thing is really more for me than anyone else, but since I'm a nice guy I'll share this with everyone. This way in the long run we can all look back and point out all the places I was right and Lloyd McClendon was wrong, and all the places I said things that made me look like an idiot (more often than not). Feel free to share this with anyone you please, just let 'em know where it came from. Since we're in the infantile stages here, things will probably change around a bit until I figure out exactly what I'm going to do with this space, but hey, as a college student I'm a master of procrastination. At least I can focus it into one place here.

Random picture hosting thread

Why?

I am a huge Pittsburgh Pirates fan. I always have been, and I'd like to think I always will be. Growing up, like every other little kid in America, I wanted to be a baseball player. I idolized Andy Van Slyke. I pestered my dad with questions about baseball and the Pirates. It progressed from simple questions like "Why is that man (the catcher) a different color from the other man (the batter?" to "Who do we want to win?" and finally to "Why did he bring Belinda in, Dad?" I was only seven when that fateful question had to be asked, with tears in my eyes the next morning at breakfast (because I wasn't allowed to stay up that late, of course, in those fragile and formative years). From that point on, I began to learn something new about baseball, I learned about losing. The Pirates had been good for as long as I had cared to follow them. All of a sudden, they weren't good anymore, but it was OK because Andy Van Slyke was still there. Of course shortly after that, Andy broke his collarbone doing what he did best, playing amazing outfield, and then even he was gone. Jason Kendall came in shortly after, with Van Slyke's (and my) number. He even played my position (or maybe I played his position). But he was no Andy Van Slyke to me. I'm 20 now and I still remember Angelo Encarnacion, Mike Kingery, John Ericks, Will Pennyfeather, Trey Beamon, Nelson Liriano, Clint Sodowski, and of course, Turner Ward. I've frozen half to death at home openers. I sat in the $1 kids seats in the outfield GA at Three Rivers all the time. I picked Duquesne for college partly for its proximity to PNC Park (though there were other, equally good reasons, trust me). After years of my dad and friends encouraging me, I finally decided this spring to start writing my thoughts about the Pirates down. This blog started as a way of giving my Pirate opinions to family and friends while I was away at school, and as a way for me to keep track of my thoughts about the Buccos. I named it after my all-time favorite Pirate, and the warm memories he invokes every time I hear his name. I'm waiting for more of those warm memories to be created, and this site is now for anyone else that wants to wait with me.

Anyways, if you're still here, just know that I welcome comments from anyone, Pirates fan or otherwise. In fact, part of the reason I love doing this is hearing the opinions of other people that aren't newspaper writers, whether they agree with me or not. I only ask that you put some thoughts into your comments. I put a lot of time into this blog, and when I'm done posting I read all the comments and try to answer questions and have discussions. If you're going to rehash mindless drivel from the newspaper or from ESPN or Rotoworld to disagree with me, don't expect a response. I do have other things to do.

Please also keep in mind that while I do run the site and take responsibility for anything you see on the main page, I am not responsible for anything that's said in the comments.