Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

I don't know if I can do it anymore. I've had enough of this crap that we're pretending to call "baseball". Look at the rosters. The Nationals should never take 5 of 6 from us, I don't care what their record is. After three months I'm more frustrated with this Pirates team than any team I've watched in my life. I don't want to watch Matt Lawton any more. How is he helping us get better? I'm sick of watching Mackowiak screw up at third and seeing Sanchez on the bench every third day just to get Tike Redman some at-bats. It's a joke. I've had enough of Kip Wells' crap. We could get rid of him right now and pick up Ty Wigginton and I wouldn't care. That's how tired I am of his constant underachiement and lack of care. No more Jose Mesa, for the life of me I can't figure out how a 39 year old closer is paving the way for the future. I can't physically watch Lloyd McClendon talk about the "new him" after he didn...

I think we can finalize it, Kip Wells has no real trade value to any contenders. He's not gotten rocked by the Yankees, Red Sox, and Nationals in his last four starts (and thew and average start in against the Cards for false-hopes sake). Also, Zack Duke should get his bags packed for Pittsburgh, Ian Snell pitched out of the pen again today and I doubt they'd start him on Saturday after a couple of 2 inning relief outings during the week, but then again, this is the Pirates. We have cut the lead to 6-4 though, making it entirely possible that the Nationals will win three one run games in a series where they never seemed like they were actually in danger of losing any of them. UPDATE: I didn't see this earlier, it's official , Duke is the man on Saturday (via Leeeny ).

People have been wondering over the last week or so what the difference between the Nationals and the Pirates is. How can two teams that should be so even, as judged by talent, drive, as well as things like runs scored and runs allowed, be so different? The answer is obvious, one run games. So, it's been pondered, a re the Nats simply luckier than us ? Are they just more clutch? Does Chad Cordero give you that much of an improvement of Jose Mesa? Nope, tonight made the difference pretty clear, they're better coached. Tonight's game turned on two plays. Play #1, top of the 8th, one out, runners on first and second, Freddy Sanchez at the plate. Sanchez hits a hard grounder through the infield, which Marlon Byrd reaches BEFORE ROB MACKOWIAK GETS TO THIRD BASE. Despite this, John Russell windmills away. Mackowiak was out by a mile at the plate. I don't care if it's Jason Bay in left field and Ichiro running the bases, if the left fielder gets to a ball that shallow with...

Rain delays are no fun. They screw up just about everything, pitchers, hitters, game flow, etc. Looks like we should've saved Snell for tonight to get some work, but then again maybe I'll get my wish and we'll see some "Vogelsong in a meaningful game" action. And the big question, can Mackowiak come through with a big hit with Lawton on third and two outs? The suspense is killing me.

For anyone that was curious, the answer to the Zack Duke question yesterday (how is he not on the 40 man roster since this is his 4th year with the organization) was found at Baseball America by a friend of mine from Boston (if you can call Red Sox fans friends): Players who were 18 or younger on June 5 preceding the signing of their first contract must be protected after four minor league seasons. Players 19 and older must be protected after three seasons. Duke was drafted out of high school, and thus must've been 18 at the time. Thanks Jon.

If McLouth's stay with the Pirates this time around is as shortlived as expected , he'd do well to remember that today is the 100th anniversary of the first and only appearence of the now-legenday Moonlight Graham . And ESPN's Jim Caple imagines how much we'd actually know about Moonlight if he played today in a pretty entertaining Page 2 piece.

Typical Q&A fare today , need to pick a direction, will the real Kip Wells please stand up, who are the real fans, etc etc. Dejan also goes heavy on the hockey references, something that drives me batty. No problems with the Pens, or hockey in general, but when I read a column about the Pirates, I don't expect analogies like this: If you ask me, I would send my fourth-line goon over the boards to deliver a firm slash to the back of the knee. Too much hockey for me. He ends the column with a question for the readers: I wonder how those of you who have read this book (Moneyball) feel the Pirates measure up by the "Moneyball" standard, and I would like to hear from you on the subject. Charlie at the Bucs Dugout immediately goes on the offensive : Look, comparing Dave Littlefield's program to Billy Beane's is like comparing Sean Connery's "Suck it Trebek" character to Ken Jennings. OK, so Beane and Littlefield don't have approaches that resem...

Well, that one kind of blew. Any time Ryan Drese holds you to one run, you should be embarassed. Well, I'm just basing that one the way we lit him up last week. He was an Opening Day starter this year, after all (OK, it was for the Rangers). I'd like to feel bad for Fogg, but it's hard when the deciding run in the game came off an error by him. Still, two runs in six is a good outing, especially with the way Fogg has been pitching (all pregame predictions calling for a severe case of the runs tonight were way off base). There was one positive from tonight, Ian Snell looked great. He went two strong innings, only giving up one hit to Junior Spivey that should not have been a hit under any circumstances (of course, Matt Lawton circumvents all circumstances). Hopefully it's some side work to get him ready for a start on Saturday. As a side question, does anyone know how Zack Duke isn't on the 40-man roster? My friend and I were killing ourselves over this one. If he wa...

Yep, Matt Lawton joined Lloyd as people that I'm past the end of the rope with. Junior Spivey just hit a sky high popup which Daryle Ward and Jose Castillo both ran over 100 feet for, while Lawton couldn't even make it 50 only to see it drop in front of him. Just plain ridiculous. If this run comes back to haunt us (we're walking Guillen right now, two outs, still a one run game, Castilla at the plate) I'm going to be very, very upset.

Good start by Fogg, too bad we couldn't capitalize last inning and get him off the hook. I'm not sure who sent Mackowiak on that grounder right to Guzman, if it was Russell or Mackowiak running on his own (I'd assume Russell because usually the third base coach is shouting something on plays like that, but who knows) because that play was poor baseball. Quite a show of faith in Snell tonight to bring him out in the 7th inning of a one run game against a first place team, but he got three quick outs with six pitches, good work. I'm sure we'll hear this comparison a lot, but his size and motion do remind me a lot of Pedro Martinez. Let's get him some runs with the top of the order up this inning.

For the first time in 80 years , the Bucs are in DC, a fact that kind of got lost in my posting today among star pitchers breaking their toes on laundry carts and a long rant against Lloyd. The Nats are unbelievably good at home (26-10) but I don't think two out of three here is out of the question. Ryan Drese and Josh Fogg tonight. Runs are expected .

After a short absence, Leeeny is back and she's hitting the nail on the head of the ugly side of the Oliver Perez situation.

Yep, I think it happened. I think I finally reached the end of my Lloyd McClendon rope. Just when he seemed like he actually learning, he's been sprinting backwards so fast the last couple weeks, I think I would go and dance across campus if he got canned. Remember to start here , with my long standing list of complaints and praises for Lloyd. Those haven't changed, but the last two weeks or so have been awful. The laundry list: While we were in the process of blowing our 5-2 lead to the Yankees, he didn't come out of the dugout to argue the call with Sheffield at first base. Simply unacceptable. If you are a manager known for your fire, you have to stand up for your players in that situation. Instead, the players were flat after the play and the game took on a heavy pall that ended with Giambi's homer After said game, Lloyd stated that we simply (link is here , in my massive liveblogging of the Ollie/Randy Johnson fiasco, look for the top of the second) "we...

Honestly, I think some time on the DL would be beneficial for Oliver Perez, but not because HE BROKE HIS TOE KICKING A LAUNDRY CART. I have to go back to work, and I'm very angry, but I will have more commentary on this one a bit later. UPDATE (2:44 PM): I've been thinking about this some more. Aside from the abject humiliation of having our best pitcher break his toe on a laundry cart (and hey, as Pirate fans we've endured Operation Shutdown, the Raul Mondesi incident, Kevin Young and Pat Meares' contracts, if we can take anything, it's abject humiliation), this is a good thing. And here's why: It's Ian Snell time, and this is a very good thing. Oliver Perez is not healthy, no matter what anyone tells you. This off time may give his arm a chance to recover a bit (though if I was the secretary of Dr. James Andrews, I'd still be keeping a date open around Decemberish to bring Mr. Perez down to Birmingham). The call up of McLouth is an interesti...

The Stats Geek has a pretty insightful column today about the source of the Pirates' offensive woes, and it's not where'd you'd think it. He opens up with a statement that I agree with wholeheartedly: This team is often misrepresented by the casual fan as having a lack of major-league players. In fact, nearly every Pirate would make nearly every team, though not necessarily the starting lineup. Finally, a member of the Pittsburgh media saying "it's not the players." He goes on to expound upon the problems. He says that it's a lack of top tier bats (Bay is our only one) but I'm not sure I'd even go that far. I think this later statement covers just about everything: Well, the Pirates have outhit their opponents in the leadoff, No. 3 and cleanup spots this season and have nearly held their own at Nos. 5 and 6. But they have been badly outclassed elsewhere, with the No. 2 and No. 7 positions the worst in the league. So the heart of the lineup (...

Well, it's an off day, and without much to write about, let's breakdown the chances of some different Buccos to end up in Detroit for this year's All-Star Game. Jack Wilson - We'll open with last year's All-Star. He's probably the best defensive shorstop in the NL, despite what people say about Cesar Izturis. If April never happened, he'd probably be a lock for the game what with his defense and a .260 average (especially with SS being such a weak position in the NL this year with Nomar being injured), but hitting .230ish and being a Pirate means it's gonna be Izturis and Eckstein, especially with LaRussa managing. Daryle Ward- Good numbers, wrong position. He's on pace for 24 homers and 99 RBIs, but has gone a bit cold in the power department lately (only one dinger in June) and is backed up behind Pujols, Lee, Delgado, etc. It's not gonna happen. Jose Castillo- A longshot, but a maybe. 2B isn't a real strong position in the NL and Castil...

Smizik says don't get your hopes up just yet . Why? Because no one on our team can hit home runs, and don't get excited until we have three guys that can hit 30 homers. Yep, because home runs are the most important part of baseball, right Bob? That 2003 Marlins team must've hit like 300 homers to win a World Series that year. Yeah, or 157, just about the same number we're on pace for . I won't argue that our offense is perfect, or even good, but I will argue that you don't need three 30 home run hitters to be a winning baseball team.

Peter Gammons writes a bit about mid/small market teams that aren't planning on selling this year . We're included. Dave Littlefield gives us this nice quote: "In years past," says Littlefield, "we had to move contracts and get our payroll down. We got it down $20 million. Now we're right where we have to be. We don't have to move payroll, our attendance is up 20 percent and we now want to start winning. There is no one we have to move..." Gammons does have trouble getting his facts straight though: To those in New York and Boston whose theme songs are "Death or Glory," .500 doesn't seem like much. But if you're Dave Dombrowski and your Tigers haven't been .500 since 1993, Dave Littlefield and your Pirates have had one winning season since Barry Bonds left in 1992 or Doug Melvin and your Brewers have had losing seasons since '92, it means plenty. One winning season since '92? Exactly when was that Pete? That blackhole y...

Of course, lost in the weekend shuffle, I forgot to post about this . That's right, Ian Snell is up in Pittsburgh (and he probably has Mike Johnston's outing on Friday to thank for it). They say he'll be working out of the pen for now, but I'm guessing the time is drawing near for Mr. Redman (and not Tike, unfortunately) or Mr. Wells to pack their bags. UPDATE (12:19 AM)- Just for fun, my prediction is one of them will be gone by the break or shortly after.

Well, I said before the series if we took two we'd be headed off in the right direction, and we did it, but barely. I've been waiting for years for our inability to grasp the fundamental skills of baseball (like running the bases) to win a game for us, and sure enough today our own Abraham Nunez (now wearing Cardinal Red) made possibly the worst baserunning play in the history of baseball. Worse than anything Matt Lawton has done, worse than those goofy plays where Giles would end up on third base with someone else and we'd find a way to get both people tagged out (which happened twice in two years I believe), this is possibly the worst baserunning play since Merkle's Boner (for those not in the know, it's not dirty, click the link for an explanation). For anyone that missed this let me recap. The play started with a runner on second (I don't remember or care who, maybe Grudzielanek) and good ol' Abe on first. Yadier Molina, Pirate Killer, was at the plate...

I flipped the game on, saw it was 5-0, and immediately decided I would rather go see Batman Begins than waste my time with the Pirates last night (Batman Begins was very good by the way, blows the other four out of the water, highly recommended, but this is a sports blog, not a movie blog, so I'll stop there). Looking at the boxscore and such, it was pretty much everything I was afraid it would be. Carpenter dominated, but I'm guessing we had something to do with that. How do you strike out 11, give up 4 hits, and only throw 103 pitches in a complete game (with not one walk)? If the other team is helping you out, that's how. From the K's they showed on SportsCenter last night, we did some fishing and chasing. Looks like all that work Gerald Perry did has been forgotten. And I'm not sure what's happening to Mr. Redman, but his handle on the strike zone is disappearing, and that's what's hurting him (last night only 49 strikes in 88 pitches, that's Oll...

Well, how bout that. Moonlight Graham is real . I never gave it much thought, I just always kind of figured he was a creature of Hollywood. Sometimes the best fiction is reality.

Well, we have two more shots to split this series with the Cards, something that I think would be immeasurably great for this team's confidence. Tonight we're going ace vs. ace as Redman and Carpenter have been both team's best pitchers this year. As good as Redman has been, we need him to bounce back from his last two starts, both which have been bad starts by the standard he set early in the year ( the start against the Yankees seemed good , but he gave up 9 hits in 6 and 2/3 and he struggled with the strike zone quite a bit in that game). With a strong outing and a win tonight against NL Manager LaRussa, he might be able to lock up an All-Star berth, without a win tonight I don't think it's happening because I don't see a starter under .500 getting the nod for the All-Star Game. Mark needs to study the Dave Williams tape from Thursday and see if he can mimic what Dave has done against the Cards this year, because he's been effective. Of course Redman'...

It's not very often that I give wide sweeping views of the game of baseball, but this interleague crap is so broken someone needs to fix it. Just look at this weekend in the NL East for example. It's another "Rivalry" weekend, so the Mets and Yankees are playing. The Braves, for no real reason, are playing the Orioles, the Phillies are playing the Red Sox, and the Nationals are playing the Blue Jays. All the games are in NL parks. The Marlins, meanwhile, have to go to Tampa Bay. So while four of the five teams in the division are forced to play teams with records above .500, the Marlins play the Devil Rays, on the road but still in-state. It's like baseball is saying "Here, Florida, make up three games in the division race." Let's not even talk about how teams like our Pirates get neglected during interleague play (a series with the Rockies instead of a big crowd drawing series with the Indians? On the road to Boston AND New York? ). An unbalanced sc...

Well, that's more along the lines of what I expected of this series (somehow, this internet going down bug is following me around, I drove home from Pittsburgh this afternoon and the internet was down here, it's like God is following me around, shutting down internet connections, making sure I don't post four times a day or something, I must be on to something). Kip was solid through four, but any time you give up a homer to So Taguchi, chances are you don't have your best stuff. Kind of like our offense, who got two hit by Jeff Suppan through eight innings tonight. Nothing against Jeff Suppan, he's your average middle of the rotation guy, nothing great, nothing awful. The fact he's been on the Cards the last two years has greatly helped his record. He shouldn't two hit anyone through eight innings. The lack of offense kind of leads me to wonder where Doumit is. We were promised we'd see more of him once we got back to the NL. He caught once against Wash...

Sorry I've been AWOL from posting the last day or so. By now everyone is probably wondering where I am and what's wrong with me. Was I kidnapped by a fundamentalist sect of the Lloyd McClendon Fan Club? Did I get a cease and desist order from Andy Van Slyke himself? Nope, the simple answer is that the Duquesne internet went down yesterday afternoon and just recently got up and running again. So what did we miss? Well, first off, I was honestly going to post before yesterday's game that I had a good feeling about last night's game for no particular reason. Morris was certainly due for a loss, and we were due for a win against the Cards. The game last night was encouraging. The Cardinals provided us with opportunites and we took them. Sure, we might not have won without the errors they made, but for those with good memories, this is exactly how our hot streak began. We were feeling down about the team, the Marlins were in town, and we were thinking a truly ugly stretch wa...

Today in the PG , Lloyd gives some BS excuse as to why he stayed in the dugout in Boston and New York, yet exploded on Tuesday against the Nationals. He also says he won't be skipping Dave Williams, or anyone, to set up the rotation, which is good seeing as how Dave Williams was skipped against the Yankees and ended up being the only starting pitcher that turned in a worthwhile performance all week (OK, Redman did OK before the pen imploded on him). Meanwhile, Cardnilly has a lengthy preview of this series from the other side of the field. The more and more we lose, the more important series like this become. Until we lose so much nothing has any meaning at all. I personally am sick of seeing meaningless baseball games, so let's try and get back on the right track.

So here we stand at the 70 game mark, and we stand pretty disappointed at 32-38. Last year after 70 games we stood at 27-43. We had just finished a terrible stretch of losing 21 out of 25 games cresting at 23-22, the day after the birth of Garrett Mackowiak. This year, we're still mired in a terrible stretch, having lost 8 of 10 since reaching .500 at 30-30. Last year, after dropping the first game to the Reds, we won two more, then faced something similar to what we're facing now, the St. Louis Cardinals (at PNC Park, where they more or less own us, maybe more than they do at Busch). The Cards were 46-29 rolling into that series, they're currently 45-26. They were 5-1 against us prior to that late June series last year, this year they're 5-0 against us. What I'm trying to say is, even with the wins in Cincy the Bucs had dropped 22 of 28 before playing the Cards at almost the same point in the year last year. We swept the Redbirds in that June series, and won 5 more...

I didn't have a chance for any radio or computer access today until right now, so pretty much all I have to go on for this game is the score and the wire recap, that is not much. I'm disappointed by the loss, I really thought we were good enough to take two from the Nationals at home. I'm always disappointed to see Jose Guillen doing well against us because we were really blind when it comes to him (Guillen and Randa both fall into the "Whyyyyyy?" category, I mean Guillen was 20 years old, never played above A ball, and we thought he was immature... gee I wonder why, nice work Cam). Bobby Hill had two hits and got on base four times last night, so of course it makes perfect sense to put Tike back in the outfield today. From the boxscore I see he got on base once and scored on Bay's first inning homer. I can't comment on his play in the field because I really have nothing to go on. Fogg pitched his typical Fogg game, kept us close as usual, only to have the...

Well, that was nice to see. We jumped on Drese early and actually for once kept pouring the runs on for once. In a stunning development, Bobby Hill started at third base tonight, and got on base four times . I stopped lobbying for playing time for Hill months ago, simply because I never thought it would come. I winced in pain watching Tike play center and Mackowiak on third, wondering if Hill would ever see the light of day again. He finally did today, and he responded well. He started rallies in both the first and third innings. Matt Lawton also figured out a way to stop getting thrown out on the bases, just hit it out of the park. He had five ribbies tonight, for the second time this year. Perez didn't pitch well but flashes of the old Ollie came back, especially in fourth. He let the first two runners on, then went strike out, sac bunt, strike out, topping out at 96 on the final K of the inning. He was so pumped he forgot to jump over the line on the way off the field. Other bal...

Time for round two in this mini, yet immensely important, homestand. Tonight it's Ryan Drese and Oliver Perez, (should be) another favorable pitching matchup for us, though Drese was good in his first start for the Nationals while Perez got knocked around by the Yankees in his last outing. Perez wasn't as bad as the numbers indicated. Though he had no control, he still would've only given up 3 runs in that start if it wasn't for the atrocious outfield play of Michael Restovich. Hopefully some warm, dry weather here in the 'Burgh will be just what the doctor ordered for Ollie. I still think we can win this series, but Perez needs to beware of Jose Guillen. Yesterday he was identified as the biggest threat to lefthanded pitching , then he promptly went out and hit two homers off Mark Redman (who had only allowed five all year going into last night). Perez has shown a penchant for giving up the longball so if you have bleacher seats tonight, be ready. We lost the first...

As Lanny said post-game, not as close as the score indicated. Mark Redman "elevated" the ball (according to Steve Blass) and we were never in this one. We hit Hernandez hard and often, but instead of following hits with more hits, we generally followed them with double plays. We also played more terrible outfield (Tike repeated his mistake from yesterday by chasing a ball to the wall and letting it bounce over his head, Matt Lawton misplayed ANOTHER ball into a triple while we were trying to hold the deficit at 6-4 and stay in the game). As I mentioned earlier, I find it very interesting that every time Freddy Sanchez gets a few starts in a row and just seems to be heating up, he comes down with some minor "injury" that magically gets Tike Redman a start. And when I say I find it interesting, I mean that it's ridiculous. Maybe I'm reading into things too much, but I don't know. We sat Doumit tonight. He's definitely going to get the Craig Wilson trea...

Add Mark Redman to the list with Kip Wells and Oliver Perez. This is now the fourth time in the last week we've needed a good start from one of our three best pitchers and been rewarded with pure dogcrap. Way to step up, guys.

There's a baseball game going on, but you'd never know it by listening to the TV broadcast. Lanny and Steve are letting some old conductor guy who sounds like he was in Led Zeppelin (Robert Page or Jimmy Plant, I don't remember his name) drone on about God knows what, while the game continues in the background. Not even a "And Matt Lawton draws a walk" or a "Tike Redman hits into a life-sapping double play" or "Jason Bay flies out and the inning is over," nope, just an old guy droning on about something that isn't baseball related at all.

Mark Redman is off to a rough start tonight, giving up three runs through two, but some refreshingly smart play by the D has kept it from being more (especially after watching Tike make the same mistake on a flyball he did yesterday to go with letting Nick Johnson stretch a single into a double... isn't it funny how once a week Freddy Sanchez comes up with an "injury" that allows Tike to play?). That's right, we turned the old 2-4-3-4-2 strike em out, run em back, throw em out double play with runners on first. Now we need to get the runs back.

I've already said once today I think we should beat Washington. They're very similar to the 1997 Pirates, though they are on a hotter streak than that '97 team ever saw (that team never got anywhere near 11 games over). In effect, they're playing way over their heads and their division is playing down to them for the time being, thus, in late June they find themselves holding down first place in a division most of the free world thinks they have no real chance in. But for this week, at least, we get them on the road where they aren't playing very well. Tonight's matchup is the marquee matchup of the series, at least pitching-wise, with Livian Hernandez and Mark Redman going. Hernandez to this point has been the anti-Redman, that is he's pitching right along with how he's been pitching the last few years but getting enough run support to be 9-2 right now. Redman is having a career year, but no run support and is only 4-4. This matchup, however, is a favor...

Just some quick initial impressions on the Pirates/Nats series (with a little more detail when I get back from work this afternoon). The Nats are 40-29, but playing waaay over their heads, more so than Brian Roberts and Rob Mackowiak combined. The Nats have scored 281 runs and given up 286. That's two runs more on offense than our 279 and 6 less than our 292 given up on the flipside. The Nats are no better than a .500 team. The Nats are 16-20 away from DC, we just won 9 of 13 on our last homestand. Bottom line: I will be disappointed with less than 2 wins in this series.

We have finally stopped complaining about "The Call" on Wednesday night. Skip Bayless, however, is still whining . He makes some good points, but I really dislike Skip Bayless. He's like a national version of Ron Cook.

Well, in a week like this us Pirate fans have been let down a bit, but the person that let us down the most this week stands out head and shoulders above everyone else. Not Lloyd McClendon. Not slumping Rob Mackowiak, Matt Lawton, or Jack Wilson. Not Michael Restovich (though he tried). Not Oliver Perez (he was let down more by Restovich than anyone). Not even Tony Randatto. The spotlight is on one person, and that person is Kip Wells. On Tuesday the hitters were starstruck. People rave about Mussina's outing on Tuesday, but we made him look great. We chased pitches all night, we were clearly intimidated by Yankees stadium. We needed an outing by Kip, the veteran member of our rotation (he's been here longer than anyone else but Fogg, and he's more capable of dominating a game than Fogg), to keep us in the game. We got 4 2/3 innings and 7 runs (6 earned). Sure, we got shut out, but it's harder to care when you're down 7-0 in the 5th inning and you're already sta...

Well, it's appropriate to end this nightmarish road trip with a bookend shutout to go with the 9-0 plastering we got on Tuesday. I didn't see a lot of today's game, but I did turn in for the abomination of the third inning. I saw David Ortiz hit a triple, then score on a sac fly. I saw Kip Wells fail to cover first on a grounder to Ward, but the real disgrace was Tike giving Ortiz the triple. Jason Bay took extra fly balls off the Monster on Friday and seemed to do a fairly good job in the series of playing balls off the wall, so where were Tike and Matt Lawton during that session? They definitely failed to learn the quirks of Fenway that they needed to know for this series. Today Tike chased a ball ripped by Ortiz to the fence, forgetting that the fence was some 15 feet high in center at Fenway, watching the ball ricochet off the wall over his head and fly behind him, turning a ball hit by possibly the slowest man alive into a triple. The fact that somehow Jason Bay couldn...

Well, that was a pleasant surprise. I really didn't think any Pirate pitchers would shut out the Red Sox in this series, especially not Dave Williams, Rick White, and Jose Mesa. Dave Williams joins the Mark Redman "I pitched like that and I can't even get a win" club. Then again for most of his six innings he used a combination of smoke, mirrors, magic, and who knows what else to keep the Sox off the board. In his six innings he gave up 5 hits and 4 walks, but the Red Sox stranded everyone. That everyone includes David Ortiz who, in a culmination of all of the bad calls that have gone against us, reached base last night on the single worst call I have ever seen an umpire make. He tried to check his swing on a 3-2 pitch, and in doing so spun all the way around in the batters box so that he was just about facing the home plate umpire. Cota fired the ball around the horn. Williams slapped his glove. Unfortunately home plate ump Jerry Crawford decided to ask third base um...

More good stuff from Collier today , he has more insight about the team than anyone at the PG than maybe the Stats Geek, but I think he routinely gets ignored because he's viewed as more of a humor sports writer than an actual sportswriter. I meant to post this yesterday when I saw it, but might as well do it now. L elands.com has taken the items from Roberto's plane out of their auction. We can sleep easy. Dave Williams tonight, hopefully he grew the chops back because we need some magic. Any win at all in this series would be great. Maybe they'll win it for the Bays, who are in town to watch their son play some baseball. And he'll be playing well since we're on the road and he plays well on the road. Look for one over the monster for daddy this Father's Day weekend from Jason. Won't be much posting today, my brother's graduation party is this afternoon, but I'll be back later with more about the game.

Well, that one was pretty tough to watch. Tonight we got hosed by a terrible umpire, CB Bucknor (remember the guy that threw Pujols out for no reason a couple weeks ago? Yep, same guy), on a call at second base that cost us a run. I'm more upset about this one because I don't really feel like there was much else the team could've done tonight to win this game. Oh wait, there is one thing. Matt Lawton has played in the American League for his entire career prior to tonight, yet repeatedly chased balls into the corner that he had no chance on in right field tonight, playing two of them into triples. He also failed to appear on Millar's pop-up in the 9th which harmlessly dropped foul, setting the stage for his double, Varitek's bunt, and the subsequently the end of the game. I also kind of question bringing in Gonzalez to pitch to Damon, after all he has a "dead" arm right now, and I tend to think people with "dead" arms should be on the DL, or at l...

I feel like our season is the Springfield Power Plant with an overheating core and the only person that can stop a meltdown is Homer Simpson. Or in our case Josh Fogg. We need one of those vintage Fogg moments, like when he beat Randy Johnson last year, where he gets about 18 groundouts to go with a handful of Ks and strike outs. We need the offense to whup on Miller and get to the Sox pen. We need to not be afraid of Fenway Park. We need a lot of things, and right now it seems like it's gonna take a miracle to get them, so cross your fingers because right now chances look good that we could go from entering last Sunday at 30-30 to leaving this Sunday 30-37.

I'm sick of it . The umpire made the wrong call, it happens. What Tony Randazzo didn't do was give up 5 runs after the 8th inning with a 3 run lead. He didn't give up the game tying run even though he had two outs with only a runner on first. Mike Gonzalez, Rick White, and Mesa took care of those things. He didn't give up three extra base hits to Giambi who only had 7 on the whole season coming in, Kip, Mesa, and Ollie took care of that. He didn't walk .232 hitting Bernie Williams 5 times in three days. He didn't miss two routine fly balls in the outfield. The series is over. We played like crap, and it's not Tony Randazzo's fault, it's our fault. Would we have won on Wednesday with his call? Sure, but we still should've won without it. Look at this crap we're now churning out in our pregame media notes : Pittsburgh's defensive unit has turned 17 double plays in the past eight games. ... It would have been 18 had the first-base umpire mad...

This is coming a little late, but I had to recover from the torture that I subjected myself to earlier. If you aren't planning on reading that voluminous post (and I don't blame you, it's probably as painful to read as it was to write) let's summarize: I hate Michael Restovich. A lot. He's an awful excuse for a baseball player. Lloyd has lost faith in his players saying they're "just not good enough to take two from the Yankees". I have a lot of problems with this statement. First off, Lloyd is not manager because he knows how to handle players and strategize a game. He's simply not good at it. He tries to make up for this by being a good motivator and making sure his players never quit. Comments like "we're not good enough to take two from the Yankees" after a loss facing the prospect of Randy Johnson the next day is not a motivational statement, and it's not likely it caused anyone to play harder today. I don't care i...

Yep, I'm gonna do it. Despite having my heart ripped out last night, I'm gonna keep a running journal through the game because games like tonight simply don't come around often. I'll update this post every half inning with my thoughts for as long as the game holds my interest. If anyone wants to comment, I'll try and keep my eye on the comments too. Stay tuned... Pregame (lineups and such)- I can live with the lineup tonight, except Restovich, that guy is a waste of life. Three lefties against Johnson would be a little risky though. Maybe Restovich will finally be worth something, but I doubt it. Top 1- FSP has a new little score graphic at the top, it's a bit sleeker than the old one. I like it. Three pitches and Freddy's gone. Three more, Lawton's gone. That's right, six pitches, six strikes (four swinging). Bay ends the streak with an 0-1 single and is 11 for his last 20. The Yankees look like they got a call on Doumit's check swing strike t...

It's pretty simple, really. We need to bounce back. We can't fall apart and get crushed like the Orioles did after we took a similar game from them last week. We can't go into Boston on a four game losing streak with Fogg, Williams, and Wells slated to start. We need Ollie. We've beat Randy Johnson before, in fact we beat him last year off Jack Wilson and Jason Bay's back to back 8th (I think, I was there but the game flew by so fast I don't really remember) inning homers in one of the fastest and best pitcher's duels of the year. That's what we need tonight, we need a dominating performance from Oliver Perez. He's certainly capable, last September he single handedly stopped the streaking Astros by striking out 14 in a 3-1 win. I don't think these Yankees are any match for those Astros that got hot late last year. This might be the most important game of the year and the bullpen can't be trusted, so it's all on Ollie's shoulders. Let...

Pretty dreary day here in the 'Burgh. The weather is ugly, and well, let's just say I'm not in a good mood. Lots of people are anticipating the pitching matchup tonight, Dejan certainly is, and so is ESPN's Alan Schwarz . I'm not getting my hopes up, probably not ever again, but I'll say this. If Ollie is going to turn into the ace we all hope he can be, tonight would be a great place to start. Of course he better throw a complete game because I'm not sure our bullpen could hold a 10 run lead right now. I have my own theories on who should close, but it's so ridiculously outlandish I think I'll save it for later. I have to get back to work, I'll be back with more later.

If I ever see Jose Mesa on the mound again in black and gold, I will vomit. UPDATE (10:44 PM): I am absolutely speechless. Giambi has absolutely no power left after going off the roids. He had four home runs coming into tonights game, less than TY WIGGINTON. You know, that guy we sent down to AAA and celebrated when it happened. Last night he hit a ball as well as he had all year, and it couldn't make it over the center field fence, yet tonight he hits a tape measure shot off Mesa. This charade needs to end, I don't care who closes and I don't even know who will, Gonzalez has been poor in key situations lately too, but it's time for someone else to get a shot. The man is 39 years old. We are gaining nothing from watching him blow every tough situation he's brought into. Right now I want to break something, or maybe just vomit all over my keyboard, or maybe just cry myself to sleep. I let them get my hopes up again and nothing is different. ANOTHER UPDATE (12:21 AM):...

First observation: The last three games Mesa has entered against good teams with the top or middle of their order up, he's blown the save (he saved one run games against the Marlins and O's against the bottom of their orders). If your closer can't get the best hitters on the other team out, he's not closing and it's time to find someone else to do his job. Second observation: A-Rod is a bitch. That's all there is to it. That play at the plate was just like the play at first base with Arroyo last year, he didn't slide, he didn't even try the Wigginton Smash, he just shoved Ross trying to knock the ball loose. It wasn't hustle, it wasn't effort, it was a cheap shot. I would use another word to describe him if I had one in an attempt to keep things more family friendly here, but I don't. He's a bitch. UPDATE (10:25 PM): Mesa's back out for the tenth. I'm guaranteeing a loss here. You can put this one in the books

Well, that last point on the checklist below is sticking a little. Gonzalez and White had some trouble in the 8th, and now Pirate Nation is clinging to the edge of our seats with the prospect of Mesa coming into the game with a one run lead against the top of the Yankees lineup. I'm not feeling optimistic, so let's pile some runs on. Great, Rivera's in.

Knock Brown out early (OK, back spasms, we'll take it).... check Scrap out some runs from all parts of the lineup.... check Solid outing from Mark Redman.... check (so far) Strong finish by the bullpen... TBA, but we'll see with 92 from Redman through six So far so good, this is a lot more along the lines of what we need to do to beat the Yankees. Nice to see Sanchez's bat come alive with three hits so far, and getting hits and RBIs from all parts of the lineup is nice to see. Matsui just led off the seventh with a double though, so I think we're gonna see some bullpen action real soon here.

I've kind of been posting in abstracts lately about this Pirates and Yankees series because, well, there's not much else to do after last night. I feel like we aren't as bad as we played last night and that we can play with the Yankees, it's just that with results like last night, there's not much to back me up. Hopefully Mark Redman and co. will give me some ground to stand on. Tonight's lineup (from ESPN.com ): Lawton, RF Sanchez, 3B Bay, LF Mackowiak, CF Doumit, DH Ward, 1B Castillo, 2B Wilson, SS Ross, C