The Award goes to...

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 starstruck by Yankee Stadium. We needed a strong start for the trip, we got crushed. Today we had a chance to salvage the wreckage of this trip by winning a series against the Sox. We shut them out last night and needed a strong start from Kip to keep things rolling. He didn't cover first and we ended up giving up 5 runs in an inning we should've given up one as a direct result. Final line for Kip: 3 innings, 7 runs, 6 earned. In a week where we needed two big starts from Kip he gave us a grand whopping total of 7 2/3 innings and an astronomical ERA of 14.09. That's not a typo. It's hard to say how much better this week turns out with two good starts from Kip, but I'm guessing we win more than once. A lot of people let down us Pirates fans this week, but no one more so than Kip Wells.