The D-Train

It had to come some time, and the day after his second huge homer in a week seems about right. Daryle Ward has won me over. Last year I thought he was fat, lazy, and just an all around bad person. When he came up, we lost. When he got hurt, we won. When he rehabbed, Nashville lost. When he came back, we lost again. There was the play with runners on first and third when he fielded a grounder and froze, getting zero outs. He was streaky, but mostly just cold at the plate. He took at bats away from Rob Mackowiak and Craig Wilson (never a good thing in my book). He didn't seem to care. Yep, I hated Daryle Ward. When Craig Wilson got hurt I was so anti-Ward that I didn't want to see him play every day, Craig or no Craig. But then something happened.

It seems to me that Daryle Ward worked as hard as anyone did this offseason. Besides a few lapses in catching the ball (like Monday night) he's been very solid at first base defensively. As it turns out, Daryle Ward has incredibly soft hands at first. Watching him at the plate this year, his cold zones have shrunk considerably. The "Daryle Ward home run zone" has grown exponentially from the low, inside part of the plate (almost at his ankles) to just about anything on the inside half of the plate, up or down, it doesn't matter (the "Daryle Ward home run zone" got its name last year because it was so laughably small, this year there is actually a considerable part of the plate he can cover with his bat). With Bay in a semi-slump since mid-May and Craig still on the DL, the D-Train has risen to the occasion. He hit a huge home run last Tuesday against the Marlins. He hit one of equal magnitude last night. And he's doing it in the situations when he steps into the box and all of Pittsburgh is thinking "Man, we really need a home run right now." But most of all, I think I was wrong when I percieved him as a clubhouse problem. On the team's last off day (almost three weeks ago), he joined a bunch of his teammates at Greg Brown's Gloves for Kids Day. Footage showed him laughing with the youngsters, signing autographs, and generally having a good time. When you see him on TV, he seems like a genuinely nice person. According to Dana, he and Jack waited out in the parking lot signing autographs for a good halfhour after the game last night. It's official, I'm sorry Daryle. I was wrong about you. So keep on playing hard and giving us quotes like this one:

I love the fastball. That's not a secret. The one in the dirt gave me a chance to time him. After that, I did what I intended to do. I hit it out of the ballpark.