Nationals 7 Pirates 5 and the rant it inspired

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't stick up for his team after three of the most awful calls I've ever seen umpires make, only to watch him get tossed out again FOR ARGUING BALLS AND STRIKES. I'm upset with Oliver Perez, but I want to know the real story (because you know there's more to it). I want to know why on Inside Pirates Baseball all the players talk like they're petrified of McClendon, that they won't even talk to him (Lawton is so afraid of him he's talked to hime once since he's come to town). I can't give any trust to a GM that's watched McClendon for 4 years now and can't see what's wrong with him managing a Major League team. I can't believe a word out of his mouth when he talks about building for the future but watches Matt Lawton's crap on a daily basis, and watches Tike Redman turn into Lawton's less-talented protege while playing over more deserving people 2-3 days a week. I can't believe a word from a GM that lets a man run a team where David Ross over Humberto Cota or Ryan Doumit is a logical choice to make. Sometimes when I watch Littlefield run the team, I'd like to think he has a plan for us. Sometimes I think he'd like to think that too. I'm sick of the local media talking about the lack of our players talent when the talent is obvious, yet they rush to McClendon's defense at the drop of a hat. I don't want to hear about how we don't have a three hitter when Jason Bay is one of the best in the league. The team is flat out underachieving. I don't think they need to be the Washington Nationals, but there's no excuse for them to be 9 games under .500 at the end of June. In every other city in America, when the team underachieves, two people get the blame. It's been 4+ years now. The time has come for Lloyd McClendon and Dave Littlefield to be held responsible.

UPDATE (11:22 PM): OK, I wrote the part about Lloyd getting tossed tonight after only reading that he was tossed for arguing "a third strike" and seeing a clip of him screaming at an umpire. As per his extremely irrational behavior lately, I assumed he was arguing balls and strikes, which is just about always enough to get you tossed. I was wrong, he was arguing two check swing ball 4s. They seemed to be borderline check swings and borderline strike/ball on location, but SportsCenter didn't show the neat little baseline view to let you know if he had a point or not. So, as per my complaints about the Ortiz check swing incident in Boston tonight, I'm not really that upset about him getting tossed tonight (though the reason I was upset about the Ortiz check swing is because it was very clearly about 90% of a swing and it was the third time in 5 games we'd been absolutely hosed on a call and all Lloyd could do was come out of the dugout and laugh about it, this situation is a bit different). Anyways, I apologize for the error about today's game, I was wrong, I don't hold anything from today's game against Lloyd. That doesn't really change anything else that's written above, though.