Zach Duke and the deadline (of course)

After all of the press Zach Duke's been getting along with the bad play of the Pirates (not so much of late, but in between his last two starts we won zero games) he must kind of feel like Atlas. Still, the kid has shown some good poise in his first four starts so hopefully he'll keep his head screwed on straight (and his left elbow and shoulder healthy). Tonight he goes against Ismael Valdes who's making his first start since... well, let's just call it a while.

As for the approaching deadline, I'm gonna have to agree with Charlie. The longer we wait, the less likely anything is to happen. BP (by way of Charlie again) is free right now, and in today's notebook they don't see great things for us in the next few days:

The Pirates have a number of options for teams looking to fill holes at the deadline, but in each and every case the options are less than awe-inspiring, and they'll all probably require the Pirates to eat salary and/or accept mediocre prospects in return. All in all, it's looking more and more like the many trade possibilities to the Pirates will bring in little if anything of use for a 2006 or 2007 campaign.

Right now I'd say Redman will be traded for sure, Lawton is a maybe, Mesa is a much bigger maybe, and Kip is a pretty firm no. Hopefully someone will panic and give us something good for one of them (I'm looking at you, Yankees).