There's lefties everywhere

Ever see a rotation with all lefties? This would seem to be a distinct possibility for our Buccos next year given Duke, Maholm, Perez, and probably Dave Williams are locks for next year's rotation with Mark Redman likely to pick up his option, Burnett being healthy, and Gorzelanny knocking on the door. I don't like this, but not for the reasons most people don't like it. If your five best pitchers happen to be left-handed than that's your rotation. Screw conventional wisdom, that's failed us for 13 years running. I agree with Duke's reasoning in the article, going from a guy like him to a guy like (healthy) Perez is just as drastic as a righty to a lefty. And I'm done defending Kip Wells. If we wanna non-tender him or trade him, so be it. I've had enough of his shit and I don't know if anyone can fix him unless maybe Leo Mazzone is interested in being our pitching coach next year. The problem is twofold, first, there's no place for Ian Snell and second, to kick off next year with all lefties almost certainly means a spot for Mark Redman in the rotation. I know DL will keep Redman around hoping he can recreate last April and May to ship him off but I'll argue until the end that we're better served to eat that contract then to ever let him pitch for us again. If we kick off next year's movement towards the future with Ian Snell in AAA and Mark Redman on the mound I'll be seriously pissed, that's all there is to it.

The beginning of the end

Yep, today marks the first game of the last series of 2005. There's really only one point of interest in this series, Milwaukee has 80 wins and a baseball game has 162 games. For those of you keeping track at home, that means Milwaukee needs 1 win to assure that they won't finish below .500 this year, thus breaking stride with us on our dual spiral into futility, ending their streak at 12 years. That might be the final indignity of this stretch, which has already seen such indignities like the Marlins and Diamondbacks coming into existence and winning World Series' and teams like the Indians and Marlins building winners, disassembling them, and reassembling more winners while we couldn't scrap together one measly 81 win season. Hell, even the Royals had a winning record two years ago. The Devil Rays are miserable but they haven't existed long enough to match our streak. Oliver Perez, Kip Wells, and Zach Duke face off against Doug Davis, Tomo Ohka, and Rick Helling to attempt the streak to pull the Brew Crew back into obscurity with us. Then again, if Kip Wells and Oliver Perez win back to back games it might signal the Apocalypse, so maybe we should just let Milwaukee get that win (you know, because if the world ends that means we'll DEFINITELY never have another winning team as opposed to just PROBABLY never having another one).

It's an offday

Last offday of the year so let's talk playoffs. Namely who I like and don't like (like as in teams I think have a chance).

NL- Like
Houston- Come on, Pettite, Oswalt, Clemens. If these three are all healthy (the only question is Clemens at this point)you don't want to face them in a playoff series.
St. Louis- Not as good as they're cracked up to be but the only team that can beat them is the 'Stros, so they've got that going for them.

AL- Like
Yankees (if they get in)- Unfortunately, since I usually spend October taking as much glee from Yankees losses as I do Pirates wins. But seriously, who wants to play these guys right now?
Cleveland (if they get in)- OK, they might be hotter than the Yankees, except they've cooled off a bit of late. But if they get in, look out. They can hit and their pitching staff has been fantastic of late. Travis Hafner might be this year's David Ortiz.
Anaheim- Hey, they've got a guy named John Lackey on their team, how can they NOT have a chance? Oh yeah, plus that Vlad guy, AL Cy Maybe Colon, the BoSox sparkplug from last year (Cabrera). Yeah, they've got a chance.

NL- Don't Like
Padres- This one should be obvious. They really suck.
Braves- A bunch of young guys, this is probably the worst of their 14 division champs. This is where Jeff Francoeur turns into Shane Spencer.

AL- Don't Like
White Sox- I'm giddy over the impending Ozzie Guillen meltdown after a first round sweet. Their pitching has faded and they can't score runs. If the season was a week longer they wouldn't even be able to hold Cleveland off.
Red Sox (if they make it)- Their rotation is in shambles and their bullpen is worse. I'm pretty sure everyone in America hates Curt Schilling, teammates included. The only thing they've got going for is David Ortiz. I don't think that's enough this year.

One more thing

I forgot this is my last post, but there's not much anyone can say to convince me there's a better venue for a concert than PNC Park. With the stage in center it was an amazing backdrop. I found that pic from the PG, though it's not at the PG anymore, so I'll just post it here (click to enlarge).

Now imagine it with the sun down, and the city and stage lights all on. Like I said, I can't imagine a better backdrop for a concert.

A shakeup in the candidates

Yesterday I posted about how Honest Wagner blogger Bones had jokingly tossed his name into the ring to manage the Pirates. He unveils his playbook today. He was already ahead of Tekulve and Mackanin, now I'm pretty sure the new playbook vaults him over Sveum, Wehner (assuming that if Sveum gets a look than the Rock will as well), Leyland, and probably evenHowe in my book. That puts the current standings at

1. Macha
2. Tracy
3. Bones

Since the only two ahead of him are still employed by other teams and may not even become available this offseason, I hearby declare Bones the front runner to manage the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2006 on the basis of the "Reverse Wiggy Wheel."

Page 1 is the new defensive play "the reverse Wiggy wheel". In this one, Wiggy plays first. Upon contact, the whole infield sprints into clockwise rotation. P covers 3B, 3B covers SS, SS covers 2B, 2B covers 1B. This frees Wiggy up for a full-speed head-on collision with the unsuspecting baserunner.

So that's what PNC Park looks like when it's full

Like I said yesterday, I went to the Pearl Jam/Rolling Stones concert at PNC last night. It was, quite simply, amazing. Since this is a baseball blog I won't spend a whole lot of time in the details of the concert itself (you can find a good account of that here). From a baseball fan's point of view, well, first off, resodding the field last fall for the All-Star game seems pretty silly now because there's no way that the mammoth stage (which took something like 80 semi-trucks to construct) didn't do some massive damage to the outfield. The stage was centerfield. It wasn't in centerfield, it WAS centerfield, all of it. They also put what appeared to be a couple thousand fans into it and it had a video screen that was probably twice the size of the Jumbotron up. Bottom line, the thing wasn't light. The PG had a picture of it, but for some reason that link is broken. If it comes back up I'll link to it. Watching Mick Jagger prance, strut, and run around the gigantic stage for 2 hours lead my uncle, my dad, and I to the only logical conclusion. The 62-year old man covers more ground in centerfield than anyone that's played center for us this year except maybe Duffy (maybe).

Interestingly enough, in the hour+ intermission between Pearl Jam and the Stones, you could hear conversations in the crowd (which we estimated at 40,000+, the only empty seats were the bleachers and centerfield and parts of rightfield, for the obvious reason of being behind the stage, and some seats along the first and third base line that were behind giant speaker towers, there were at least 7,000 people on the field and maybe a thousand more on the stage itself) about how this was the fullest they'd ever seen PNC. When the Stones took the stage and the opening chords of Start Me Up ripped into the air you could actually feel the grandstand shaking (at least we could in section 329). After the concert and the encore ended the whole crowd poured out on to Federal Street at once giving off what was a downright giddy atmosphere from what they had just seen. I'd kind of like to think that it's what PNC Park would be like if the Buccos ever won a pennant or a World Series. Then again, I don't know when we'll get to make the comparison.

Pirates 3 Cubs 2

HOLY CRAP WE SWEPT SOMEONE!!! OK, so it's September 28th, we're playing a team that's as out of things as we are (because once you're out of it you're out of it), and it was only a 2 game series. This means that Duke and Maholm put up back to back wins for the first time ever, thus launching their "Spahn and Sain" campaign. A second inning single by Jason Bay gave him his 100th RBI on the year, taking all of the drama of a chase for 100 out of the final homestand this weekend (not that there's anything wrong with it). Lil' Nate McLouth also ripped his fourth homer of the year and third in as many days prompting a friend to ask, "Shouldn't he be in class? I swear I've seen him in the cafeteria or something."

I would write more about this game, but PEARL JAM AND THE STONES ARE HERE!!! Finally, I can go to PNC Park and actually ENJOY myself!

One more entrant into the ring...

The Pirates blogosphere's very own Bones (of HW) has declared that he is in fact available to manage the Pirates next year! He's currently about as qualified as or more qualified than at least Tekulve and Mackanin. Bones does illustrate his point perfectly of course, this is getting ridiculous. It seems like just about anyone with any assosciation at all to the Pirates has made themselves a candidate while Dave Littlefield has said nothing. Hey, where's Chico Lind? What about Zane Smith? No word yet if the guy that plays the saxaphone on the bridge is interested.

Also Gene Collier wrote a column (on Sunday, I'm a bit late here, I know) about how Leyland isn't a good fit for the Pirates for reasons like price, the flocking of failed Pirates managers to PNC that his hiring would bring about (Lamont and maybe even McClendon would be on his staff), the price tag, his patience with our situation, etc. etc. Of course, he argues, Danny Murtaugh's dead, so no one is a perfect fit.

The last regular season Q&A

Today is Dejan's last Q&A if the regular season. The first question deals with next year's line, Dejan's sense being that keeping Freddy Sanchez a starter makes the lineup too similar to this year's sad version, that Craig Wilson is next year's right fielder, and that we need left-handed insurance at first base. I'm only inclined to agree with one of these sentiments. I'd first argue that Freddy Sanchez at third next year wouldn't necessarily mean the lineup is the same as this year. Why? First off, look at the improvement Freddy's shown over the course of the season. As much as we talk about Eldred, Doumit, Duffy, McLouth, etc. needed time in the majors to adjust, Freddy only came into this season with 69 big-league at-bats and was coming off a couple injury filled years. His numbers (average, OBG, and SLG) in the minors were much, much better than what he's done this year (go here and scroll down). A Freddy Sanchez that hits .315 and gets on base 35-40% of the time while slugging in the mid-to- low fours would certainly be an upgrade over the Freddy we've seen most of this year and I don't think it's out of the question. As for Eldred, apparently everyone has forgotten his struggles at Lynchburg, Altoona, and Indy as he was called up there. The adjustment time may be longer in the Majors, but we can all agree that we certainly thought he'd struggle more than he has since his call up. If he plays fall ball and winter ball, which I believe he's slated to do, I think he'll be more than ready to be our every day first baseman after a Spring Training with the big boys.

There is more in the Q&A (Jason Bay has now out-homered Bobby Abreu 32-24 on the season, heh heh heh, Mark Redman will almost definitely be back in the rotation next year, blah blah blah) including the new name for the "North Side Notches" portion of the notebook ("Buried Treasure" beat out two vastly superior Bob Prince-based entrants, "Bloop and a Blast" and "Hidden Vigorish" because of Dejan's refusal to live in the past, I'd argue that honoring the Gunner is different than living in the past, but to each his own, maybe when Andy Van Slyke sues me I'll change the name here to "Hidden Vigorish").

Pirates 5 Cubs 3

Let's see, another good outing for the Duke, Jason Bay is the man, Nate McLouth shows more power, and Greg Maddux's streak of winning 15 games is officially dead. Of course Dusty Baker did his best to make sure it wouldn't by leaving Maddux out there all night, even after Mighty Mouse McLouth's homer that made it 5-3 in the 8th, just so he'd get a win in case they came back. Next he'll be pitching out of the pen all week.

Anyways, Bay had three run homer and another RBI to bring his season total to 99, tantalizingly close to that magical and currently meaningless 100. As for Duke, he went 8 strong giving up only one earned, his best start since returning from the ankle injury by a good bit. A win tomorrow assures the Cubs won't have a winning season. I guess that would be another one of those "small victories" we have to keep settling for.

I see the potential to disagree

OK, so I think that last post needed to be a little clearer because I don't want to give people the wrong impression about certain things here. Let me start off by saying that above everything else, I AM ALL FOR BUYING OUT JASON BAY'S ARBITRATION ELIGIBLE YEARS. There's really no choice here, it's something we have to do. What makes me nervous is the talk about extending him beyond that RIGHT NOW. There doesn't really need to be any hurry to do this. Anything past the arbitration years is a long time, especially for a guy that had an injury history before we traded for him. All I'm trying to say is that we can commit to him know, let him know he's our guy but that as a small-market team we can't talk about more than four years in the future for now. If he wants to come back in 2 years and talk again about another extension, we're all ears, but for right now we can only focus on the arbitration years.

That's all I'm trying to say. I don't want to be misunderstood as saying "we shouldn't sign Bay at all" or anything like that because I think it's IMPERATIVE that we ink him to the next four years. I'm just not sure that now is the time, from a business perspective, to be looking beyond that.

The Bay Extension

The Pirates and Bay are talking about a 5-year extension, which would extend past his arbitration years and into his first free-agency eligible year. It is, of course, good news to hear that they're serious about keeping him, but it does raise at least some questions (voiced by Charlie). If Bay's healthy and keeps getting better, yeah it's a fantastic move on our part. If he's not healthy, well, that's how we got where we were in 2001. Paying $57 million for 100 losses. The best thing to do is probably lock him up for the arbitration years, then have team options for every year we can get after that. That way if he does turn into the MVP-type we're all hoping for we have him locked up (which is hopefully the case) and if he crashes and burns we're not on the hook for anything past his arbitration years. I know it sounds pessimistic, but when you're on a budget like we are you've really gotta be careful.

The Stats Geek

As the season winds down the Stats Geek sees one enormous reason we've been outscored by 92 runs this year. We've given up 142 more walks than we've taken. In fact, only Brian Meadows, Zach Duke, Mark Redman (?), and Josh Fogg are below the league average in BB/9. Meanwhile only Jason Bay, Matt Lawton, and Craig Wilson are above the league average in BB/PA, with Rob Mackowiak and Daryle Ward close to the average. That means, in effect, the only person in our lineup that walks more than average (because Lawton is gone and Craig's barely played) is the guy that sticks out like a sore thumb in it because he's the only one that can hit. If you count beanballs, Ryan Doumit moves up the list quite a bit. In fact, thanks to him and Craig (10 beanings in only 225 PAs) we're second in the league in getting hit by pitches! Hooray for small victories! He does make a good point about Craiggers though:

Many fans want to trade Wilson because he "strikes out too much." If his power returns, which seems to be happening (four doubles, a triple and two home runs in his past six games), then fans should learn to endure Wilson's strikeouts and be far more concerned with those Pirates who make outs too much.

If Craig Wilson is in right field next year, we certainly could do a lot worse, especially if he's the early 2004 Craig. He closes with some simple analysis:

To sum up, the Pirates are sixth in the league in hits but 13th in on-base average (.323) and 14th in runs scored largely because of this chronic walk shortage.

Pirates opponents, meantime, have a .268 average and .345 on-base average. Lowering the latter number by cutting the walk rate should be Job One for the revamped Pirates pitching staff and whoever coaches them next year.

Get more walks. Give up fewer. Easier said than done, but if that isn't done, 2006 is going to look an awful lot like the past 13 seasons.

It seems so easy, doesn't it? Charlie has some analysis as to why this happens.

Dodgers 9 Pirates 4

Kip Wells picked up loss #18 last night making him officially the biggest loser during our now-13 year losing streak. That's right, Kip separated himself from Fat Jimmy Anderson (who lost 17 in 2001) and put a little more distance between himself and '03 Jeff D'Amico and '95 Paul Wagner (16 losses apiece). Actually, this was one of Kip's better outings in a while, only giving up four runs in five innings. The trouble came with Tom Gorzelanny and Rick White in the 7th. After a scoreless sixth, Gorzelanny quickly loaded the bases in the 7th. Mackanin then made the worst move he could've possibly made besides bringing Jose Mesa in, bringing in Rick "I've never met an inherited runner I didn't like enough to not let score" White. So what happened next? Yep, you guessed it. In eight pitches Rick White turned a 4-3 game into an 8-3. Gonzalez then came in to shut things down quickly, once again leaving everyone to wonder why we waited to bring him in. Among the positives, hmm, let's see, Jason Bay picked up an RBI leaving him 5 short of 100 with 5 games left. And McLouth hit a homer. And of course, we're hopefully only 5 games away from the Mackanin era being ended. Which is nice.

A case of the Mondays

If you can believe it, it's hard to find news about the Pirates here on a rainy Monday after a bad Pirates loss, especially since we can't lose 100 now. Anyways the Pirates notebook today in the PG details the "hard work" ahead for DL. You know, starting off with naming a new puppet to sit in the dugout, followed by attempts to justify not playing Brad "12 big league homers in his first 168 big league at bats" Eldred full time next year, mostly due to his strikeouts. I don't understand how throwing money at a first baseman will help the problem, what with Craig Wilson already around and Eldred hopefully improving a lot over the winter. He also states that we need help with right handed relievers, either because Rick White, Jose Mesa, and Brian Meadows are going to be free agents or because Rick White, Jose Mesa, and Brian Meadows were our main righties out of the pen this year.

Also, a friend of mine sent along this link from a Red Sox fan message board, the famous "Sons of Sam Horn", in which they discuss Dale Sveum as a manager. Some people say bad things, some say good things, everyone else just wants him out of the third base coaching box. It has some pretty good insight on what he's done the past couple years.

Dodgers 9 Pirates 2

I didn't watch, but one look at Mackanin's lineup tipped me off to his pre-game crack smoking (Tike Redman and Daryle Ward playing with Tike batting leadoff and Freddy Sanchez in the three slot). He also seemed to pull Snell to quickly (after five solid inning), leading to the Fogg, Grabow, Vogelsong bullpen explosion of the 6th inning, which turned a 2-2 game into an 8-2 one. Of course at this point, nothing like that really seems to be that far out of the usual.

Some common sense abounds at the PG

Dejan's Notebook today comes to the common sense conclusion to answer the third base question for next year, Freddy Sanchez. The simplest fact is that there isn't much available to fill the hole by free agency. The best third baseman available will probably be Bill Mueller. Jack Wilson says the same thing I say about that.

"(Freddy's) our Bill Mueller," shortstop Jack Wilson said, referring to Boston's contact-hitting third baseman. "Everyone says you've got to have power at third, but the Red Sox won the World Series with him because he's a guy who hits .300 and plays great defense. That's exactly what Freddy is. He'll hit .300 if he plays everyday, and he'll get you 10-15 home runs."

Pete Mackanin even says something I agree with! (gasp!)

"I'll tell you: I like having two shortstops on the left side of the infield," interim manager Pete Mackanin said. "What you don't get from him in power, he might make up for you with his defense. You can win with Freddy Sanchez playing third."

Of course, it probably won't matter since it's Dave Littlefield's choice (and curiously, not the choice whoever will manage next year). But the fact is that if Castillo comes back healthy there should be two power sources in the infield between him and Eldred. I would keep pushing for someone to write about how much sense it makes to switch Sanchez and Castillo, but I'll take this as a start.

Pirates 8 Dodgers 3

The Pirates won last night. It wasn't on TV, but even if it was I wouldn't have watched it anways. Apparently Oliver Perez didnt' completely suck, Brad Eldred hit a three run homer, and Ryan Doumit had four hits. Actually, it was a big win last night. At least it was as big as they come for a team like us on September 24th. It was win number 63, assuring no more than 99 losses. It also eliminated the woeful Dodgers from the NL West race. Man, I wish we were in that division. Anyways, everyone is making a big deal about Perez last night. One good start does not a comeback make, but it's on the way. Winter ball will tell us more, I think.

THIS JUST IN: Kip Wells is frustrating

Spin:

I'm just trying to get him to understand we want the hitter to make contact. The biggest thing with Kip is he tries to make too fine a pitch early in the count, then gets behind. If he gets ahead, his strike zone will expand. And, when that happens, he gets lots of soft grounders, soft fly balls.

Maybe the problem is that 95% of Pirates fans had diagnosed Kip with this problem sometime last year while it took Spin Williams until now while Kip kept floundering and getting progressively worse. The golden standard of what Kip Wells is capable of is his 3 hit 12 strikeout performance against Philly earlier this year, the problem is that for whatever reason he thinks he needs to strike out 12 guys every time he takes the mound. Maybe it's because he's afraid of what the bullpen will do with a tenuous lead, maybe it's because he's afraid of what Ty Wigginton will do at third base or what Craig Wilson will do in right field. Whatever the reason, there's something seriously wrong with Kip Wells right now.

After his 2003 season most of us were fairly sure that Kip was going to win 17 games in a year before he lost 17. In fact, if it wasn't for the bullpen pitching like they had a personal vendetta against Kip he would've won 17 or more in that year. He opened up 2004 with a dominating performance against the Phillies on opening day, leading us to a 2-1 win. By the end of the year his strikeout/walk ratio had dropped from almost 2-1 to 1.75-1. This year it's 1.38-1. It's a slippery slope, but it's a problem that's been obvious since last year. What I don't understand is why it took until we realized he was having a worse year than Jeff D'Amico did a couple years ago before we addressed it. One of the reasons I was so happy to see Lloyd gone is because I assumed it would mean Spin would be gone as well, for situations exactly like this one. I want to believe the 2003 Kip Wells can come back, but part of me says it might already be took late.

Dodgers 4 Pirates 3

So the bases are loaded with two outs in the sixth and you're down by a run. A big point in the game I'd say. Jose Mesa time is what Pete Mackanin would say. A four pitch walk later and the Dodgers are provided with enough runs to win, enough runs to render Jason Bay's monster 9th inning homer useless.

Also, Freddy Sanchez hit yet another home run and a bunch of guys with funny names pitched out of the pen for the Dodgers, including Steve Schmoll (whose last name starts with the rare four consonant combo) and Hong-Chih Kuou.

More things that could be worse than being a Pirates fan

Seriously, we've had an ugly year here in Pittsburgh as baseball fans. They played with our minds a little early on, then stomped on our hearts again. And yet, things could be a lot worse off. I mean, this is bad. Not only does Raffy fail a steroid test, lie about it repeatedly, now he throws a teammate under a bus. People called Giles and Kendall "cancers" but I'm pretty sure this defines the word. After he failed that test it seemed like there was a movement in the media that was going to still get him in the Hall of Fame (the "well Bonds is gonna get in so how can we not put Raffy in" sentiment). Now there's just things like this and this. This could be the ugliest ending to a career since... well, I'll just say ever.

Put this guy in the pile with Kent Tekulve

Dale Svuem's name is popping up as a possible candidate to manage next year. I don't really like that idea very much. He's currently the Boston Red Sox third base coach, and he's horrible at it. I don't know how many people read the Sports Guy on ESPN's Page 2 on a regular basis, but Svuem is possibly the single most vilified member of the Red Sox at the moment. My friend from Boston and I often argue over who's worse, John Russell or Svuem. Last year he sent David Ortiz from second base on a line drive single to left field. His reasoning? A rookie was at the plate and he "wanted to get the kid an RBI." He got someone else thrown out at the plate this year against Tampa (I think Ortiz again). His reason for that one? "I didn't know Rocco Baldelli had a good arm," (if I knew where the articles where these quotes came from were I'd link to them but I can't find them at the moment so you're just gonna have to go on my word here). So how can you be a third base coach and NOT know Rocco Baldelli has a good arm? And how can you expect a guy that handle the homework that coaching third base brings about to be a good major league manager?

UPDATE (3:59 PM)- Today the Sports Guys Daily Links include:

Dale Sveum is being considered for the Pirates' managerial spot (more importantly, I think this set the record for Most Consecutive Emails I Received Regarding a Link). Reminds me of the "Seinfeld" episode where Elaine keeps promoting an awful employee (army fatigues guy) rather than awkwardly fire him, ultimately leading to the rest of the employees angrily quitting. In other words, next season might have to be played with scab third-base coaches.

I'm pretty sure this is how everyone in Boston feels about this.

Things could be worse

I said before the Astros series started that it was going to be an important series, simply to find out how we would play against a good team playing for it's life down the stretch. We only won one game, but we seriously put up a hell of a good fight. Let's look at some numbers.

17 IP, 27 H, 9 ER, 4.76 ERA, 1.88 WHIP

Those are the numbers three of the top six pitchers in the major leagues this year put up against us in consecutive games. We only won one of those games, partly because of Tom Gorzelanny's major league debut, party because of Rick White, and mostly because Kip Wells is an enormous joke. But that's not the point, the point is that in games started by Clemens, Pettite, and Oswalt (in that order) we scored 7, 4, and 8 runs. Over the three games Freddy Sanchez had 8 hits in 15 at bats, continuing his "Please don't waste money on Bill Mueller in the offseason, please!" campaign and Jack Wilson had went 6-for-14 to continue his "I can hit, I really can, I swear" campaign.

These are all games the Astros really needed to win. Garner brought Lidge out in a 4 run game on Tuesday, then he brought him out with down down in the 8th yesterday. This isn't the Reds playing out the string like we are or the already clinched Cardinals who could care less about us now that Lloyd's gone. This was the Astros, a team that entered this series with a 1.5 game lead in the wild card race gunning at us with the best top three in the NL (yes, even better than Duke/Maholm/Snell, at least for now). And we hit. Including the above guys, Craig Wilson went 5-for-12 in the series with a homer, Brad Eldred hit 2 massive bombs, Jason Bay clicked along like his usual self, and Doumit had a big game against Pettite.

I know it's a small sample size, but end of the year stats aren't exactly perfect either (Tike Redman in 2003 anybody?). My point is only that against Clemens, Oswalt, and Pettite we really brought some lumber at a time when they were gunning at us with their best stuff (with the possible exception of the grieving Clemens), which is more encouraging to see than racking up a bunch of runs against the Reds. The Astros noticed too, as evidenced by our almost comeback on Wednesday.

"These guys are unbelievable. They fight you right down to the end," said Berkman, who had five RBI, including his 20th homer. "They've played us real tough this year. Every time we come in here I say, 'How in the world are these guys in last place?"

and

"They're not playing for anything, but they still give 100 percent," Oswalt said. "They battled. These guys just play one at-bat at a time. I think they're going to have a good team in the coming years."

Like I said the other day, no one opens the season hoping to play spoiler in September, but some times things like this are the only things worth looking forward too at the end of a season like this one.

Astros 2 Pirates 1

After three days of Oswalt, Pettite, and Clemens the Astros pitcher that shut us down the most was Brandon freaking Backe who held us to 2 hits and one run over 7 innings. One of those hits was a Craig Wilson homer, which kept us in things. Brad Lidge came in in the 8th (that's how important these games were to the 'Stros) and overcame his Jack Wilson problem, getting him to ground out with the tying run on second, then pitching a scoreless ninth. Duke pitched well but got the Roger Clemens treatment in taking his second loss ever. I have things to say about the first three games of the series, but I need some time to put together the thoughts.

Also, someone needs to tell Pete Mackanin that batting Rob Mackowiak fourth is a poor decision. And that Brad Eldred guy should be starting. All the time.

Get-away day

We finally face off against a pitcher in the Astros rotation that isn't one of the best starters in the NL (who misses Ezequiel Astacio and Wandy Rodriguez?) and we counter with Duke. The game's on ESPN and it's flying by. I'll have more up later about our performances against the three aces, but that's gonna come after my test tonight.

Astros 12 Pirates 8

How to make a somewhat promising situation into a 5 run deficit in 5 easy steps:

1. Insert Ty Wigginton to pinch hit for Rob Mackowiak
2. Watch Wigginton strike out on three pitches without taking a full swing.
3. Insert Rick White into the game.
4. Watch balls get blasted around the park.
5. Watch Ty Wigginton field a sharply hit grounder with runners on first and third and throw to an unassuming Ryan Doumit at home plate who (along with myself, Bob Walk, and every other semi-intelligent human watching the game) was expeting Wigginton to go to second on what should've been a taylor made inning ending double play only to have the ball end up at the backstop and the base paths turn into a carousel.
   

On the bright side (if you can call it that) that sequence of events lead to Ezequiel Astacio on the mound in the 9th instead of Brad Lidge. That in turn lead to Brad Eldred's mammoth 400 foot bomb to the second level of bleachers (which would've made it 10-8 except for the sequence of events described above). Of course I'd trade a 400+ foot homer for a chance at completeing an 8 run comeback against the Wild Card leaders with Lidge on the mound (who we've owned this year), but that's just me. For those counting, Doumit also hit a massive homer tonight. Big, long home runs are always more exciting than winning, right?

Let's see, another key point of the night would have to be the sacrifice bunt by Jack Wilson with Freddy Sanchez on second WHILE WE WERE DOWN BY EIGHT RUNS. I'll go ahead and assume Jack didn't call for that himself. Jack's only the hottest hitter on the team right now, it made perfect sense to take the bat out of his hands when you need eight to catch up (Bay doubled in Sanchez anyways, good thing he was on third). And of course I'd like to thank Kip Wells for that snowman being on the board in the THIRD INNING. Kip's 7-17 now. Thanks for stopping by this season, though it would've been nice if you brought some effort with you.

Will it never end?

Not only do we draw Oswalt in succession after Pettite and Clemens, but Kip has us in an 8-0 hole after 2 innings tonight, and Mac(k) is apparently not yanking him. He's either:

a) alseep
b) stupid
c) Mad at Kip for thinking happy thoughts when Lloyd got fired
d) saving the bullpen for that big weekend series with LA... oh wait, there's no bullpen left to save, that probably explains things

UPDATE: Nevermind, Kip only went 1/3 of an inning after giving up the 8th run, now it's VOGELSONG TIME. Which means we needed a choice e) didn't expect Kip to melt down so quickly and thusly didn't have anyone ready. Mackanin's got a lot to learn, specifically to ALWAYS have someone ready for the Kip Wells meltdown, especially after he gives four up in the first.

Even more on that Bay extension

Looks like we were all a bit premature to declare contract negotiations "open" between the Pirates and Jason Bay. I say that because I would think actual numbers would have to be involved in a negotiation. Instead, I'd imagine things went something like this.

Dave Littlefield: I'd like to sign your client long term. He's good.

Joe Urbon: It's gonna cost you.

DL: How much?

Urbon: A lot.

DL: Damn. I'll call you back. And that's where we are at this point.

We want to sign Bay and his agent is going to listen because he doesn't have a choice. And we'll go from there. Not quite negotiations.

Also in the notebook, MLB turned down McClatchy's request to establish the Indians and Pirates as "long-term rivals" like the Yankees and Mets or White Sox and Cubs. Of course it makes perfect sense because of that whole hatred that simmers between the two cities and the large crowds both teams draw in the other and that little football rivalry we have. Bud Selig decided that Cleveland and Cincy are much better "long-term rivals." What a joke.

Q&A Wednesdays

Today's Q&A deals with distributing credit for the young talent that's just now arrived (mostly to point out that Cam Bonifay's scouting director Mickey White deserves some credit). There's also a question from the only person in Pittsburgh not happy to see Jason Bay offered an extension, Perez, Burnett, Bullington, Pete Mackanin treating Maholm and Ian Snell like they're made of glass, a farewell to Bobby Hill, and a question about JJ Furmaniak's number, which elicits one of my favorite Dejan answers of the year (if only because it's specifically for people like me who complained at the beginning of the year about Dejan's love for hockey analogies).

Q: Call-up infielder J.J. Furmaniak is wearing No. 66, not a fact missed in your Pirates notebook by your longtime readers.

What are you implying here?

He wouldn't be Canadian?

Maybe Jason Bay should wear that number. He's done everything asked and more since coming aboard, short of becoming an owner.

Randy Duncan of Meadow Lands

KOVACEVIC: That Furmaniak has some nerve wearing Alan Faneca's number in this town.

Anyways, things close up with with Dejan asking for a new name for the "North Side Notches" part of the daily notebook and a puzzlement over where the Pete Mackanin letters are. I have a suggestion, to write a letter about Mackanin is to suggest that the writer condones him being in charge of the team past this year (why ask a question a guy you KNOW won't be back?) and NO ONE wants to even entertain anything close to that kind of idea, thus we're just not asking.

Astros 7 Pirates 4

Against my better judgement I went down tonight to watch Gorzelanny's debut and I have to say, he wasn't bad. He threw a ton of pitches and had some control trouble, but hit 94 on the gun at times and handled himself quite well, I thought, for a rookie starting against a team in a pennant race in late September. Brad Eldred bashed a home run off of Andy Pettite tonight that looked like it went almost to the steps and eslators right past Willie Stargell's gate (I'm not kidding). All things told, we didn't really play too badly tonight and if a couple balls dropped in and we didn't have Rick White we might've been able to pull this one out. Pettite pitched pretty well though he only went 5 and 1/3 (on 100 pitches) but he held our own (not quite like we did against the Rocket, but still). Craig Wilson also had a good night and hit a couple hard doubles. Matt Capps also made his second appearence and made everyone in the park smile when he gave Rick White a taste of his own medicine by letting one of his inherited runners score. All in all it wasn't a bad game, but it's simply not easy to win when you give up 4 RBIs to Brad Ausmus.

Bay+contract=lots of happy people

More on that proposed Bay extension here, in today's PG Notebook. And Charlie has his thoughts on it at his blog. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say "Get this done now and get this done right, Dave."

More rumors

Today the PG has more managerial rumors. This one is probably the most unnecessary of them all, as Kent Tekulve has thrown his squarish, horiztonally striped, star covered hat into the ring. I love Teke, as I think all Pirates fans have to. With that being said, if he's managing the Pirates next year I think both McClatchy and Littlefield should be committed (I suppose it's up for debate whether they already should be, but that's besides the point). As usual, Littlefield was non-committal (though it doesn't say anything about him stifling back a laugh):

"I'll give him a call back to talk to him, which I would do for anybody," Littlefield said. "My position is, I do understand people will show interest in this job, but really we're focusing on the rest of the season right now."

The Stats Geek and the Phenoms

The Stats Geek takes time today to break down the amazing phenomenon that has been "Zach Paul" as he calls in. In fact, if the two of them were one pitcher, they'd be the best pitcher in the bigs since the second half began (statswise). Maybe it's relative as compared to the rest of our rotation which has been an pathetic, putrid, pitiful 7-27 since the second half began, with an ERA of FIVE POINT NINE EIGHT. That's so bad I felt like I had to type the words out for emphasis. It's not all brilliant stuff though, opponents are hitting almost .250 against Duke and Maholm has a pretty ugly looking 19/12 strikeout/walk ratio. The Stats Geek asks himself what all of us want to know:

Can it last? If Maholm keeps throwing ground balls (his ground ball/fly ball ratio is 2.30 compared to a league ratio of 1.63) and Duke continues to do nearly everything right, they can be good pitchers for a long time.

But this? No, this is special. This just doesn't happen very often. Enjoy it while it lasts and hope the Pirates can build on it in 2006.

This leads me to what's kind of been my problem all year with the team. In order for us to win, we need to be a good pitching team. Sure, we haven't hit well for a large part of this season, but our pitching has been unacceptable. We have the arms, but for some reason we don't do it. Pitchers seem to get worse the longer they pitch for us. That is currently highlighted by the two guys that were supposed to be our dual aces this year, Kip Wells and Oliver Perez, two guys that have both been AWFUL this year. Maybe a new leaf in the coaching is needed and whoever our next pitching coach will be can provide that (assuming whoever DL hires as manager won't be named Mackanin and will want to bring in his own staff). Whatever it is, we need Snell, Duke, and Maholm to be good. We don't need them to be as good as they've been (including Snell's start last night) because frankly that's impossible. We do need them to progress as pitchers because that's the only way this team is going to win.

But is it too much to hope for a little magic from Gorzelanny against Pettite tonight?

Keep the good news coming

And this can only be good news.

Pirates 7 Astros 0

Wow, there's so much good to say about tonight's game I'm not sure where to start. I'm gonna go with Ian Snell. After 3 uninspired starts this year he took the ball against the most intimidating pitcher in baseball today, the Rocket himself, Roger Clemens. Nevermind the fact that Snell came into the night with 0 career wins (to the Rocket's 340), Snell as a young power pitcher probably grew up dreaming of being Roger Clemens. Tonight he went out and beat him. He dominated the Astros over 8 shutout innings, allowing only three hits while striking out five. I would say it was the same old story for Clemens tonight, no runs to backup a good outing, except that Clemens didn't have a good outing. Freddy Sanchez racked up three extra-base hits (all off Clemens) including his third homer of the year. Jack Wilson chipped in three more hits (again, all off Clemens) as we rolled up 6 runs (4 earned) off of Rocket Roger in 5 and 2/3rds of an inning. If there was any steam left in the "Clemens for Cy Young" campaign I think we derailed it tonight (and man does it feel good). At the moment I can't think of anything that would make me happier than taking three out of four from the 'Stros this week.

On the other hand, despite our recent hot streak (especially with our bats) the wire report (via ESPN.com) couldn't resist taking a pot-shot at us.

Not many, if any, of Clemens' 172 career losses have come against a lineup that appeared to be less intimidating. The Pirates started four rookies and two second-year players against one of baseball's premier pitchers ever, yet had Clemens out of the game in the sixth.

Come on, how necessary was that?

An ethical decision

Ironically enough, tonight I had to debate between going to my ethics class and going to see what could be Roger Clemens' only appearence in Pittsburgh in my lifetime. Since the class is 3 hours long and only once a week and no one else wanted to go to a baseball game tonight, I chose class over Clemens. That choice may or may not haunt me for the rest of my life, but I'm thinking the Rocket has at least one more year in him. So much to my surprise I come back from class to see a 2-0 Pirates lead against the Rocket. In fact it's a three-nothing lead (Tike just singled in Freddy).

I was going to write earlier today about how this was possibly (4-0, Jack singles in Tike on his third hit of the night) the most important series we've played since we went in the tank against the Yankees and the Sox (and everyone else for the rest of June). This four game series is the best shot our young team has at playing spoiler. Houston is locked in a tight battle and in these four games we're going to see Clemens, Pettite, and Oswalt. Yeah, we played the Phils and the Mets in August, but August and September are not the same. The Astros probably can't even afford two losses to us at this point in the year in this tight a race (6-0, Mackowiak doubles in Bay and JWilson, Clemens is yanked) and if our 2006 Pirates can deal them 2 losses that's going to say a lot about this team, no matter how small the sample size is. Sure, no one starts out the year wanting to be a spoiler in September, but at this point in the season we're going to learn a lot about these guys if they do.

Roundup time

The Pirates Notebook in the PG today has more on the enigma that is Matt Capps. The reason I've probably never heard of him before his call-up is because he was in the Sally League until August 1st. That's quite a meteoric rise, from low-level A ball to the majors in about six weeks. Anyways, I'd say keep an eye on Capps to fill the closers role, maybe not to start next year off but definitely by 2007 or even late 2006. The organization seems to be hesistant to put Gonzalez in that role, probably because he's a lefty and you just don't see that many left handed closers. Just a hunch (one that I had after watching him pitch Friday, before the article brought up that possibility).

Also in the PG today is another article full of great Pete Mackanin quotes.

"I'd like to see him get it straightened out," Mackanin said. "For me, he's got too much flair instead of the consistent arm release point and arm slot. He's got to get back to basics. Spin corrected that problem last year, and I think that was the key to his success.

"Then he kind of got away from that because he had that success. I think he started to get a little more flamboyant and that got him out of what brought him success.

"[Perez] started dipsy-doodling the ball instead of just doing what's boring -- making good pitches."

Wow. All I'm gonna say is that I really hope Mackanin doesn't see him straightened out because that's gonna mean that he's here longer than the next two weeks. My favorite part of the article was this quote here:

"When we scored that six-spot, knowing that Ollie didn't look real sharp, I looked at Spin and said, 'It looks like it's going to be one of those games,' " Mackanin said. "Spin thought it would be, 11-8. It was a little different, but it was one of those games."

Now THERE's a confidence builder. Yep, you hit a 2-run single to key a six run first inning only to come back to the dugout and hear your manager and pitching coach talking about how they'll probably need 11 runs to win today. If I'm GM those two are both fired on the spot, if not for saying it than for being stupid enough to repeat it to the media, you know, just to make sure Perez heard it. Sheesh

Pirates 9 Reds 7

That one started off with just about what you'd expect from Eric Milton and Oliver Perez, a three run homer in the first from Jason LaRue, a bunch of walks and singles (culminating in a two-run single and a STOLEN BASE from Ollie himself) against Milton (who went 2/3s of an inning giving up 6 runs) followed by Ollie giving all of the runs back. We also got to see the Major League debut of Brian Bullington. He came into the game in a tight spot with the bases loaded and two outs in the third with us up 6-5 and the top of the Reds order up, getting a ground out from Ryan Freel to end the threat. He then came out and gave up 2 runs in the next inning to put us behind 7-6. Luckily it was Freddy and Jack to the rescue in the 8th as Freddy tripled in Wigginton, then Jack singled in Freddy and scored later on an Eldred single.

I also have to say, I like the way the closer by comittee has been working. Mike Gonzalez came in in the 8th and set the Reds down, then pitched a 9th to finish the game off. If Gonzo was the "closer" he couldn't come into the game in the 8th, leaving the door open for Rick White or someone else to blow things open beyond the realm of a comeback. This way Gonzo got to keep things close in the 8th, then finish things off in the 9th.

Amazingly enough after our shelling in game one of the double-header we won THREE IN A ROW to take three of four from the Reds and actually win a series. Of course we were 3-9 against the Reds before those three wins with our fate as the only 6th place team in the league already sealed. On the plus side, we're now only 2 wins away from avoiding a 100 loss season. I'd say the 9-4 finish necessary to get to 70 wins is probably out of the question, though.

It's probably better that you just stay away...

Mark Redman, Jody Gerut, and Dave Williams are all eyeing returns before for the season ends, but the Pirates aren't so sure about that says Dejan in today's notebook. That's probably a good thing. Mark Redman brings nothing but losses in starts where we could be watching Bullington, Snell, or Gorzelanny. Jody Gerut probably won't do anything but take at-bats away from Nate McLouth and Craig Wilson, two people who are better than him and need ABs at this point in the year (McLouth because he's a rookie, Craig Wilson because he's missed so much time). As for Dave Williams, it's similar to Redman, I'd rather watch the rookies pitch in his place. Mackanin continues his mastery of the obvious (maybe continues is a bad word, I wonder about that guy):

Interim manager Pete Mackanin said the Pirates would prefer to use the remaining schedule to look at newcomers because, especially with Williams and Redman, they are aware of what they can do.

Yes Mac(k), we all know what Mark Redman can do. That's for sure. The notebook then goes on to reveal that the Bucs are going with a 5-man rotation the rest of the way out, Wells, Duke, Maholm, Perez, Snell. Gorzelanny will make a spot-start on Tuesday to even things out from the double-header, then he will join Bullington in the pen for the rest of the year. I suppose that's understandable, especially if they take innings away from Mesa in the pen.

That Maholm guy

Buster Olney opens up his ESPN blog today with more on Paul Maholm than I've read from anyone in Pittsburgh (insider only, sorry). The main point of the article is that he made his first career start not really even knowing if he had a house that was still standing (his house being a couple miles from the coast in Gulfport). Since he had just about anything but baseball to think about he didn't worry a whole lot about the Milwaukee Brewers before his first start and he got word before the game that his wife's family was OK and the house Paul and his wife had just bought were OK, with only some minor damages. Olney then talks about the other Maholm struggles we've heard more about, the liner off his face, and his mom's recent and losing struggle with colon cancer. He's still got his head screwed on pretty well, too as Olney closes with this:

The Maholms had already bought another home in Bradenton, Fla., where the Pirates have spring training, and they figure that this fall, some family or friends will be sharing their home in Gulfport. Then they will sell the place. "With a lot of people needing a house," he said, "it's kind of ridiculous for me to have a house just sitting there, unoccupied. Someone else should have it."

Meanwhile, Dejan reports that Mackanin is still talking out of his ass after Maholm's good outing last night: "When you see a performance like that, you want it to make an impression on Oliver Perez in our next game. On our whole staff," Mackanin said. "If I was a pitcher, it would make an impression on me." Maholm has the only two wins and only three outings of seven innings plus by the entire starting staff since his call-up. Mac(k) weighs in again:

"To me, that's pitching," Mackanin said. "You don't just pound the fastball. You hit the corners. You're in and out. You change speeds. ... I just can't say enough. He dominated the whole game."

Sheesh, Mac(k) is really hard on Perez, who I'd assume that statement about the fastballs was directed. Jerry Narron also gushes:

"I've heard the past couple of years how good the pitchers are in their organization," Cincinnati manager Jerry Narron said. "Let me tell you: Maholm and Duke are definitely big-league."

The article also mentions our left fielder, who's having an OK second season:

"My goals have changed throughout the season," Bay said. "A month ago, I was shooting for 25 homers. To get 30 in my second year is something I'll never forget. Same with the RBIs. I thought 80 would have been good at one point. You've got to keep adjusting."

These are the things that keep me watching at the end of a year like this.

Pirates 4 Reds 0- Well, that was quick

Freddy Sanchez lead off tonight with a homer. That was all Paul Maholm needed as he went 8 scoreless allowing only 4 hits (and four walks) while striking out 8, including a stretch where he set down Aureilla, Dunn, and Kearns down on strikes with only 11 pitches in one inning. The whole game only took about 2 and 1/2 hours. I suppose he's officially challenging Duke for the Alpha-lefty rookie status on the team for next year's rotation. Whatever the case, with four solid outings to begin his career, I think we can safely pencil him in under Duke for next year's rotation.

Sanchez's leadoff homer was all we needed, but it wasn't all we got. In fact just two batters later Jason Bay sent #30 out of the park and picked up another RBI later in the night to put him just 11 shy of 100. Jack Wilson knocked our final run in with a sac fly and picked up another hit to put him almost to .260 on the year. The win brings our season total to 60, only three shy of the 63 needed to avoid 100 losses. I would safely say that 100 losses will be averted, but if I've learned one thing this year it's that it's a mistake to assume ANYTHING with this team.

The final word on the callups

Yesterday I posted about our callups and how room needed to be made on the 40-man for Gorzelanny, Capps, and Bullington. The PG notebook today reports that we released Corey Stewart (the other guy that came to us along with Perez and Bay, if my memory serves me correctly he was supposed to be the best player in the deal... he clearly wasn't even close) DFA'd Ray Sadler (who really should have never, ever been put on the 40-man to begin with when we called him up this May), and put Chris Duffy on the 60-day DL. I don't see any big deal here, Stewart's been pretty lousy in the minors since we got him and Ray Sadler' isn't really anything special either. The Notebook also has more about the call-ups, especially Capps (which is good because I knew nothing at all about the kid).

Charlie has a bit of an alternative (but not necessarily different) view at the Bucs Dugout.

Pirates 5 Reds 4

Like I previously said, we abandoned this one once the rain started to fall and we decided that we'd already seen Duke and everyone had had enough of Kip Wells on the year. I turned the game off when we fell behind 4-1 in the third, deciding I'd had enough of depressing baseball for the night. The Pirates thusly responded with a 3 runs in the final 2 innings rally to pull out a 5-4 win (for their only lead on the marathon night). The highlight of the night (besides the walk-off win) was Jack Wilson pulling his average all the way up to .257 with his 6-for-8 night (matching the Reds Felipe Lopez who started 6-for-6 before we actually got him out a couple times). Unlike the first game, the bullpen held the line (mostly because Mac(k) held most of our better relievers for the second game, seriously, how do you take a close game and throw Meadows, White and Mesa out there with Gonzalez and Torres on the bench?) with four scoreless innings from Vogelsong, Grabow, and Torres (who got the win).

And oh yeah, it was All-Star hat night. You all know how I feel about that. "OK, the category is 'Words that describe the 2006 All-Star logo. The top 6 answers are on the board. Mr. Montgomery, you go first. 'Ugly?' Do we have ugly? Survey says--- UGLY!!! NUMBER ONE ANSWER!!!"

A bit off topic

In other somewhat baseball related news, how awesome is this?

Reds 8 Pirates 2

We headed down to the game to see Duke tonight and took off during game 2 of the double header once the rain started coming down, figuring that with Kip Wells and Ramon Ortiz on the mound this game might not be over till 1 AM. The way things are looking I think we made a good choice. Anyways, on to game 1.

First off, the plight of the Pirates currently can be summed up thusly,

"He threw 74 pitches and hadn't pitched in a while, so we just decided to be careful with it," Pirates interim manager Pete Mackanin said. "Not that I wanted to, because we need pitchers to go late in the game. I thought he was pretty good. He had more pitches early than he probably wanted, but he looked very good for a guy who hasn't pitched in three weeks."

So let me get this straight, you put the kid on the mound, he looks rusty early, he's got the rust off by the fourth inning, AND YOU YANK HIM AFTER 74 PITCHES? I'm not sure I see anything reasonable at all about that, espcially since he wasn't due up in the order, he wasn't actually on a pitch count, he was just finding a groove, our bullpen is incredibly overwork, and it was only 2-0. Anyways, it was on to Meadows, White, call-up Matt Capps (who was decent in his big league debut), Josh Fogg, and Jose Mesa. Yes, Jose Mesa, who gave up a three run bomb to Austin Kearns to destroy all hope. Felipe Lopez had 5 hits for the Reds, yadda yadda yadda. Sean Casey also took a forearm to the head from Humberto Cota on a tag play at first base and had to be removed with head and neck injuries. Oh, and the lady who served me my Primanti's sandwich had in the biggest chew EVER, complete with a Pepsi bottle spitter right by the drink dispenser, mm mm good. Batista also played right after his call-up, but didn't really do anything of note (he's playing in game 2 tonight as well). Just an overall pretty dreary night at the park.

DUKE!!!

Tonight marks the return of Zach Duke, or the only thing that could get me to the ballpark on a Friday at this point in the year. Well, that and two games for the price of one. But mostly I'm gonna take another shot and Zach Duke in action and hope it doesn't end as bittersweetly as the last time.

Callup time

With Indy's loss last night (and the resulting sweep in the IL finals) it's September callup time here in mid-September. So who got the call? Bullington and Gorzelanny (no surprise there) along with Jose Bautista, Ronnie Paulino, and Matt Capps. Since Bullington, Gorzelanny, and Capps aren't on the 40-man some moves will be coming. Mark Redman will probably be moved to the 60-day DL since he's done for the year. The same could probably be done with Duffy. I'd guess it's going to be more of a shuffling of the disabled lists rather than releasing anyone. Though we can all hold out hope for Ty and Tike to be gone until an official announcement is made.

More on the manager situation

The PG has more today on what I'm sure will be the only thing they really focus on from here on out with the Pirates now that it's football season, the open manager's position. Actually today, Lloyd speaks! He doesn't talk much about his time with the Pirates except to say,

"There's not much I could have done different. I showed up every day and gave all I had. I think we got better, but this year -- because of extenuating circumstances -- we took a step backward."

The extenuating circumstances being the "rash of injuries" suffered by the team this year. I would argue that if injuries made our circumstances "extenuating" then I don't even want to know what to call what happened to the Cardinals this year but I think I'll just let it go. The rest of the article just goes on to say that McClendon is at home watching his son play baseball in his first baseball free September in 25 years and he's hoping to get a phone call from someone to do something baseball related next year.

There's also an article in the PG that brings yet another name into the ring, Jim Tracy. Right when Mac got canned a friend and I were talking about other managers who might not be back next year and Tracy's name came right up. He apparently has an out clause in his contract after this year and he interviewed very well with Bonifay and McClatchy back in 2001. Knowing that DePodesta (Beane's former right hand man) is the Dodgers' GM it's entirely possible that he's going to want his own guy managing that team in LA, espeically after a year in which they badly underperformed. Tracy's quote in the article is non-committal in either way,

"We still have games to play in 2005. That picture will clarify itself down the road. But it's very, very important for everybody to keep their attention on what we're doing right now. It's not the time to talk about 2006 and beyond. Shame on me if I do that."

To me, that sounds like a guy who's thinking of "down the road" already. For those keeping track, he was the bench coach on Felipe Alou's Expo teams which featured a young assistant GM named... Dave Littlefield. Tracy may indeed be have his hat in the ring by season's end.

The pen

This is a pretty nice piece about the solid work our pen gave us yesterday, especially Mike Gonzalez and Josh Fogg. It sounds like Gonzalez might be one of those guys that amps his performance up in the ninth inning, knowing the game is on the line. It also talks about the big barrier Eldred overcame yesterday, hitting both a slider and a low-fastball over the fence after hitting his first seven mostly on belt high fastballs.

More on the ejection

Today's PG tries to shed a little light on the Perez ejection situation. Home plate umpire Eric Cooper was informed before our recent series with the Cardinals started to look out for funny business between the two tems. They apparently failed to tell him to use common sense. When Luna hit Perez yesterday it was just too much for Cooper to bear,

"I was certain that, given the variables involved, with the pitcher hitting behind Luna, Perez was throwing at him intentionally," Cooper told a pool reporter.

It was the second time in the series Luna had been beaned, the first time by Mark Redman. You know, that guy who's had so much control trouble lately he doesn't even have two strikes outs for every walk and even if he wanted to probably couldn't break a window with his fastball. Let's not even talk about Perez who couldn't throw a ball where he wanted if his life was on the line right now. And then there's the bullpen, which has been mightily overworked lately, so it makes perfect sense we would want to risk getting our starter tossed in the second inning. Have I even mentioned that the person that's at least 50% of the source of this feud (with LaRussa being the other half) was fired last week? There was simply no way Perez was throwing at Luna. Unless you ask LaRussa,

"Whether it's accident or whatever, I thought it was a good call," La Russa said. "It just looks so bad. You don't need to read intent."

What did Luna have to say?

Luna, who speaks halting English, said only that he was "surprised" Perez was ejected, especially because he was hit on the leg.

Don't forget we were beaned three times in the series without incident, with Craig Wilson taking two of them. I guess when you're almost 30 games below .500 playing the team with the best record in baseball managed by one of the smuggest, most self-righteous SOBs this side of Curt Schilling you shouldn't expect much respect. But that still doesn't make it right.

10,000 hits

Wow, this blog's 10,000th hit came at 9:20 tonight from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland (so thanks to either Matt or Brad probably). I've gotta be honest, I had no idea what to expect when I started this thing in April but I never imagined 10,000 hits over the summer. Thanks to everyone that's taken the time to read, but thanks especially to everyone that's taken the time to comment. Interacting with so many different Pirate fans and their opinions quickly became one of my favorite parts of this. Hopefully by the time the next 10,000 turns over on my Site Meter there will be happier things to blog about than the first 10,000 brought. Thanks again, without readers this blog would not exist.

Pirates 5 Cardinals 3

Just saw the "highlights" of today's game on SportsCenter. Apparently all SC saw fit to show was highlights of the "feud" over the past couple weeks, followed by Perez beaing Hector Luna in the ankle, you know, just where you aim when you want to hit someone, followed by him throwing his head back in a good impersonation of the Peyton Manning face, as if to say "I can't believe this, I really have no idea where the ball is going," only to then get tossed. Bottom line, it was clearly accidental. There's no way any rational manager would take umbrage at Oliver Perez in his current state beaning anyone. The emphasis is of course on the word rational. Sometimes Tony LaRussa is just way to egotistical to be rational. Someday if we're ever actually competitive again we could have a fun little rivalry with the Cardinals, what with the hatred and the beanings and the Tony LaRussa despising us for some unknown reason.

OK, there was actually a game today and we actually won it. How did we accomplish said feat? With a little help from Mr. Brad Eldred who had his first ever multiple homer game in the bigs. It's a good thing we almost benched him for Daryle Ward for the rest of the season. For a guy that's supposed to be a slow adjuster he's got 9 homers in about 135 at-bats to this point in his first stint in the bigs, which is way more than just about anyone expected from him in the twilight of this season. That Jason Bay guy also went yard and had an RBI double bringing him within 15 of his quest for 100. Oh, and Tike had an RBI too, but no one really cares about him anymore.

The bullpen was solid today (as it had to be) with one key exception. John Grabow came on and walked two guys, then was removed for JOSE MESA. Yep, in a three run game we brought Jose Mesa in with two on and no outs. Both runs scored, of course, and we had to hold on for dear life while Salomon and Gonzo nailed things down. I like seeing Mike Gonzalez back to his old un-hittable self. That guy is fun to watch. I also like the fact that the Cards didn't clinch on us. It's the small victories we can all savor for here on out

A day game

Turns out today is another of those crazy day games that I always forget happen in the middle of the week and then miss most of due to class. The good news thus far, Ollie gave up no runs, Bay and Eldred both homered and Bay has another RBI. The bad news is that Ollie gave up no runs because he beaned Hector Luna in the second inning and got tossed. I haven't seen the tape, but I'm gonna have to question that call. Perez has just about no control whatsoever right now and it's quite possible that the source of the feud between the two teams was canned 8 days ago. From that write-up above it doesn't appear there was any kind of warning issued prior to the game and Perez wasn't even in Pittsburgh for the pre-game brawl/scuffle thingy. Plus we've all been good boys for two whole days now, right? I smell bullshit. Anyways, Vogelsong came in with 2 and 1/3 of decent relief followed by Josh Fogg's second relief outing in as many days after almost 4 years of none. We're still up 3-1, but a Cards win coupled with an Astros loss means it's clinching time for the Cards, so don't look for them to roll over just yet.

Q&A Time

The focus of today's Q&A with Dejan is, unsurprisingly, Jim Leyland. Some people agree with me, some people wonder why he isn't hired yet. Dejan gives his early handicapping of the candidates with the qualifier that Littlefield has made no indication who he's leaning towards and that Littlefield doesn't strike him as the type that will hire someone purely on the fact that they'll be a good PR move (which makes up pretty much all of Paul Meyer and Buster Olney's arguments for Leyland). Anyways, I tend to agree with Dejan's statement here:

Now, if you seek plain old guesswork, I would lean toward the Macha-Howe type. The most obvious reason is that they fit the criteria of having major-league experience. Kevin McClatchy, during his round of interviews the other day mentioned several times that he wanted someone with experience and, although he insists he will have nothing to do with the hiring process, his input surely counts. The other reason is that both Macha and Howe worked for Oakland's Billy Beane, who has a reputation for keeping a tight rein on all situations in the organization, including those that involve the manager. Littlefield is similar in that regard. Having someone as candid as Leyland, for instance, might not dovetail with the way he prefers to do business.

I would also add that they both have a good track record with young players, especially in Oakland. I would also caution to keep an eye open for someone that Littlefield has prior experience with, namely Jerry Manuel. The rest of the Q&A sees reader comments on Leyland and the hiring process and a bunch of stupid ryhmes trying to come up with a Duke/Maholm version of Spahn and Sain. Of course most of the entires ignore the format of the original poem, that there was more than just "Spahn and Sain and two days of rain." Still, there's some humorous stuff there.

Cards 5 Pirates 4

I mostly cared about Snell tonight above everything else, though Furmaniak making his debut was an interesting byline (mostly as I thought he was traded for to win Indy an IL title, but Littlefield showed cynical old me, now didn't he). Anyways, Jack was out with a sore back again and Furmaniak came up to play second. Snell was... interesting. He threw hard most of the time and apparently has a knack for charity (tonight FSN was giving money to hurricane relief for every homer hit). Unfortunately the hitters tonight knew his weakness was his offspeed stuff (Molina whacked a hanging something about a mile and a half) and just waited on it. Still, he had 6 Ks in four innings and seemed to settle down after the early homers. Hopefully he gets a couple more starts before the season ends.

I was pleasantly surprised to see us not roll over and die with Carpenter on the mound. Doumit's homer kind of got the ball rolling and the rally in the 7th was night. We might also be able to declare Mike Gonzalez "back" after his performance on Sunday and tonight. He took six pitches to strike out the first two batters in the 8th and only 14 to K the entire side. Unfortunately, Rick White is still in the pen. Actually, the two hardest hit balls he gave up tonight turned into outs. He then gave up a seeing eye single, an intentional walk (after a stolen base) and a little flare from Eckstein to bring in the winning run. It would've been great to see a win, but being numb to all of the losing at this point at least we can say they tried against the best pitcher in the NL tonight.

Snell and Carpenter

I'm really curious to get a look at Snell in the big leagues when he knows he's a starter and doesn't have to worry about impressing from the pen to earn a start. He's actually a rare commodity in our current preponderance of lefties, a powerful righty. He's had two starts this year for us and the line on both is pretty bad, but I think it's at least a bit misleading. The first start came in a DH against the Astros when we were getting blown out night after night in the week+ following the All-Star break. His 5 runs in 5 innings was actually one of the better starts by someone not named Duke during that stretch. His second start against LA (which I missed while on vacation) fetched quite an ugly line, but I was told that he threw consistently in the upper 90s (not mid-90s, but upper 90s, as in 95+) and LA couldn't get a solid hit off of him, but everything they did hit either had eyes or was misplayed by us, leading to his 6 earned in 2 innings line from that day. The fact is, if he can pitch well down the stretch he'd certainly be a great addition in the rotation to mix things up with guys like Maholm and Duke.

Of course tonight he's going up against quite the opposition. I don't care what Jayson Stark says, Carpenter has been absolutely dominating this year and should be the run away Cy Young winner. He's owned us this year and hasn't lost to anyone since June 8th. Hell, he hasn't even had a no decision since August 19th. Since the Cardinals threw us their dummy lineup last night, I'd look for the big bats to greet Snell tonight. Hopefully management has already planned to give him another start no matter what happens tonight, because tonight might not be pretty.

Leyland

According to Paul Meyer, Jim Leyland has made his desire to manage the Pirates known, if that's what you take out of this quote from Jim:

Whoever ends up getting the Pirate job will be walking into a pretty good situation. They have a combination of the best young pitchers and players they've had in years. And the farm system probably has a few more. They have something to work with.

Meyer then tosses in some anonymous quotes from "National League executives" and "high-ranking officials,"

They're not that far away. They have some makings.

And,

I feel that the best-case scenario would be for Leyland to manage the club. He lives there. He's very popular there.

The actual quote from Leyland about the job was, of course, almost completely non-committal.

I've made it clear that I'd like to manage again -- in the right situation. Other than that, I have nothing to say. There's nothing else to say at this juncture.

So let's talk for a minute about the "right situation" for Jim Leyland to manage again. It wasn't the right situation in Pittsburgh in 1996 when the team was full of young players. It wasn't the right situation in Florida in 1998 when the ownership dumped their high priced talent and began was turned out to be a successful rebuilding effort (bringing them another World Series in only five years). It wasn't the right situation in Colorado in 1999, another team full of young players and veterans going nowhere. So what would make Pittsburgh in 2006 the right situation? Since 1992 Jim Leyland's had one winning season, a season where his team was so incredibly talented it would've been a crime for them to NOT win the World Series (and yet they didn't even win their division and if it wasn't for Jose Mesa they almost certainly wouldn't have won that World Series). You can say what you want about the talent and the committment to winning on those teams he bailed on, but you can say those same things about the 2006 Pittsburgh Pirates. Just because he lives around here and the fans love him doesn't make him the right choice for the Pirates.

The Stats Geek

The Stats Geek takes a look at Mac(k)'s first week as manager and compares it to Mac. He notes the on-fire Punch and Judy combo at the top of the lineup, the fact that Jose Mesa has been removed from the closer's role (but fails to mention he's still put in position to blow games). He moves on to talk about bunting and sac flies, and I mostly agree with him. His point is that no matter how many runners move up, an out is an out. A team that needs more big innings like us can't afford to give away outs. Curiously, after all the complaining that's been done about this team's ability to hit in the clutch, get sac flies, etc., we're second in the league in sac flies (behind Florida). We don't need more sac flies and we don't need more bunts. We need more hits. He then goes deeper into McLouth and JWilson performances saying that it's not unreasonable to think Duffy and McLouth can push each other for a spot in center and Jack hasn't been completely awful since April and he's actually been good of late at the plate, so maybe we shouldn't throw the white flag up yet, especially with his (in a fair world) Gold Glove performance at short. Despite these positives, why do we still lose, he wonders. He gives a simple solution:

They were outslugged (.410 to .402) and outwalked (31 to 22) last week. The rest won't matter until they fix that.

The difference in slugging percentage isn't drastic, the difference in walks is. Until this team finds some plate discipline, they could probably provide the city of Pittsburgh with all the wind-based power they need. McClendon isn't the only person that needed to go... they need to rehaul the entire coaching staff.

Snell up

After an entire year of trying to convince us that he's been aiming for a AAA Championship (I mean he actually made a trade to strengthen Indy that had little bearing on Pittsburgh, Ross for Furmiak), DL calls up Ian Snell to start tonight, the night the IL Championship begins. Snell had be slated to pitch the series opener, that spot will be taken by Bullington who was supposed to pitch Game 2. Gorzellany was called up to fill in Bullington's spot in Game 2 after his dominating performance for the now-elimnated Akron.

Also in today's notebook, the PG continues their quest to vex Jason Bay on his quest for the Major League record for stolen bases in a year without being caught (he's at 19, he needs 21 to tie). I would think this kind of streak was like a no-hitter, but everyone's talking about it. Me included I guess.

Duke has finally been cleared and will start in Friday's doubleheader at home against Cincy.

Fogg has been bounced back to the pen with Snell's call-up. Seriously, this should've happened months ago with either Fogg or Redman (who we don't have to worry about until next spring with his injured hand).

Cardinals 4 Pirates 3

The Cards started their "let's let the Pirates win and let them feel good now that Lloyd is gone and we don't hate them so much lineup" with So Taguchi batting third and Yadier Molina batting fourth and Albert Pujols no where to be seen. We tried to take advantage of it (hell, Mark Redman actually looked good), but then we decided to put Jose Mesa in the game. He blew our lead. We re-tied things up, but lost in the bottom of the 9th. I didn't watch the game, so I can't comment on much other than the fact that I'm very disappointed about Mesa. To quote Murphy from the comments thread on my last post:

Look for Littlefield to issue a statement tomorrow.

"We'd just like to say that we've officially come up with a new company policy, which is based around not giving a damn whether we win or lose per se, or even if we accomplish the goal we keep saying we're trying to accomplish of building for the future, and putting all that energy toward making sure a 39 year old pitcher who has, by all accounts, completely run out of the ability to do his job, doesn't feel bad. I know it seems like a decision which may not seem like the best move for the team, but we really just want Mesa to feel good about himself. Look for our next lead in the seventh to set up a tee so that the other team can still play while we go have punch and pie for Jose across the street."

Couldn't have said it any better myself.

Just for the hell of it

So let's talk about a hypothetical situation here. Say a baseball team has a closer that can no longer be trusted to hold any lead at all. He gets demoted from the closer's position because he can no longer be trusted. Does it then make sense to bring said reliever into a one run game in the 7th inning with runners on first and second with no outs? Should anyone be surprised when both inherited runners score? Does anyone even care anymore?

What? You've gotta be joking

I just got back from class tonight and flipped the game on. Ty Wigginton is playing second tonight. I just threw up in my mouth. Seriously, how is Mackowiak at third and Wigginton at second? Apparently Jack has a sore back and that caused us to just toss common sense out the window. Any chance I was going to watch this instead of Monday Night Football just got tossed out the window, along with Mackanin's common sense. OK, I lied. I never planned on watching this game over MNF. Mark Redman is on the mound, so the only reason I'd actually be watching is because sometimes you just can't look away from a car wreck.

The Table is shelved

Word has been out on this move for a couple days, but I haven't had a chance to comment on it yet. Jose Mesa has finally been removed from his post as our closer, only about 5 months after the rest of the world realized he no longer had it after back to back blown saves against the Cubs in mid-May. Supposedly we'll run closer by committee from here on out with the newly healthy Mike Gonzalez and the resurgent Salomon Torres splitting time in the closer's slot. This would of course indicate that the best reliever will be brought into the games in appropriate situations. That may be misleading, of course, as yesterday the best reliever was saved for later, until a 3-1 lead was turned into a 5-3 deficit. The best part about this announcement is that it would appear that the man many consider to be the most overrated closer ever won't be extended into next year.

Indy wins, Curve loses

Indianapolis came back from a 4-3 deficit with a three-run Ronnie Paulino homer in the 8th inning to complete their comeback from a 2-0 series deficit with three road wins against the Buffalo Bisons. Altoona squandered a 4-3 lead to fall short on their comeback bid. The Indians move to the International League finals against the Toledo Mudhens. Recaps are here and here.

Reds 5 Pirates 3

Here's the key stat line from the afternoon:

Rick White/John Grabow- 15 pitches, four batters, four hits, 3 earned runs (plus an inherited runner scored), 0.0 innings

Mike Gonzalez- 14 pitches, three batters, 0 hits, 0 runs (his inherited runner didn't score), 2 Ks, 1.0 innings

If we bring Gonzalez in, we win. We didn't, and we lost. At least the Steelers won. That sure was fun to watch.

Why Mac(k)?

This is from onlybucs.net last Wednesday, but it's a column about Dave Littlefield's vice grip on this team. By the end of the article I was kind of confused as to whether the author was talking about Littlefield or Josef Stalin.

Oh yeah, there's a Pirates game today which I'm semi-following on GameCast now that the Steelers are running away from Tennessee. Maholm looked good with six shutout innings, we took a lead, Maholm gave up a homer and a walk, Rick White and John Grabow have emerged to ruin the game. Neither actually recorded an out, it's currently 5-3 in the bottom of the 7th.

Today

Maholm takes the mound again, this time against the Reds own young lefty Brandon Claussen. Today is maybe Maholm's toughest test, pitching in the Great American Wind Tunnell. Mac(k) has seen it in his infinite wisdom to start Eldred and his lower average against lefties today. Wigginton, too (would those two be the heaviest corner combo in history? methinks yes). The big question is will anyone in Pittsburgh care? After all, there's kind of this thing going on today.

Reds 6 Pirates 2

I didn't see much of this one since it wasn't on TV and there's some good football on (thus I relied on GameCast). Kip didn't pitch well. Daryle Ward had both of our ribbies, but since we lost 6-2, three K's from Brad Eldred would've been just as constructive (in my eyes at least). Kip now has 16 losses (that's Jeff D'Amico range) and his performance tonight gave us this fantastic quote from Mac(k):

"It's a skill position," interim manager Pete Mackanin said. "It's not easy to throw the ball where you want to. On given days, he can do it. On other days, he can't."

Just brilliant. He's pretty much tossed his minimal chances of keeping this job past September into the Allegheny with lead shoes in his first week on the job.

UPDATE (12:56 AM)- Sorry, somehow this didn't get posted when the timestamp says it should've.

Maybe not

Looks like as happy as Kip may be that McClendon is gone he's still got some serious problems with that pitching thing we pay him for. Tonight, 3 and 2/3, six runs (all earned), 5 hits, 6 walks.

Tonight

Tonight we see Kip make his first start in the post-McClendon era. I never thought Kip and Lloyd got along well, and I thought Kip made that pretty clear in his more or less glowing post-firing interview. I guess we'll see if Kip can turn over a new leaf. One thing we won't see, however, is Brad Eldred. Because his career arc doesn't show him strugging in A, AA, and AAA before finding his swing or anything. If Mackanin is making these lineups that prominently feature Daryle Ward he needs a stern talking to. If Dave Littlefield is making them up, I think I may have lost all hope.

UPDATE (8:21 PM)- In this comments thread (which is a game thread from HW), there's a great discussion about the Eldred/Ward situation.

Stayin alive

Both Indianapolis and Altoona stayed alive for another day in their respective playoff series. Indianapolis got ahead early and held on for a 5-2 win over Buffalo while Altoona got a gem from Tom Gorzellany, a complete game 4-hit 13-K shutout, to lead the Curve to a 3-0 win over Akron. Both teams try to stay alive a bit longer today.

Bucs 8 Reds 4

OK, so I was wrong about this one. Perez actually wasn't awful last night, going 4 and 1/3 with 5 Ks and 2 walks. He did give up three runs and two homers, but he looked like he was spotting his pitches well for the most part. FSP's gun was going crazy early, clocking fastballs at like 58mph, but once it got working it seemed like Perez still wasn't up to his usual velocity, topping out at maybe 93 only a couple times. Still things could've been worse. One of the positives of Perez not making it five was Vogelsong coming in and getting his first win of the year. He did manage to come in with runners on first and third with only one out and get Dunn to GIDP. Then, of course, there's that Jason Bay guy. He seemed to be in a bit of a slump (before Thursday), maybe as a function of killing himself on the outfield wall several times in the last week. He's back strong now with three homers in the last two games, including two bombs last night. The second one was huge as it put us up by 4 runs in the eighth, meaning we were out of Jose Mesa range. A couple more games like this, and maybe Brad Eldred in the lineup, and this team might be watchable down the stretch.

Come on now

So we fire McClendon at least partially because of his refusal to stick to the rookies in the starting lineup. Now we're in Cincy (a hitters park) with a rookie on the mound, who happens to be a righty, yet Daryle Ward is still starting (Eldred has hit much better against righties than lefties). Not only starting, but striking out on pitches out of the strike zone with the bases loaded. So why exactly are we letting an INTERIM manager screw with the rookies now?

Prediction for the evening

How's this for a bold prediction:

With Perez starting and our bullpen tired, look for a Pirates position player to take the mound at some point tonight.

The return of Ollie

Mr. Perez makes his return to the Pirates tonight, facing off against Luke Hudson and Cincy. This is a scary night for us. Perez lost the sliver of control he seemed to have before he went on the DL in his rehab starts. The bullpen has worked a lot of innings the last two days. Reportedly Ollie is taking Duke's start tonight as Duke has had a minor setback that will move his return back a week. I'm going to be honest, as much as I like the way our pitching for next year looks I'd feel a LOT safer if the Oliver of last year could make a return. This recent rehab stint has been scary. He's been wilder than ever and his velocity is still down (I think I recall reading he topped out at 93, can't find the link though as it was about a week ago). Hold on to your hats tonight, guys. This could be a crazy one, especially in that wind tunnell ballpark with Cincy's lineup (which is still scary, sans Griffey).

Quick Minors Update

Indy, Altoona, and Lynchburg all qualified for their respective leagues' playoffs this summer. None are off to a good start. According to today's BA Prospect Report, all three have dropped the first two games of their series. That puts the Indians and Curve in a 2-0 hole in a five game series and that makes Lynchburg swept (by Frederick, for anyone from back home that's interested, Nolan Reimold lead the sweep with a .556 average and two doubles, two ribbies and scored a run from second on a passed ball in the series clincher, a 7-5 Frederick win, recap here). Also, Bullington got shelled last night and Mark Corey did his best impersonation of Jose Mesa in the Indians 6-5 loss to Buffalo. Both Indianapolis and Altoona try to avoid sweeps today.

Pirates 8 D'Backs 7- HOLY FREAKIN' CRAP WE WON

Today was another one of those afternoon games that slipped under my (and I'd assume everyone else's) radar. Fogg made his return to the rotation today (though he was barely gone) and he pitched better than Mark Redman (hint, hint), giving up 3 runs in 5 and 1/3. Thanks to a Craig Wilson homer and a Humberto Cota double we managed to piece together a 5-4 lead after 8. Unfortunately, Pete Mackanin doesn't read the Stats Geek and he trotted Mesa out to the mound in the ninth. After a single, a sac bunt, and an IBB, Mesa served up a three run jack, seemingly cementing another home loss. Jason Bay, however, must have been sick of busting his ass in the field only to see other people blow the game, so he wallopped a game tying two run dinger in the bottom of the ninth. After nothing happening through the top of the 11th, we traded scoring chances with the D'Backs in the bottom of the 11th (Eldred on second, one out, then bases loaded for Craig Wilson) and the top of the 12th (Glaus on third, one out), we scored in the 12th after a Mackowiak single, Sanchez bunt, and Cota single. Among the highlights were three hits for McLouth, two more for Jack Wilson (who has responded pretty well to the 2 slot under the new Mack), that Bay homer, and Craig Wilson doubling his home run total. Among the lowlights were, well, Jose Mesa. Seriously, if his career was a dog it would've been put to sleep months ago. Mackanin's faith in Mesa reciprocates in fans not having much faith in Mackanin.

The Search

Perrotto comes up with a list of 10 candidates that's a bit more in-depth than the PG's list from yesterday (via HW). Leyland, Macha, Howe, Pena, Fregosi, Jerry Manuel, Little, Mazilli, Tosca, Skinner. All ex-major managers. Skinner has the least experience as an interim in Cleveland who was passed over for Eric Wedge when the job opened up. Perrotto has a nice analysis of each one and if I had to guess, our next manager will probably come from this list. Among the names that haven't been prominently mentioned by the Pittsburgh media (Howe, Leyland, Macha) look for Manuel to emerge as a candidate, as he's worked with Littlefield in the past and did a good job with the young White Sox in the late 90s and early 00s.

Meanwhile at the PG, Art Howe practically jumps to volunteer himself for our opening. It's quite a departure from the other two names that come up often, Leyland (who has refused comment thus far) and Macha (who obviously can't comment due to his other obligations, you know, trying to manage the A's to a playoff berth). I don't really know what to think of Howe at this point as he was flat out awful in New York, though he was in a more or less unwinnable situation and has a good track record with young players. I may also be influenced by Moneyball, where a less than kind picture of Howe is painted.

Of course, no one really knows if Howe, or anyone else, is being considered by Littlefield. It is entirely possible he interviews people that aren't currently or originally from Pittsburgh, though I suspect the ownership would like to make this the best PR move possible, so he'll probably be forced to at least interview Leyland, Howe, and (if available) Macha.