Casey out

Looks like the injury Sean Casey suffered yesterday after taking a flying elbow from John Mabry is pretty serious, as Casey will miss 6-8 weeks with two lower back fractures (thanks to Brian in the comments for the heads up). This is good only in the sense that Tracy is forced to play our second best offensive player every day. It sucks in several ways, that Craig should be playing over Burnitz, not Casey, that Mike Edwards is now on the roster and Tracy will find a way to get him ABs because he loves Mike Edwards, and that Casey is an all around nice guy who you just don't want to see get hurt.

Anyways, Kip goes on the 60-day DL (meaning he can't be back till mid-June at the earliest) to make room for Edwards. Edwards almost certainly isn't better than Mike Restovich, who we let go for nothing over the winter. This is what kills me about what the Pirates do, they claim to be building a strong team with a good bench, but they just brush off good bench guys like Restovich and Wigginton as if they're dandruff. I was no fan of either, don't get me wrong, but both were severely misused in their time here in Pittsburgh. Wigginton was expected to be an every day player when he clearly was a guy that could come off the bench, kill lefties, bulldoze anyone in his way on the basepaths, and plug in a few infield positions if necessary. And as much as I disliked Wiggy, he's better at what he does than Jose Hernandez is. Last year the Bucs didn't use Restovich at all, they just kind of randomly plugged him in here and there against lefties. He went out this winter and killed the Venezuelan Winter League when he got to play regularly, then got released. I was no Restovich fan either, but I'd bet he's a better 5th outfielder than Mike Edwards. Keeping guys like Restovich and Wigginton around, guys with specific skill sets that are good at what they do, is how you build a good bench, not by keeping your starting third baseman and right fielder off the field.