Homecoming

We all know the drill for this one, the last three Bucco managers, Leyland, Lamont, and McClendon, are back in town tonight with a lot of people wondering just what the 2006 Pirates would look like if Leyland was at the helm of this squad instead of the Tigers, baseball's best team. The three managers are bringing some former players back with them, in the form of Tigers hitting instructor Don Slaught, infield instructor Rafael Belliard, and first base coach, as well as my childhood hero and the namesake of this blog, Andy Van Slyke. It'll be strange to see him at PNC in another uniform, but probably no stranger than him having to see his #18 filled by Jose K. Anyways, I'm going to catch this one tonight as I'll be out of town the rest of the weekend and simply can't miss the travelling squad of ex-Buccos that have coached the Tigers to the top of baseball. Kip Wells being on the mound tonight is only karmically appropriate, as I've written nearly a novel in support of Kip and so I must be doomed to see him get shelled sooner or later. He'll take on Kenny Rodgers, and barring something amazing, I will likely remember little from this game in 10 years other than the fact that it was the return of Andy Van Slyke.

Coincidence?

Just observing here, but did anyone else notice that the when Pirates came flying high into a homestand on June 13th against the Cardinals, they welcomed back injured third baseman Joe Randa. They then promptly dropped 14 of their next 15 games with Randa back with the team, including a Pirates-record 13 straight games. Joe Randa went on the bereavement list for his grandmother's funeral and the Pirates finally won again. It's probably a coincidence... right?

Housekeeping

I've done some sidebar updating, putting in links to two Pirates' blogs I linked to earlier (Mondesi's House and The Dock Ellis Experience), as well as one of the sites that was involved in the Chuck Finder article with me, Sell the Pirates, and a blog written by one of the regular commenters here and at several other Pirates' blogs, The Parrot. In the opposing team links, I included a link to Thunder Matt's Saloon, the Cubs blog that gave us the invaluable Tracyball post earlier this week. Oh, and I put a button for ArmChairGM down at the bottom because I listed my blog there like a month ago and they asked me to put a button on here and I just never got around to it until now. Whew.

Perez demoted

Via the Bucs Dugout, Oliver Perez has been demoted to Indianapolis. All I can say about this is "ABOUT DAMN TIME!" For three days now I've been terrified that we were going to put Ollie on the Ryan Vogelsong career path. That is, move a failed starter to the pen and make him mop-up man, a role that is very difficult to break out of. The only way he's snapping out of this is by pitching, and the only way that will happen is in Indy. Good move by DL for once (gulp!).

Also, via Deadspin, this video of two guys and their experience with the new mascot is hilarious. It's also 100% true. I have no idea what's wrong with that thing, maybe the patch causes a loss of depth perception or something, but it couldn't get a t-shirt into crowd if its life depended on it. The language isn't really safe for work, women, or children but I don't really know how many women and children read this thing anyways. Enjoy.

Pirates 7 White Sox 6

We can talk all we want about wanting to see this team lose as many games as possible to expose our fraudulent owners to the harsh national spotlight, but man, games like today never get old. It's hard to keep on seeing the same shit day after day, it really was getting to be like Groundhog Day. In fact, that parallel is fairly apt as the day that Phil Conners finally breaks out of his own personal slump he hears Sonny and Cher on the radio and is sure that he's still stuck on February 2nd, until he realizes it's a different part of the song and he's finally free. Today the Pirates tried their damndest to keep on losing and with the Thome home run and all, but Freddy Sanchez wouldn't let it happen. Speaking of Freddy Sanchez... sheesh. He piled on four more hits today including his walkoff homer and raised his average to a mind boggling .363. I don't really have any superlatives for Freddy that someone else hasn't said already, but the longer this goes on the more insane the whole Joe Randa deal seems. This year you can break the Pirates into three categories, Inconsistent, Consistently Bad, and Freddy Sanchez. And has it ever been more comforting to finally hear Lanny's "NOOOOOOO DOUBT ABOUT!!!"?

Now let's lose the next 10 and get Irate before the break (also, there are apparently fake shirts going around, if you didn't get 'em from the Ebay store, you got 'em from someone just trying to make a dollar off of your anger and other people's great ideas, I know, imitation, flattery, and all that, but if you can get them from the real source, you should do it).

Common sense vs. the Law of Averages

The Bucs and ChiSox hook up for a business man's special this afternoon. Of course the storyline in this one is that Jose Contreras has won his last sixteen decisions while the Pirates are on a losing streak of two... no six... no twelve... BAKER'S DOZEN (I told you I was crazy 'bout these cupcakes, cousin). The law of averages says that Contreras will have to lose soon while the Pirates will have to win soon. Common sense tells us otherwise. So tune in this afternoon for common sense vs. the law of averages, Jose Contreras vs. Zach Duke, the Pittsburgh Pirates vs. the Chicago White Sox. If I were a gambling man, my money would be on common sense, Contreras, and the Sox, respectively.

White Sox 4 Pirates 3

Rise and shine campers, and don't forget your booties 'cuz it's coooooold out there.
It's cold out there every day. What is this, Miami Beach?
Not hardly. So the question on everybody's lips...
On their chapped lips.
...their chapped lips is, does Phil feel lucky? Punksatawney Phil, that's right wood chuck chuckers, it's...
GROUNDHOG DAY!!!

I feel like I already saw this episode. Starter cruises through six, hits a wall in the seventh, Pirates lose. When it happened the first time, the Snell vs. Liriano game, I defended Tracy for leaving Snell in because at some point in his life, Ian Snell will need to learn to work out of a jam. The second time it happened to Snell, against KC (I know, this one was in the sixth, but same premise), I felt like Tracy should've been a little better prepared, simply because it had just happened and the team was slumping badly, getting a win was more important than Snell working through is problems. Tonight it really pissed me off. Maholm ran into a snag in the sixth, but Tracy waited until two guys were on to get someone up in the pen, meaning that no one was ready when the bases were loaded with no outs and Paul Maholm standing on the mound like Henry Rowengartner at the end of Rookie of the Year. I know the pen is over-worked. I want to believe what they're trying to do is build confidence in the young staff, though I'm not really sure they have a plan at all. But the point is, YOU'VE LOST TWELVE GAMES IN A ROW, YOU HAVE TO DO ANYTHING YOU CAN TO WIN. Tracy has watched his young starters hit wall after wall this year in the sixth and seventh innings, to go into the seventh tonight in a winnable game without a contingency plan was foolish. You know the old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I'm a f*cking moron." Wait, I made that last part up, probably because people don't get fooled three times enough for it to be part of the saying.

While I'm at it, there was another infuriating Tracy moment tonight, on the play Craig Wilson got hurt. Craig put the tag on Iguchi, held on to the ball, fell to the ground, still held on the ball, then dropped the ball when he went to grab his injured arm. He clearly caught and controlled the ball, even after hitting the ground. Still, the ump called Iguchi safe. No harm came from it as Maholm got out of the inning, but it could've been a huge play as it kept the inning going in what was a 2-0 game at that point. Still, Tracy didn't even stick his head out of the dugout to argue the call. It was a terrible call that was potentially game changing, yet it invoked no reaction from Tracy whatsoever. If there's more proof that he's completely quit on this team, I haven't seen it.

And yes, I realize the players are playing like shit. Bay and Jack Wilson have absolutely mailed the last two weeks in. It drives me insane to watch Bay hit with two strikes because everyone on the planet knows that a low and away curve or slider that breaks out of the zone is coming and that Bay will flail helplessly at it, yet he does it every time. Castillo generally plays like he tokes up in the dugout between innings. I could go on, but Ill just piss me off even more. It's maddening.

This thirteenth consecutive loss set the modern (which in baseball means post-1900) team record. Think about that. We're talking about a franchise that was consistently putrid in the 1950s, 1980s, and since 1993, and yet no incaration of Pittsburgh Pirates has played worse than the current "team."

At least the White Sox are good

Last night my friend and I went down to the ballpark, expecting to see the Pirates lose their 12th game in a row. We bought our tickets and realized they were for Section 143, Row J, Seats 12 and 13. Karma says this thing is going through at least tonight. I don't care what Jim Tracy says, the only way we win tonight is if the White Sox play like ass again. The Sox send Freddy Garcia to the mound, and honestly whenever I hear his name all it brings up are painful memories of our own Freddy Garcia. We send Maholm out to counter. Paul hasn't given up less than three runs in any outing since June 1st, and has had a couple rough starts recently. Also, ESPN says he is righthanded, which should make things rather interesting tonight. To be honest, I just don't see things going well for us in this one.

DL finally wins something!

The polls are closed over at Dodger Math and the results are in, the Worst General Manager of 2006 is no one but our own Dave Littlefield! Since DL couldn't be here to accept his award, I posted an acceptance speech for him in the Dodger Math comments that I feel obliged to replicate here:

I’d like to thank Dodger Math for this prestigious honor. It’s hasn’t been easy to make the Pittsburgh Pirates worse than I found them in 2001, but I’ve finally done it. There’s so many people I want to thank, Kevin McClatchy, the Nutting Family, Randall Simon, Daryle Ward, Jose Hernandez, Bud Selig and his ridiculous revenue sharing system, but especially Jim Tracy, who’s arrogant stupidity has made this final dive for the depths of baseball possible. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go hammer out a 3 year/$18 million extension with Sean Casey to ensure that I can take this thing home again next year.

Stupidity makes me angry

I tend to shy away from the breaking down stupid things that are written about the Pirates, but seriously, check out Paul Meyer's recap of last night's game. He describes the White Sox win as efficient. They had 15 hits, we walked 2 batters and allowed a batter to reach via error, yet scored only 4 runs. That's kind of the opposite of efficient. Actually, in these circles I believe it would be called "Pirate-like." They got caught stealing once and made two stupid baserunning errors, yet Tracy says in the column that we played a good ball game and the White Sox were just a little bit better. That is patently false. We played our typical game, replete with poor fielding, average pitching, and an allergy to this thing the experts refer to as "hitting," but because the White Sox played a bad game, we didn't get destroyed. The sixth paragraph brings this:

"They had one out that was not productive," Tracy said admiringly.

BAM! That was my head exploding. There's more to this column, but I seriously can't take it and refuse to read further down the page. I'm going to go collect the little pieces from my spontaneous head combustion there.

While you're at it, feel free to check out Chuck Finder's article about online Pirate fans which chronicles the rage of Pirate fans instead of actually inducing it. There's a quote from a "Mr." Lackey in there, whoever the hell that is.

More links

I meant to post this in the linkdump I did earlier, but here's John Sickels' midseason review of our preseason top 20 prospects (thanks to Robinson Checo for the heads up in the comments).

And I mentioned this in the post below, but White Flag is officially gone, replaced by Jonah Bayliss for now. Oliver Perez is moved to the pen presumably to replace White Flag in the "can't get anyone out" department, and Gorzellany will likely be called up for someone on Saturday to make a start as Victor Santos' hangnail/shoulder problem/fictional injury isn't healed yet. I would presume that some kind of trade or other roster is coming before then as we currently have four lefties in our pen and none of them are very good (well, Gonzalez might be very good, but his WHIP this year is around 1.60, so really he hasn't been much more than lucky this year). I've always been one of Vogelsong's biggest supporters and I'm kind of sad he could never get things together here, but as you could probably tell from my nicknaming him "the White Flag," even I've run out of patience with him. I wish him the best elsewhere and hopes he succeeds, but it really doesn't seem likely at this point.

And finally, thoughts and prayers go out to Peter Gammons. He's recently become a poor caricature of himself, but I think that's mostly ESPN's fault rather than his own. The Sports Guy always credits his move to an online only column at ESPN (from the Boston Globe) as the thing that inspired him to do his first internet column, and without guys like the Sports Guy I don't know if there would be blogs like this around. And of course, without him Baseball Tonight would consist of Kruk, Reynolds, Phillips, that Hispanic guy, and Kurkijan, which would render it completely useless to everyone, so it's best for all involved that he comes out of this OK.

White Sox 4 Pirates 2

This team is absolutely fried. Tonight the White Sox fell all over themselves, failing to drive runners in in key situations, making base running errors left and right, and we still couldn't even make it feel like a game, final score notwithstanding. Snell managed to dance through raindrops long enough to keep us in the game even though he didn't seem to have his best stuff (difficult to tell, in the first inning the scoreboard showed his velocity at like 103, then they shut the radar gun off for the rest of the game, presumably because there was a problem). After Snell departed, Jim Tracy went back to Salomon Torres, even though we just cut the White Flag and brought up Jonah Bayliss to ensure that we wouldn't need to keep overusing Torres (side note: how bout that roster shakeup, cut the mop-up guy, bring up Bayliss, and demote Perez to the pen, leaving a pen with Torres, Bayliss, Hernandez, and FOUR semi-effective lefties, and they wonder why we lose... I'd guess Marte will have to be traded by the time Gorzelanny gets the call-up on Saturday because keeping four lefties in the pen, especially when three of them have been no good and one (Gonzo) has been extremely lucky this year, is insanity). Still, Sal pitched well for 1 and 2/3rds tonight before Tracy went and pulled one of my favorite moves in the book in the 8th, bringing in John Grabow to pitch to lefty Jim Thome. I'd presume it was because there were runners on and somehow people think that Grabow has been good with runners on instead of lucky, plus the fact that Grabow and Thome are both lefties. NEWSFLASH: In Grabow's career, lefties have hit .292/.346/.462 against him while righties have hit .280/.361/.406. That, by definition, does NOT make him a LOOGY because he's actually WORSE against lefties. To no one's surprise, Thome singled in the insurance run and slammed the door. Then again, Tracy's solution to fix a struggling lineup is to move his recently anemic at the plate shortstop with an OBP of .311 to the leadoff slot, slide the also badly slumping Jose Bautista (OBP:.329) to second, and keep Freddy Sanchez, he of the .353 average and .390 OBP batting fifth, BEHIND Jason Bay. If that seems like a good idea to him, I don't imagine what would seem like a bad one.

There were two highlights from the ballpark tonight. Craig Wilson got a 9-3 outfield assist on a runner at third base. It looked bizarre, but it was actually a very nice play by Sean Casey. Mackowiak singled into right with runners on first and second. Craig got his throw in to Casey, who saw Pieazlsdjtsar;lgssky stranded way of second base and Thome not moving from third. Instead of throwing to get Jackass out at second and allowing Thome to score, Casey ran the ball towards AJ between second and third, then shifted directions when Thome drifted off third and beat him with the tag before Thome could get back to the bag. Awful play by the White Sox, but good play by Casey, as ugly as it looked. He got the lead runner with the least amount of throws possible. That least amount of throws thing is key, Jack Wilson and Jose Castillo are both playing terrible defense at the moment. Besides one play by Jack on a slow bounding ball in the hole, neither can get to anything that isn't hit right at them, and both have trouble fielding the balls that are actually hit right at them. They're supposed to be the best combo in the NL up the middle, but they look awful. The second highlight was seeing not one, but TWO Irate Fans shirts, albeit briefly, on the Jumbotron. One was of myself, as the camera zoomed in on the giant group of morons behind me dressed in Pirate garb(there was a girl up there who honest to God though Jason Kendall was our catcher, they also gave 15 varying accounts of what happened in the Rob Mackowiak double-header without getting one right, they even decided on a group consensus that it was Mackowiak's birthday instead of the day his son was born), I tried to position myself so that the shirt was clearly visible, but the camera cut away quickly. Also, in a group shot of left field there was a shirt that was clearly visible for a couple of seconds. That's right, PNC cameramen can't avoid the Irate Fans in a middling crowd of 24,000, THE IRATE FANS ARE COMING!!!

Why must I torture myself?

Yep, I'm going to the game tonight, weather permitting. I'll be there in my Irate Fans shirt (with an extra for the saxophone man on the bridge) which should be fairly easy to spot among the crowd of hundreds that I suspect will be there. I'm going because Ian Snell is pitching and because this is my only shot to see the White Sox as I can't go tomorrow or Thursday. Last time Snell pitched I said I would be watching for two reasons, 1.)Ian Snell and 2.) I am insane. My dad and brother (who both do the Jumble in the newspaper every morning, explaining how they made the connection) pointed out to me that "Ian Snell" is simply "insane" with two extra Ls. I don't know what that means, except that I'm still probably crazy. I mean, we all saw what the White Sox did to the Cards last week, right? I can't even imagine what's going to happen in this series, and I think it's just because my mind isn't twisted enough.

UPDATE (6 PM): I don't know who was watching PTI tonight, but Kornheiser and Wilbon just had a fantastic exchange during "Over/Under" on the topic "The Pirates losing streak: 15 games." Kornheiser admitted he was going out on a limb by picking under, as the Bucs very well lost the next 10, given the schedule. Wilbon declared the Pirates would win tonight because "They got Snell going tonight, he's 7-4, he's their best pitcher, then they'll probably lose the next 11." Kornheiser then looks at him increduously and goes "SNELL? Do you even know his first name? What's his ERA?" to which Wilbon responds "I don't care what his first name is, he's got an ERA round four..." the two then argue while Reali yells off camera, "Wilbon, enough fantasy baseball, this is your intervention." ESPN is full of blowhards, but there's a reason I still watch PTI every day.

Links

Here's the good thing about the Pirates being so horrifically awful; the things written about them on the internet get exponentially funnier. Some examples:

From Dejan's scouting report on the White Sox:

Three things to know about the White Sox: 1. They are the defending champion, the hottest team in baseball on a 9-1 roll, batting .335 in that span, racing with Detroit for the best record and owners of maybe the best rotation. Other than that, they are nothing special.

And my personal favorite:

The Pirates' key to success: Rain.

Also, via Honest Wagner, find out if your favorite baseball team is infected with Tracyball. I've got a bad feeling about this...

Also, in the less funny vein, the Stats Geek takes the Pirates defense to task for being downright terrible this year.

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta

I've been sitting on this one for a while, ironing all the details out and connecting the last few dots. That's right, after countless Q&A references by Dejan and the discussions that they blossom into on this blog, it's finally time for the Pittsburgh Pirates/Office Space comparison. I connected all the dots I could, if you guys can think up anything for the people that got left out, I'll tack it on to the bottom if I think it fits.

• Dave Littlefield/Bill Lumbergh- They're both the bosses, they're both jackasses, they both terribly mistreat their employees, and they even look alike. Creepy.
  
• Craig Wilson/Milton Waddams- The parallels are eerie. In the Pirates Q&A on June 7th, a reader asked Dejan if he had, by any chance, heard the following mutterings from the clubhouse:

  And I said, I don't care if they trade me either, because I told, I told Dave that if they put me on the bench one more time, then, then I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, I told Jim, too, because they've changed my position three times now already and I used to be in right field, and I could see the pretty girls, and they were merry, but then they switched me to first base, but I kept my outfielders glove because it was easier to catch with, and it's not OK if they put me on the bench again, because if they take my outfielder's glove then I'll set the park on fire...
  

• Jason Bay/Joanna- He hits home runs, plays good outfield, steals bases, and does just about anything you could ask of him. Still, there are whispers about his clutchness. She's hot, funny, and loves kung-fu movies. But she may have f*cked Lumbergh. The rumors probably aren't true, but the fact that they even exist are enough to make everyone involved uncomfortable. And that goddamned ugly All-Star patch on his uniform? That's a piece of flair, of course.
  
• Ryan Doumit/ Lawrence- I'm almost postive that if Ryan Doumit had a million dollars, he'd do two chicks at the same time. You know, because chicks dig a dude with money, especially the kind that would double up on a dude like Ryan Doumit.
• Ronnie Paulino/Peter Gibbons- Both very likeable, but both have been undeservedly promoted based on circumstantial evidence while those that work closely with them get royally screwed.
• Ed Creech and Brian Graham/Bob Slydell and Bob Porter- It pains me to do this because Bob Slydell is such a great character and is likely the genesis of one of the best TV characters of all-time, Dr. Perry Cox, while I despise Creech and Graham. Still, Creech and Graham just go around doing Littlefield's bidding by screwing with everything they touch in the worst way possible. Kind of like the Bobs.
  
• Salomon Torres, Roberto Hernandez, Joe Randa, and a number of other Pirates/Samir Nagheenanajar- "We're going to be getting rid of some people around here. First, Mr. Salomon Naga... Naga... Nagannaworkhereanymore anways."
  
• Jeromy Burnitz/Tom Symkowski- Both get paid excessively to do nothing. Tom Symkowski got hit by a car. Jeromy Burnitz has no such excuse, but may be the final evidence we need to prove that Dave Littlefield makes all of his decisions with Tom's "Jump to Conclusions" mat.
  
• Ryan Vogelsong/Steve, the magazine salesman- "Good evening sir, my name is Ryan. I come from the Pirates bullpen. I used to be a decent prospect but now I am not and I am not allowed near a baseball diamond, which is why I am selling magazines."
  
• Zach Duke/Michael Bolton- Good at their jobs, but those little mundane details screw everything up. In Duke's case that mundane detail is usually getting the third out in the fourth or fifth inning.
  
• Jim Tracy/Stan (Chotchkie's manager)- All around pricks that aren't half as important as they think.
  
• Jose Hernandez/Brian (Chotchkie's waiter)- Neither does anything but annoy the piss out of everyone and make people wonder if he has an inappropriate relationship with his boss.
• The rest of the team/All the people that eat Milton's cake- Just kind of milling about the office and doing their job. They just kind of ignore the elephant in the room and go on with their lives. Nothing is directly their fault, but maybe if they were better at their jobs, none of this would happen.
  

Two links

Remember last week when I said this?

Note to Dave Littlefield, Kevin McClatchy, and co.: While Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke?, Romo Phone Home, and now The Dock Ellis Experience exist, no one is ever going to name a blog after Raul Mondesi, Matt Stairs, Reggie Sanders, Kenny Lofton, Chris Stynes, Jeromy Burnitz, Jeff D'Amico, Joe Randa, or Roberto Hernandez. There is a reason for this.

Well, three days later I've already been proven wrong. I give you Mondesi's House.

And of course, don't forget to check out Dejan's chat transcript. Surprisingly, the Pirates fans are pretty angry. Also, it involves this:

WHYGAVS: Was the reaction by the players (especially Bay and Jack Wilson)after yesterday's game in any part due to their frustration with the way Tracy publicly blames them while never looking in the mirror, or did they actually mean they thought the roster needs a shakeup?

Dejan Kovacevic: Yes on both counts. The players have made clear -- more as each day goes by -- that they do not appreciate the lack of accountability in the manager's office, and you might have noticed in this morning's paper that it has not escaped the owner's attention, either.

Talking points Monday

With today being an off-day and all, we get fun talking points from everyone involved with the team about what needs to be done to prevent the entire city of Pittsburgh to be sucked into the gigantic black hole that is forming at PNC Park. Well, talking points from everyone but the one person with the power to do anything, Bob Nutting. As much as I dislike Smizik, he's been so frustrated recently that he's stopped writing his typical pieces that bait all of Pittsburgh into disagreeing with him and has been ranting on the state of the Pirates. Today he explains that while Kevin McClatchy stands out in front of the organization as a public face for everything that it does, the mysterious Bob Nutting is the man behind the curtain. He actually tried to get a hold of Bob Nutting for an interview, but was shooed away.

Of course, McClatchy has something to say, and he talks to Dejan today.

"I'm extremely disappointed," owner Kevin McClatchy said shortly after the team's 11th loss in a row, 7-4, to Los Angeles yesterday at Dodger Stadium. "When you look back at how we came out of San Francisco and the progress we were making ... I'm disappointed."

He goes on to give the vaunted "Vote of Confidence" to Littlefield and Tracy, which means that McClatchy will likely do the only thing he can do, fire everyone involved with the running of the team and hire a staff that will do the exact same thing that Littlefield's staff has done. Days like today are the days when I think that Smizik is likely correct, Bob Nutting runs the team and puts McClatchy out front as his lamb to the public slaughter. McClatchy seems genuinely frustrated by the way the team is playing, and I think it's because he knows he has no real power to change anything.

Today is also the day that the players have decided to speak out. Because they can't directly say what they think, let's translate.

What Jason Bay said:

I don't know if it's going to do us any good but, obviously, we need to mix something up. We're stagnant. We're making the same mistakes over and over, and we're not learning from them a lot of the time.

When asked, he said he meant the players needed to change. But what Jason Bay meant was:

I hate Jim Tracy. I hate him a lot.

What Jack Wilson said:

We've lost 11 in a row, and we went 0-6 on this trip without being competitive the whole way through. The type of baseball we're playing is just not getting it done. Whether it's a lineup shake-up or players changing ... I think most of the guys are open to whatever is suggested.

What Jack Wilson meant:

I also hate Jim Tracy a lot. I think he is full of shit because we do everything he tells us to do, then he directly blames us for every bad thing that happens on the field like his shit doesn't stink. Actually, it smells quite bad. It's easy to tell, because he's so full of it. Also, can anyone believe I was stupid enough to sign an extension to stay here? I mean, I'd rather play for free than play for a team like this for the rest of my life.

What Salomon Torres said:

It might happen. And if that's what it's going to take for us to be a better team, for Salomon to go somewhere else ... I don't want to see this team suffer anymore. This is eating us alive. It's killing us. You know, I'm willing to leave my arm on that mound for my team. A lot of us have that feeling. But something's not clicking.

What Salomon Torres meant:

This team has driven me so insane that Salomon is talking in the third person now. Salomon is very greatful for the chance to play here after everyone thought Salomon's career was over, but please, get me the f--- outta here right now before Salomon rips his arm off and puts it on the mound so that Salomon doesn't have to pitch for the Pittsburgh Pirates anymore.

Don't forget, Dejan's new weekly chat is today at 2. Things should be fun.

Dodgers 7 Pirates 4

Kip Wells wasn't nearly as awful today as he was against the Royals in his first start. He pitched pretty well through three innings, then ran into trouble in the fourth on a bunch of bloopers and tweeners. His velocity was hard to get a read on, as the gun was placing his fastballs in the mid to low 80s, but that's where pretty much everybody's fastballs were in LA, leading me to think there was a problem with the gun in LA this weekend. Or none of our pitchers can throw over 85 mph, which would explain A LOT.

Besides Kip, there wasn't much positive. I'm finding the games exceedingly tough to watch as the Bucs are just kind of drifting around the diamond listlessly waiting for bad things to happen. This is the worst kind of baseball to watch. Not losing baseball, hopeless baseball. I was thinking about making the "This one goes to eleven" joke that Grubb made in the comments, but then I realized that this one is probably going much further than 11. In fact, judging by what the White Sox did to the Cardinals and the fact that the Tigers might be better than the White Sox, I think this one might go to 17.

On the bright side, Charlie has an entertaining post up about his 20 least favorite Pirates of this decade. The question is, of course, how he managed to narrow it down to 20.

Going for 11

Kip Wells takes another shot at ending this excessive losing streak, which has reached a whopping 10 games. Things already don't look good, as the Dodgers are sending Brad Penny out to face Wells and Penny has been excellent this year. I wouldn't count on much happening today that isn't bad. This is really getting tough to watch.

Dodgers 7 Pirates 0

Sorry for not getting the gamethread up last night, I was running around like crazy between home and school to meet up with some friends that were back in town after heading home for the summer and just didn't have the time. I did end up watching the game in what's quickly become the best place to watch a Pirates game, the bar with lots of alcohol immediately available. I didn't see much, but it wasn't pretty. I'm running out of ways to describe these games, so I'll let Dejan take over for this one:

Someday, the Pirates will win again.

Someday.

Maybe.

But it might not happen before they have carved for themselves one of the most dubious distinctions in franchise history.

It's sad, but carving out one of the most dubious distinctions in franchise history is probably the only way things are going to change. Ugh.

Dodgers 10 Pirates 2

I think my favorite part was probably when Ollie gave up five runs in the fourth on only one hit. That was pretty original. Also, I'm pretty sure that I'm happy to see Jim Tracy get steamrolled in LA.

The amazing thing is, things might get worse

The Bucs head out west tonight with Oliver Perez trying to stop awfulness. We've lost, let's see, 8 in a row now and a whole bunch of our last certain amount. The amazing thing is that things are likely to get worse. We play some fantastic baseball teams in the coming stretch, LA, CHW, DET, NYM, and PHI all before the All-Star Break. All I'm getting is that we should probably stop saying that "It can't get any worse," because it can, and it likely will.

Links and musings for a rainy Friday

DL is in the Dodger Math Worst GM Finals, you know what to do.

Maybe it's a tradition to have the home manager be a coach on the All-Star team (I know Leyland was third base coach in '94, one of the more enduring images of that game is him waving the winning run home in the 10th inning like a madman... can't tell you who scored the run, but I remember Leyland windmilling him home), but it's flat out bullsh!t that Garner named Tracy a coach. It's nice that he made Tanner an honorary coach, but he should've stopped there. Tracy may not be the source of the problem here this year, but the way he's treated the players in the press and taken credit for every small thing that's gone right while deflecting all the blame is despicable. He gives all managers a bad name with the stuff that comes out of his mouth, and I can't believe Garner would wantto be anywhere near him.

New Pittsburgh sports blog: The Dock Ellis Experience. Of course, that reminds me of one of my favorite fantasy baseball team names, The Dock Ellis D's. Note to Dave Littlefield, Kevin McClatchy, and co.: While Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke?, Romo Phone Home, and now The Dock Ellis Experience exist, no one is ever going to name a blog after Raul Mondesi, Matt Stairs, Reggie Sanders, Kenny Lofton, Chris Stynes, Jeromy Burnitz, Jeff D'Amico, Joe Randa, or Roberto Hernandez. There is a reason for this.

Dejan's Q&A appears in it's new Friday timeslot for the first time. Seems Pirates fans are getting pretty frustrated. Imagine that.

And one final thought: Who the hell made the schedule that requires us to go to Arizona, San Francisco, and LA on three consectuve road trips? And we still have one more LA/San Diego trip awaiting us in September. The serious amount of travel miles logged by this team isn't the reason they're losing, but flying all around the country like crazy sure can't be helping things.

Royals 15 Pirates 7

Sorry for the late post guys. The internet crashed in my apartment. It's still down, actually. I had to run back to my lab to print some stuff out for tomorrow and the internet is still running here, so I figured I'd put a post up to let everyone know that I haven't killed myself or gone on a murder spree or shut down the blog forever. There's not really any words to say about the Pirates at this point. Today we were swept by the Royals, a team that was off to one of the worst 68 game starts in MLB history before they played us, then Jim Tracy was named to the All-Star coaching staff as a reward for quitting on his team and throwing most of them under the bus repeatedly. Dave Littlefield still has a job. It's all insanity.

The end

The Bucs and Royals finish their pointless series up this afternoon and by about 5 PM this evening the Pirates will be the happiest team in recent history to high-tail it out of KC. Paul Maholm and Scott Elarton will pitch in a game that the Pirates just seem predestined to lose. Me? Hell, I'm just excited for one more game of Joe Randa at DH.

Royals 6 Pirates 4

I try to keep this site PG-13, which I'm sure all of you have noticed by now. It's not because I'm morally opposed to the f-word, because I'm not. It's just because I don't know who's reading this (besides the fact that I DO know that my mom and grandparents stop by from time to time) and I don't want someone to NOT read because of the language I use here. There's myriad other reasons that people can choose not to read this blog and that's fine with me, I simply don't want to limit my readership over something stupid like language.

That being said, it is getting tougher and tougher to write a PG-13 post about this baseball team. In fact, I could whip up a pretty good NC-17 post at this time that would probably make Loki blush at Ragnarok and still be holding back on how I feel about this baseball team. How do I feel about the Pirates after tonight, you ask? Perhaps a refreshing game of MadLibs will reveal the answer.

HOW IN THE BONDSING BONDS DO YOU BLOW TWO STRAIGHT FOUR RUN LEADS TO THE WORST BREAMING TEAM IN BASEBALL. WAIT... WE'RE THE WORST BREAMING TEAM IN BASEBALL. HOW CAN JIM TRACY WATCH IAN SNELL COMPLETELY RUN OUT OF GAS FIVE DAYS AGO, THEN SIT IN THE DUGOUT PLAYING WITH HIS TOM BRADY WHILE IT HAPPENS AGAIN? FOR BEN ROETHLISBERGER'S HELMETLESS HEAD'S SAKE, WHAT'S WRONG WITH SALOMON TORRES AND WHY DOES JIM TRACY KEEP PUTTING HIM IN KEY SITUATIONS? HOW CAN ANYONE WITH HALF A CAM BONIFAYING BRAIN THINK JOE RANDA IS AN ACCEPTABLE DH WHEN CRAIG WILSON IS ON THE BENCH? WHO THE STEVE AVERY IS AMBROIX BURGOS? DID ELMER NEIL O'DONNELLING DESSENS REALLY GET THE WIN TONIGHT? EVERYONE SAYS THE ROYALS ARE MADE UP OF OUR OTIS NIXONING CASTOFFS, BUT ARE THEY REALLY OTIS NIXONING CASTOFFS IF THEY KICK OUR ASSSES ALL OVER THE BASEBALL FIELD? AND HOW, IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, GOOD, AND RIGHT IN THIS WORLD, DOES DAVID FRANCISCO CABRERAING LITTLEFIELD STILL HAVE A JOB?

Whew. I feel better.

Futility, game 2

For some reason, I will probably continue to tune into the Pirates, even after last night's hideous debacle. I can only think of two reasons why I will do so:

1. Ian Snell
2. I am insane

Anyways, I may not be around for the first pitch, so I'm putting the game thread up early. There won't be a live blog tonight, but I'm figuring that we still may need a place to commiserate. I would give you facts about these two teams, but you know the tale of the tape by now. All that's left to do is watch the games because you can't look away from the wreckage. I hope Brad Lincoln wasn't watching last night, or he'll seriously be wondering what he's gotten himself into.

UPDATE: I don't know what happened to this post, but apparently it spent 3 hours in no-man's land. It's here now.

Aftermath

Ugh, I'm still mentally drained from last night's debacle. Sure, doing the liveblogging sent a ton of readers my way today, but I'm pretty sure it also caused irreversible emotional and mental damage. The only thing I want to talk about at all is Kip Well's performance. Even with all of the talking up I did for Kip in the past couple weeks, I wasn't expecting much last night. He missed almost two full months, then has been expected to complete Spring Training coming off of two months without doing any throwing, and all against non-Major League players. I was hoping for something in the neighborhood of 5 innings, 3-4 runs, 3-4 walks, 5 or so Ks. Nothing special, just a sign that he could pitch at a Major League level. Last night wasn't completely devoid of that. He threw his fastball in the low 90s (at least reportedly, FSP suspiciously didn't give pitch speeds last night), he got through the third inning on only nine pitches against the heart of the Royals order, and besides the first couple batters in the first and the third inning as a whole, he seemed to be able to throw strikes when he knew he NEEDED to. He also didn't get hit terribly hard, though how much of that is a function of the Royals lineup remains to be seen. The downside of last night is well documented, he was a bad caricature of his old self. His strike/ball ratio was nearly 1/1, he went deep into every count, and on a couple of occaisions he lost control completely. My gut feeling after last night is that the team rushed him back for whatever reason. He could've benefitted from one or two more fine tuning starts at the AAA level while Gorzelanny took the open spot in the Bucs' rotation (he's earned it). It's certainly not fair to panic and write Kip off completely only one start in to his season after such a long layoff, but it certainly wasn't encouraging either.

Pirates and Royals: LIVEBLOG

The worst team in the NL. The worst team in the AL. Bad young guys. Cagey veterans. The wreckage Allaird Baird left behind. The destruction Dave Littlefield is creating. Mark Redman. Kip Wells. The most anticipated return of an 18 game loser in history. David Glass. Ogden Nutting. There is only one way to chronicle this amazing event. LIVEBLOG. Check back for updates as they happen, new stuff at the top.

Welcome to the carnage, Deadspin readers.

11:35- And of course, thanks to all of the brave souls who stuck all, or any part at all actually, of this one out with me.

11:29- Some fun stats: the Pirates committed 3 errors tonight, walked 11 batters, gave up more runs than hits, threw a wild pitch, allowed a passed ball, and gave a win to Mark Redman and his "5 innings, 6 hits, 5 runs (all earned) 5 walks" line. All told, our pitchers threw 168 pitches tonight (!) and only managed to get 89 of them across the plate. If you remove Matt Capps, it's 75 out of 151 (less than 50%). Just an ugly, ugly game. Actually, the Royals were pretty bad in their own right, but just about anyone can find a way to win when the opponent walks them 11 times.

1:27- Jack Wilson homers, allowing Greg Brown to remind us that it is the Pirates first run since about 12 years ago, waay back when they held that 5-1 lead. They only mustered three hits from that point on. Freddy makes the last out and the carnage is over. 10-8 Royals.

11:18- In case you forgot what team we were up against, the Royals just saw 28 pitches from the White Flag. He only manged to throw 12 of them for strikes. He walked three (3) batters in one inning of work. Still, the Royals only managed one hit and 2 runs out of the fiasco, both on sac flies. And we're now losing to them 10-5.

11:04- To add on to the list of embarassing oddities committed in this game (most of them by the Pirates), Angel Berrora just stole two bases on the same play. He broke for second (after singling off of Vogelsong, of course), slid in with Paulino's throw, and headed to third after it skipped in the dirt. How did Vogie respond? Why exactly how every other Pirate pitcher has responded to adversity tonight, by walking the next batter.

11:02- OH MY GOD!!! THAT'S THE WHITE FLAG'S MUSIC! RYAN VOGELSONG IS IN THE BUILDING!!!

11:00- Joe Randa got a hit, no one else did anything noteworthy. We're headed to the bottom of the 8th and somehow this game is looking at ending only a little over three hours after it's 8:10 start time.

10:52- Umm, Marte threw some pitches. Some Royals made outs, I think one of them got a hit. I swear I saw Reggie Sanders stealing a base, but the universe didn't end so my eyes must be decieving me. Only an inning and a half left, unless we score three and drag this thing out.

10:40 PM- Peralta strikes out Sanchez and Bay back to back. Jack Wilson made an out, but I'm pretty sure they didn't even show it on TV. The Pirates are clearly throwing in the towel and putting up the white flag. Surprisingly, they haven't put Vogelsong in yet. Side note: wouldn't "White Flag" be a great nickname for Vogelsong?

10:34- Capps got a 1-2-3 inning. Amazing. I missed the first two batters as I was pouring myself said drink. Castillo made a nice play to get the third out. It doesn't make up for his earlier transgressions. Stunningly, we are not out of this game.

10:28- After Ronnie Paulino walks to lead off the inning, Nate McLouth hits into a double play by swinging at the first pitch, the Bautista takes a ball and hits a pop-up. Peralta (the Royals new pitcher) threw only five strikes that inning, walked a batter, and still got three outs in 10 pitches. Amazing. I think I'm going to pour myself a drink.

10:24- Redman is out. The Royals' pen is awful, but so was Redman. Somehow, he's in line to get a win.

10:22- Capps comes in and lets two of Grabow's runners score, probably out of spite. He also makes an incredibly stupid play on a bouncer back to him with the bases loaded, but somehow gets an out at the plate. Freddy, Castillo, and Craig manage to not screw up a double play and keep the damage at 2. 8-5 Royals after 5.

10:15- Grabow lasted much shorter than Kip Wells, he leaves with the bases loaded an no outs in the fifth after Bautista tried to make a diving play but somehow the ball bounced off his chest while he was diving. I think I'm going blind from watching this evil, like it's coming from the Arc of the Covenant or something.

10:10- You know how when good players make a fantastic play in the field they often lead off the next inning and they always seem to get a big hit so the announcers can say "As so often happens..."? Well, Jose Castillo has just pulled the opposite. He got picked off to end last inning, then pretended to be a croquet wicket on Mien...awwf&$#it's grounder. Grabow responded with a walk... what else?

10:07- Castillo gets picked off to end the top of the 5th (sweet Jesus, it's only the top of the 5th). If you are somewhere where you can't watch this game, I cannot stress enough how awfully played it has been. As just pointed out by the broadcasters, Mark Redman has thrown 99 pitches (only 53 strikes) and walked five batters through five, yet is in line to get the win.

9:59- Grabow does the exact opposite of what he was brought in to do and walks in the go ahead run. Tim Timmons is very inconsistent behind the plate, but I don't think that's the problem. Thankfully, Grabow gets an inning ending DP that we manged not to screw up. The Royals are now officially playing worse than any baseball team I've ever seen with a lead in a game. Of course, that title was formerly held by the Pirates about 10 minutes ago. It's an insult to baseball that someone will actually get a win out of this thing.

9:53- Kip does the unthinkable and out-labors Redman. He's out after 3 and 1/3, leaving a 5-5 game with the bases loaded and John Grabow coming in and only one out, which is terrifying. Coming into this game I expected the ugliest game ever and this thing is delivering, in this inning alone we've seen Castillo double clutch on a double play, another double play ball zip up the middle with Jack way out of position (even Wehner knew where he should've been), a third possible double play sneak under Jack's glove, two walks, and passed ball that just kind of popped out of Paulino's glove.

9:37- Despite Redman's laboring as no pitcher has labored before (a whopping 87 pitches through four innings), we fail to score when Jason Bay weakly grounds to third with the bases loaded. He's back in another slump, for sure.

9:23- Kip Wells makes quick work of the bottom of the third throwing only nine pitches to retire both cans of alphabet soup and Reggie Sanders.

9:15- Randa flies out to center, Craig Wilson accepts a four pitch walk from a Mark Redman that he put the fear of Thor into with his 440 foot first inning homer but then is quickly erased by Castillo's double play. Some might say it's a bad thing Redman is settling down. I say it's a good thing because he gets to stay in the game longer.

9:10- Rory confirms around 90 for Kip's fastball in the comments (per the Royals feed from MLB.tv). Kip is still working seemingly everyone to a full count. Ge gets Stairs to ground out, and Emil Brown to strike out before a walk, a single to Berroa (hitless in his last 14 at-bats or so), a 2-run double by Buck, and an RBI single by DeJesus in which he again reminds everyone it's a Pirates/Royals game by getting hung up between first and second and eventually tagged out. After two innings Kip has thrown 47 pitches and only 23 strikes.

8:57- McLouth hits a leadoff double. The top of the lineup threatens to strand him there, until Freddy Sanchez (finally batting in the top third of the lineup where a .350 average belongs) singles him in. Jason Bay ends the inning with a flyball to center that DeJesus badly misplays before making a stumbling catch, as if to remind everyone that this is in fact the Pirates and Royals.

8:49- From Murphy in the comments, this is too good not to be on the main page:

So, two runs being scored on wild pitches in the first inning is not something that would happen somewhere that wasn't either A) any given little league team I was on or B) Pirates-Royals matchups.

8:46- Kip walked the first two batters by doing what he's been doing the last two years, ignoring his fastball and throwing junk. He finally broke down and threw a 3-1 fastball to the guy that stole the World Series ball, which he promptly hit into a double play. He would've gotten out of the inning scot free, except that Ronnie Paulino let a low and away curveball go five-hole on him for another "wild pitch." Kip responded by whiffing Reggie. There's no velocity on FSP tonight, which is pissing me off, but Wehner says Kip is throwing "mid to low 90s." Besides the control issues he looks pretty good, but that doesn't really tell us much, yet.

8:34- Royals lineup: DeJesus (CF), Grudzaoiesanrklak (2B), Mienal;kjfalkjdfsawcz (1B), Sanders (RF), Stairs (DH), Brown (LF), Teahen (3B), Berroa (SS), Buck (C). What a mighty trio of ex-Buccos in the heart of that lineup. Realizing that this will be 100 pages long if I keep updating at this pace, I will save updates for big events or between innings.

8:32- Craig Wilson The Mighty Thor, god of thunder, hit an 800 foot homer off of Redman. Redman then walked Castillo before getting out of the inning after around 35 pitches. Meanwhile, Kip Wells is sitting in the dugout, almost positive that the blood clot actually burst and killed him and he's now pitching in heaven.

8:22- Jason Bay sac fly, Joe Randa gets a standing ovation from the 10,000 or so people in attendance. And then a Mark Redman wild pitch scores Sanchez. If there is one member of the 2005 Pirates I don't miss at all, it's definitely Mark Redman (or Tike Redman, or Matt Lawton, or Daryle Ward, or...). Randa singles and the crowd actually cheers.

8:19- Freddy Sanchez doubles, Jack Wilson goes to third (he reached on an FC). Have we talked about just how impressive Freddy Sanchez is with the bat this season? Meanwhile, Wehner is shocked that the Royals will apparently pitch to Bay. John, this is Pirates and Royals. Don't expect much common sense this week.

8:16- Greg Brown is talking about stacking the deck against Redman with righties. This ignores the fact that McLouth was placed in the lineup instead of Casey, who actually hits lefties better than righties.

8:15- There is a horse-shoe of dirt behind the home plate area at Kaufmann Field. May I inquire why?

8:12- Redman hits Bautista. Would you have it start any other way?

8:10- The lineup: Bautista (CF), JWilson, Sanchez, Bay, Randa (DH), CWilson (1B), Castillo, Paulino, McLouth. Randa is starting because of his "good career numbers against Redman." I've said it a million times, when you're as old and broken down as guys like Randa, JHernandez, and Burnitz, career numbers do not apply.

8:01- Greg Brown actually referred to this game as "anticipated." We get him and Wehner on TV tonight. They are reminding us that Kip Wells lead the league in losses and walks last year. They are forgetting that Mark Redman had the worst second half in the history of creation. Oh, this is going to be good.

The Nuttings and Seven Springs

Not content with just ruining the Pirates, the Nutting family has bought another Pittsburgh institution, the Seven Springs ski resort. I saw the same phrase highlighted in bold letters that Rowdy did, when asked about the gaming license that the family was planning on persuing for Seven Springs and the possible clash of interest with the Major League Baseball team that they own, Robert Nutting said:

We would do nothing that would embarrass the Pirates or the sport of baseball.

Ugh.

UPDATE: Bill Toland's Casino Blog at the PG is looking for reactions and punch lines to go with Robert Nutting's statement (fifth paragraph down for the June 20th entry). Somehow, I've got a feeling that some of you guys out there might be able to help. His e-mail address is in the sidebar of the Casino Blog. If you do send him something, make sure to leave it in the comments here as well.

Keep voting

I'd like to congratulate the WHYGAVS readers for their strong showing in a recent poll. I'm not talking about Jason Bay's eyebrow raising, likely fraudlent leap to the third place in All-Star ballotting, I'm talking about Dave Littlefield's gigantic, crushing win over Kevin Towers in Dodger Math's Worst GM Poll. DL nearly doubled the total votes recieved by anyone else in any round and won by the highest percentage as well. Round 3 brings DL vs. Bill Bavasi of the Mariners.

Does Ed Eagle read WHYGAVS?

I had originally read Ed Eagle's account of Tracy's tossing Jack Wilson under the bus early this afternoon, before the awful travesty that was this afternoon's game and had a post all drawn up in my head before anger clouded it over. Thankfully, Bones dropped me a reminder in this comments thread. You'll recall that last night (early this morning actually) I accused Tracy of throwing Jack Wilson under the bus because, well, he did. In the above linked column from this afternoon, Eagle has this to say:

As Tracy sees it, pointing out that certain plays could have or should have been made during the course of games does not constitute throwing his players under the bus. He's merely pointing out the difference between plays that winning teams make and those that losing teams do not.

Now, it's a pretty common phrase and it's exactly what Tracy did to Wilson yesterday so it's entirely likely that we're looking at a coincidence. Still, I can't help but imagine a conversation like this taking place:

Ed Eagle: Jim, you know some of the bloggers are creating some internet buzz saying you threw Jack Wilson under the bus yesterday.
Jim Tracy: What buzz?
Ed Eagle: The internet buzz.
Jim Tracy: What the f&$# is the internet? What in God's name is a blogger? Do you think I'm going to sit here and let you talk about those stupid pimply ass nerds who let their computers think for them and use their so called "statistics" and "reason" to make up their opinions about my job? Don't you know they've never played baseball before so their opinion doesn't count? I criticized the play that Jack Wilson failed to make, not Jack Wilson himself. There's a difference. I wasn't wrong, they're wrong for misunderstanding me and it's not my fault, it's the fault of all you stupid writers who couldn't get across my brilliant point correctly.
Ed Eagle: Yeah, there's a difference alright, just like the one in melodies of "Ice, Ice, Baby" and "Under Pressure." I've wanted to say this for a long time, so get ready for it Jim. You are an idiot. Do you even listen to youself talk? You contradict yourself twice a sentence. Nothing you say makes sense at all. You're just lucky that your grasp on the english language is so poor and your self image is so inflated that no one follows anything you say after, "All I'm trying to do here is..." or "Well, I think..." or "Well, if you'd played the game, you'd understand where I'm coming from on that one..."
Jim Tracy: Have you ever played Major League Baseball before, Ed?
Ed Eagle: Well, I played in high school...
Jim Tracy: Well, I've played major league baseball, and I've managed a division winner, too. Everyone in real baseball knows that high school doesn't count. Why am I listening to you talk? You haven't played Major League Baseball before. You can't tell a pitcher's mound from your asshole until you've actually stepped foot on a big leauge field. Everyone knows that.
Ed Eagle (muttering): Oh, I know an asshole when I see one.
Jim Tracy: What? Go back to your stupid interweb and fancy computers and let me and the other real baseball men work.
Ed Eagle: I hate my job.

Maybe we shouldn't be so hard on Ed Eagle. Also, I should probably stop creating fictitious converstaions in my head between Ed Eagle and Jim Tracy.

D'Backs 5 Pirates 4

What everyone says in the comments on the post below is true, when you're 16 games below .500 there isn't much that should bother you, there isn't much that you shouldn't see coming, you should always expect the worst from your baseball team. And yet, somehow the Pirates find a way to make each loss worse than the last. To further the Office Space analogy established in Dejan's last few Q&A's (which have been moved to Friday's to accomidate his new weekly Monday chat:

Peter Gibbons: So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.

That's kind of like the Pirates season. When a team has 44 losses in mid-June, you think you've seen everything. Then, it gets worse. After coming back from a 4-0 deficit to tie the game against a team that's lost 9 of 10, they managed to load the bases with no outs in the bottom of the 9th before striking out three consectutive times. In this scenario, the infield and outfield are in, so anything besides a pop-up, a grounder hit right at someone, or a strike out wins the game. And all we can muster from Burnitz, Sanchez, and Castillo is three whiffs. Then, to add insult to injury, Torres avoids damage after a shaky 10th and Ronnie Paulino leads off with a double. Hernandez bunts him over, then Jose Bautista and Jack Wilson fail to score the run from third. So we're now looking at five guys who had a chance to bring home the winning run from third base, three of whom had their opportunity with less than two outs. That's a failure of epic proportions right there. It's disgusting, despicable, and disheartening (there are your "Killer D's" for 2006 right there McClatchy, shove those stupid "Doumit, Duffy, Duke" bobbleheads right up your ass you stupid clown). I would question Jim Tracy's decision to leave Torres out for the 11th, given that Torres has been doing his best Brian Blowringer/Rick White impression recently and he gave up 2 hits in the 10th, but it can't be Tracy's fault. He doesn't make mistakes. Besides, it's not like we were going to score anyways, because if we didn't do it in the 9th or 10th it was never going to happen.

A one game series?

I feel obliged to mention that the D'Backs are in town today only to make up their rainout from early May. Appropriately, it is an overcast and rainy day here in the 'Burgh, though they will likely get the game in anyways as the weather is not that bad. The D'Backs are road weary, playing some bad baseball and probably pissed they have to come to Pittsburgh to play this game at all, as it should've been played six weeks ago (remember, the Bucs called the day game like at 1:30 and things cleared up shortly afterwards). The Pirates are looking for anything to postpone the embarassment they will likely levy upon themselves in Kansas City. The most intriguing plotline in this one is whether Jim Tracy will get a chance to play Julius Caesar while the rest of the team takes the role of the Roman Senate. Starring in the role of Brutus will be T-Bone Shelby of course, if only to hear the words Et tu, T-Bone?

Chaos

You would think that a team that's been around 15 games under .500 would have had the wheels fall off before now. Impressively, the team and their resident jackass manager have stuck together fairly well. That all ended after Sunday's game. If you missed the game, the play in question was a ball hit by Luis Castillo with two outs in the top of the 8th. Ollie jammed Castillo and the ball kind of blooped out in front of Jack, who couldn't get to the ball in time to catch it on the fly. He hurried a slightly off mark throw to first, which Casey came off the bag for (it was a pretty weak effort on the stretch). It might not have mattered, as Castillo can move pretty good. In all honesty, at first I thought Jack let the ball play him a bit, which resulted in it falling in. After seeing it a couple more times, I don't know if there's anything else he could've done. He was coming in pretty hard and Castillo hit the ball with some major top spin or something because the thing dropped out of the air like a rock about 10 feet quicker than it looked like it should've. Maybe Jack COULD'VE made the play, but I think it would've been impressive even for him. There's no way anyone can say he SHOULD'VE made it. Enter Jim Tracy:

I've seen that play be made.

In public, calling out his Gold Glove caliber shortstop. The guy who shows up every day and plays harder than anyone. I don't think a manager should ever call out a anyone's effort in public like that, but he should especially never (ever, ever, ever, ever) call out the effort of a guy like Jack Wilson. Jack's response:

Wow, he said that? That's his opinion. I did my best to make that play. It was a jam job, a soft line drive and I'm going full bore for that ball. About the only chance you have on that play is if the third baseman can get to it.

Tracy (this and the rest of the quotes are from the PG article, the first one linked) continued:

It's extremely unfortunate that Oliver Perez has to take that loss, because he matched one of the best pitchers in the game. When you're involved in a 1-1 game, you cannot afford to have the kind of mistakes that allow extra hitters to come to the plate. That's exactly what happened and, in my opinion, it's the reason we got beat.

The other players who saw the play, the guys who have PLAYED THE GAME, something that Jim Tracy values so highly, saw something different. Jose Castillo:

Very hard play. When you're running and a hop comes in like that, it's not easy to throw.

Oliver Perez:

Tough play (hey, the guy doesn't speak much English... remember the commercial with the cookies last year?).

Luis Castillo:

He's going to his right, and the ball hops on him like that ... that's hard. Jack Wilson's one of the best shortstops in baseball, and it's still tough for him. I have good speed, too, so he's got to hurry.

That first noise you heard, that was Jack Wilson getting tossed under the bus. The second noise? The wheels coming off of the bus and the thing going over the cliff in flames.

Twins 8 Pirates 2

There's no shame in losing to Johan Santana. There is shame in being a lifeless shell of a baseball team. There is shame in wasting three straight very good starts from your young pitching staff. There is shame in becoming the next Rick White, and I'm talking to you, Sal Torres (good analogy, Jeremy). There is shame in being 26-44, no matter how young you are. The D'Backs have lost 9 of 10 and they have to be licking their chops right now for our one game series tomorrow. Ugh.

Johann

We wrap up what's quickly becoming a nightmare of a series against the Twins today with another interesting pitching matchup, Johann Santana and Oliver Perez. Unlike the first two matchups of this series, which were interesting for what might be down the road, this one is curious for what it might've been. As in, what might've been if Oliver Perez didn't fall off the face of the planet the last two years. Santana is still almost certainly the best lefty on the planet, despite lacking the record to back it up. Considering how flat the Bucs have looked since we've started this homestand, how hot the Twins are (6 in a row), and that Santana guy, things aren't looking so hot for the Buccos today.

Shock

I'm sure a lot of you have seen this already, but last night Kris Benson, he of zero home runs after six years in the National League with the Bucs and Mets, hit a home run for the Orioles last night. In New York. Against the Mets. Off of PEDRO MARTINEZ. To make things even more bizarre, it was the first homer Pedro's given up to a pitcher since Doug Drabek. If you're keeping track at home, Benson's now 8-5 in Baltimore.

Twins 5 Pirates 3

I don't know what to say about this one, it was a pretty uninspired effort from our Buccos tonight which made for a really boring night at the ballpark. I don't know if I've ever really seen a crowd as large as tonight's (30,000) so completely disinterested with a baseball game, though it really wasn't their fault. The Twins tossed a ton of mediocrity at us off the mound tonight and we couldn't do anything with it. Instead, we seemed content with three runs. That was enough to keep the game tied after Paul Maholm settled down, but not enough after our dinosaur bullpen came in in the 8th. Maholm looked pretty good tonight and was even hitting 94 on the stadium gun from time to time (which shocked me), but he still gave up back to back homers to Jason Kubel and Terry Tiffee, not exactly Murderer's Row. I don't know what else to say about this one, the team seemed affected by the general malaise that typically affects Pirates fans around this time of year.

Boof and Maholm

Tonight we get game 2 of intriguing pitching matchups, out of three on the weekend. Paul Maholm and Boof Bonser are kind of like the B-team compared to last night's Liriano/Snell matchup, but given the way that Snell and Liriano pitched I'd say that's pretty complimentary. Apparently the Pirates have run out of bobbleheads to give away, as they're back on Bill Mazeroski, the guy that they started the whole trend with about 5 years ago.

Things for you to click on

I've got some links for everyone to chew on while they watch some USA/Italy soccer and get ready for Paul Maholm and Boof Bonser tonight (because it takes time to prepare to face a guy named BOOF).

I have a piece up on Irate Fans entitled "The Illusion of Competition" that is culled from a couple of my Dave Littlefield is an Evil Genius posts from this past offseason (namely a post of the same name and the Wilson Conundrum), that are adapted to the entire organization, not just DL. If you've been around here for a while you've heard all of my long winded ranting on the subject, but if you're a new reader here you might want to check it out.

Azibuck's final report from Rochester on the Indy Indians is up.

This isn't Pirates related, but I find the medical explanation for why Bengals, Browns, and Ravens fans felt the need to trash talk Big Ben to be hilarious.

That Tom Gorzellany guy is really good. At the same link, Kip Wells may be back sooner than expected due to Victor Santos' cracked fingernail, and a bunch of Buccos get new numbers. They don't mention this, but a while back (at least two weeks ago) Jose Hernandez increased his torture of me by switching from 16 to 18, the number of two of my favorite Pirates while growing up, Kendall and (of course) Van Slyke. Damn you, Jose Hernandez.

Alright, that's all I got for now. I'll get a game thread up before I leave here for the game tonight.

Twins 4 Pirates 2

There's not really much to say about a game like last night's. Liriano was better than advertised, which is pretty damn good when you're advertised as Santana Jr. The thing about it was that Snell matched him almost step-for-step through six. Actually, you could argue pretty convincingly that Snell was better through six. He only struck out 6 to Liriano's 10 (Liriano added 1 more K in the 10th), but he'd also only given up 2 hits, 1 walk, and 0 runs to Liriano's 3, 1, and 2. Snell just hit the wall hard in the 7th, something that happens to young pitchers from time to time. He only threw 96 pitches total, his fastball was still buzzing at 96 mph (by the FSP gun), but clearly he had lost something. You can perhaps fault Tracy for not getting him out of the 7th sooner, but I think you have to let a young guy try and get out of a jam like that, especially with such a low pitch count. After Snell hit the wall, the Bucs were done. Liriano started to falter in the 7th, but got out of a 2-on 2-out jam by fanning Joe Randa, who looked like someone that hasn't seen a pitcher like that in about 12 years. After that, it's generally game over against the Twins and their lights out pen, and that was the case last night. The second base umpire getting in the way of a sure-fire double play ball that eventually gave the Twins their insurance run in the 9th didn't help any, but I doubt it hurt much either because Nathan put our 4-5-6 guys down on 7 pitches, needing only three strikes. It was a fun game to watch, both young pitchers were great, Liriano just had a little more in the tank than Snell. I don't see much shame in losing a game like that one.

The Twins are here

Tonight we get a pretty intriguing matchup of young pitchers, Francisco Liriano and Ian Snell. Liriano has been consistently very good since the Twins put him in the rotation while Snell hasn't been anything consistently except inconsistent. Still, if Snell's can continue on his recent hot streak he can get just about anyone out, and the Twins below average lineup (except for Joe Mauer, nothing average about that guy) should be no exception. For some added fun, we get to watch the Twins pitchers bat this weekend and watching AL pitchers bat is usually as fun as watching relief pitchers take cuts.

Something else to vote for

Dodger Math (which will soon be added to the sidebar) is having a running "Worst GM" bracket. I don't need to tell you what to do. Click on over there and help get Dave Littlefield the reward he so rightly deserves.

Links, etc.

Speaking of Kip Wells, he pitched well in Altoona last night and is scheduled for one more rehab start in Indy before returning the Pirates rotation either in LA or at home against his former team, the ChiSox.

And speaking of Indy, Azibuck has another report up at the Bucs Dugout, this one on the second Indians/Red Wings game in Rochester. He saw Gorzellany pitch, and was very impressed with him. The whole thing is worth a read if you've got the time.

If you're looking to keep up on the Irate Fans, Kraig Koelsch was interviewed on AOL's Sports Bloggers Live yesterday about the whole thing yesterday. We're still trying to spread the word as far and wide as we can, so if anyone out there has any connections they'd like to pass it along to, feel free to do so.

Mr. Robert Kip Wells

Kip Wells is due back in the rotation before the end of the month after missing most of the first three months of 2006 coming back from a blood clot that had formed in his pitching shoulder. We know that Kip Wells was a rather promising young pitcher in his first two years with the Buccos in 2002 and 2003, and we know that he got considerably less promising in the next two years, 2004 and 2005. Most of us agree that at least some of Kip's woes from last year, by far his worst year, were due to the blood clot because the nature of blood clots is to not just appear out of nowhere. But the questions lie within. How much of his struggles last year were due to the blood clots? Why did he struggle in 2004? Can he come back and be the pitcher he was in 2003 again? Is there any reason at all to hand a spot in the rotation back to him? I'll do my best to answer those questions, though I admittedly do like Kip and may simply be viewing some of these things through rosy glasses.

We should start with the "good" Kip, the one we saw in 2002 and 2003. In 2002 Kip was 12-14 with a 3.58 ERA and a 1.35 WHIP. While it's not particularly special, it's a pretty good year for a 25 year old in his first season as a full time starter in a new league. Yeah, those are lots of conditions, but in 2003 he was even better, going 10-9 (winning records are rare around these parts, that's for sure) with a 3.28/1.25 line. That was the year that the bullpen famously blew about 12 of his leads (forgive me for not sifting through Retrosheet boxscores for the precise amount, I'm almost positive it was over 10, if anyone has exact the exact number, let me know). I remembered him being very good that year, though a comment from azibuck in this comment thread got me thinking. Azibuck essentially says that the reason Kip had so many leads blown for him was that his penchant for going deep into counts lead to shorter starts, and longer outings for the bullpen lead to more blown leads. I thought this was an intriguing idea, a very possible explanation to that odd phenomena that I, admittedly, had not thought of. As it turns out, I don't think that theory holds much water. Kip averaged about 6 innings a start in 2002 and 6 and 1/3 in 2003. That seems to be a pretty decent average to me, but it's not exactly a normal stat. For comparison's sake, Chris Carpenter averaged about 7 and 1/3 on his way to the NL Cy Young last year while Bartolo Colon averaged about 6 and 2/3 on his way to the AL Cy Young. Roger Clemens, who had one of the best statistical years ever for a pitcher last year was right around 6 and 2/3 as well. Nothing is definitive there, but we can go from there and apply Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation is usually correct. Brian BLOWringer, Joe Beimel, and Mike Williams all figured prominently into the 2003 bullpen and I'm not sure three relievers ever had worse simultaneous years. So I think we can chalk the bullpen blowing Kip's leads in 2003 up to just that, the bullpen being awful. Going from there, I don't see any reason to look at Kip through 2003 as anything but what we remember, at least an upper rotation guy and possibly a budding ace. To add on to the impressive WHIP and ERA, he averaged 6.7 strikeouts per 9 and almost 2 (1.93 to be exact) strikeouts per walk. The walks were a little high (76 total), but they weren't out of control (though perhaps his BB/9 ratio raising from 3.22 in '02 to 3.44 in '03 was an early red flag).

The raises the question, what happened next? Kip opened up 2004 with a great game against the Phillies (6 shutout innings) on a very cold day and continued to pitch well through April, ending the month with a 2.97 ERA and a 1.32 WHIP in 30 and 1/3 innings. At that point the wheels fell off. ERA doesn't always tell the full story, but I think it does here. His ERAs by month for the rest of the season were 5.20, 7.43, 2.60 and 5.30 before pulling up lame in his first start of August after only 1/3 of an inning. For the season his ERA jumped to 4.55 and his WHIP rose to 1.53. His walks rose to almost 4.3/9 innings and he only averaged 5 and 2/3 innings per start. After he complained of numbness in one finger, he had carpal tunnel release surgery, which ended his season. Supposedly that fixed his problems, but his pitching got worse. We all know what happened last year, but a quick numbers rehash shows things were worse than ever, 5.09/1.57 with 4.9 BB/9 and less than 5 and 2/3 per start. And of course, once he started throwing this spring the blood clot was discovered.

The whole injury situation doesn't sit right with me. In 2004 he had elbow problems and numbness in his fingers. He struggled with his control all year and if I'm not mistaken, his velocity wavered towards the end of the year. Supposedly his troubles were fixed, but in 2005 he struggled with his velocity and control again before experiencing numbness in his fingers and eventually, the discovery of his clot. Now, it's possible that Kip simply tried to strike everyone out after his ugly experience in 2003 leading to an increased number of walks. He did strike out more batters per 9 innings in 2004 than he did in 2003. But his struggles on the field fit the symptoms of his injuries too well, finger numbness would very easily cause control and velocity problems. I have a bit of a conspiracy theory that's been percolating for a while (though it's possible we can just chalk it up to watching too many old episodes of the X-Files). My theory is this, Kip started out 2004 with the mind set that if he needed to become more dominating to take the game out of the hands of his fielders and the bullpen. This precipitated a change in his delivery, which caused the clot to begin forming. The clot grew through the year until eventually causing numbness in one of his fingers and some elbow discomfort. It was still small enough that the medical staff missed the symptoms (different blood pressures in his right and left arm was what I think tipped them off this spring) since it's a pretty rare injury and diagnosed carpal tunnel, something that often gets diagnosed when doctors can't think of anything else. Kip had the surgery and went into the spring and felt OK. Maybe the clot shifted around and wasn't bothering him (I don't know, I'm not a doctor, I don't know exactly how these things work). At some point last year, probably right around now (Kip's ERA on June 8th of last year was 3.39) his arm started acting up again. This is where I think his infamous relationship with McClendon comes in. I envision a situation in which Kip told Spin or Mac he was having the same arm problems as before, and I think they told him that the problem was fixed, so he needed to suck it up and keep pitching. There's no way he didn't experience some symptoms of this massive blood clot before spring training this year, I just don't believe it. We know from the quotes from the young pitchers (especially Duke) this spring that the old staff was rather deconstructive and we know that Lloyd was famously difficult to approach (remember, one of Lloyd's biggest supporters, Matt Lawton, didn't talk to Lloyd until almost June according to an Inside Pirates Baseball from last year). We also know that Kip Wells could barely contain his excitement when Lloyd got the axe last year.

So there's the conspiracy theory. The reason I have it is this, Kip Wells is not stupid. If he started out 2004 trying to strike more guys out and it didn't work, he would've gone back to the way he was pitching before at some point. He often seemed to be as frustrated by his struggles as we were. There's just too much of a contrast between the numbers in 2002-2003 and 2004-2005 for me to believe that there weren't other factors in play. Kip was at an age that he should've been getting better, instead he was suffering from what seems like a pretty typical end of career spiral. It's possible that my conspiracy theory is way off base and that by a strange coincidence, Kip Wells suffered two injuries in two years that caused his hand to go numb, but it's really hard for me to accept that. And I do hope that no one thinks I'm still trying to kick McClendon 9 months after he left, I'm just trying to explain the animosity that Kip seemed to have for Mac.

And so, we finally reach the conclusion (I'm assuming people are still reading). I think that it's likely, maybe even probable, that his poor numbers in 2004 and 2005 were almost entirely injury related. Aaron Cook, who also had surgery to fix a clot after the 2004 season, has a similar statisical arc (though it's the analysis is incomplete without his minor league numbers). Even if we only get the 2004 Kip Wells, it's worth a shot to put him in the rotation because he likely won't be worse than Santos over a long stretch (the 2004 Wells had good stretches just like Santos was having before today) and we're more likely to see the 2003 Wells than the 2005 Wells. I won't get into whether we should replace Perez with Kip because I could write a post 10 times longer than this and not manage to get to the bottom of things where Perez is concerned. I'll simply say that if that's the route Tracy and DL choose to go, I think we'll all completely understand. As for where to go beyond this, well, the Pirates have been pretty loyal to Kip and if there isn't much interest for him on the trade market or the free agent market (a possibility given the last two years and his injury history) despite a good showing from Wells this summer, the Bucs would do well to sign him relatively cheaply and keep this post by Charlie in mind.

I know everyone won't agree with me on this and I'm not really expecting people to, but we can all agree that if Kip Wells is 2-8 with an ERA of over 5 come September, I will have just wasted a lot of hot air.

Cards 6 Pirates 5

It's hard to do recaps on games that are only seen via bits of gamecast here and there, so let's just leave my description of today as "disappointed." As in disappointed that Sanchez didn't start, disappointed Casey and Castillo left 10 guys on base, disappointed that Santos and Vogelsong pitched so poorly, disappointed Bay hit into a game ending double play, and just all around disappointed that we lost this series when it seems like we could've swept it.

A lunch-time finale

Today brings yet another afternoon series finale so that the Pirates can get away to, umm, well they're staying here and the Cards are only going home, so it's an afternoon game for no reason in particular. The Bucs will try and do the unthinkable today, win a series at home against the Cardinals. They send Victor Santos to the mound to face Mark Mulder and in all likelihood, Santos is pitching for his spot in the rotation despite his recent hot streak (Tracy repeatedly has said that Kip Wells will be in the rotation when he returns). Tracy clearly does not care how much this game may mean to the team or to the fans to see the Bucs win a series against the Cards at home, as he's starting Joe Randa at third today, despite lavishing praise on Freddy Sanchez in the paper today. You'd have to be blind to not see the impact that the CWilson/Sanchez/Castillo trio had on the game last night, but Tracy has apparently decided to ignore it anyways. I'll admit, it takes balls to be so blatantly against your own team winning baseball games.

Pirates 9 Cards 7

Tonight was a good win for lots of purely abstract reasons. Duke clearly didn't have it tonight, but he managed to keep it together long enough to keep his team in the game, something Sidney Ponson couldn't do. Duke also made up for his deficiency on the mound tonight with 2 hits and 3 RBIs, which gives him something like 5 RBIs in his last four starts. I've gotta say, I love it when pitchers hit, it's like a special bonus that the other team can't get. The offense was keyed tonight by the absence of Joe Randa. Without him in the lineup, Craig was flipped up from 7 to 5 and Jose Castillo was allowed to play, inserted in the 7 slot. The CWilson/Sanchez/Castillo threesome acted as a second top of the order tonight, with Craig and Freddy scoring three runs apiece and Castillo driving in four (including a three run homer). Of course, it would be brilliant to actually see those guys at the top of the lineup, but I suppose I can settle for them all batting together. The nice part about tonight was that the Cards clearly weren't playing well, and we managed to take advantage of it. We didn't let an early deficit bother us and we even held on at the end after Rolen's homer that halved the deficit in the 9th. In general, it was a game that would've been painful to lose, but a game that it feels like we lose all the time (not in the 9th, but earlier by never actually stemming the tide at 5 like Duke, Torres, Marte, and Hernandez managed to do after the 3rd inning). As we've all said before, winning is nice, and it's nice to see the Pirates do it a little more often. And the Cubbies lost again, pulling us to within one game from emerging from our exile in the cellar. It wouldn't mean much in the long run to come out of 6th place, but it would sure feel good after the way this season started.

Still kind of chubby Sidney and the Duke

I have to run out for a bit and I'm going to miss the beginning of this one, so I'll put the gamethread up now. Tonight we get the remade Sidney Ponson (you may remember him as "Fat Sidney" from Baltimore last year) who has sadly for the Cards been one of their better starters this year. Still, Sid hasn't gone more than 6 and 2/3rds of an inning in any start this year, so he really hasn't been that great this year. I'll stand by everything I said yesterday about the Cards lineup for at least one more day though, the guys they have to play right now just aren't as great as the Cards teams of the past two years have been. Duke has pitched well lately winning two of his last three starts and watching the bullpen blow a lead in the other start. Again, I think this is a winnable game for the Buccos, and one that they have to win if they want anyone to believe they're a different team than the one that we opened the year with. Will they win? I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

A report on Burnett

Azibuck, whom I'm sure most of you recognize from the comments, was at the Rochester Red Wings/Indianapolis Indians game yesterday and took in Sean Burnett's most recent start. His full and very detailed recap of the game is posted up at the Bucs Dugout and it's certainly worth your time to check it out. It sounds like Burnett is slowly finding his way out of the woods, which is about right on the timescale for Tommy John surgery (it usually takes about a year to recover and 1 and a half to 2 years to get back to full strength if I have my time table right for this one). Sounds like he still needs to find a little bit of velocity and stamina, but everything else seems to be progressing for him. He also reports on a handful of other Indy players, including Bayliss, Boeve, and Davis.

Cards 2 Pirates 1

Some observations from my perch up in 331 tonight:

• They let me into the game with my Irate Fans shirt. And people tend to notice it a lot less when you aren't in a group full of guys wearing the same shirt. Which just means I need to get my friends some shirts.
  
• Somehow between beer and All-Star ballots (I think my friends and I took a full stand's worth) I missed the starting lineups. Which made it that much more incredibly shocking to see Joe Randa batting fifth and playing third base. Jose Castillo hasn't won a player of the week award in two full weeks, what has HE done for us lately. Note to Jim Tracy: just because Joe Randa is #5 doesn't mean he has to start at position 5 (third) and bat 5th in the lineup. Just so you know.
  
• Freddy six and Craig Wilson seven, now there's brilliance from Tracy. They have homes for people as certifiably insane as him.
• I did my duty as an Irate Fan to cost the owners as much money as possible by screaming the answer of the "Know Your Buccos" (Q: Which current Pirate was acquired by the Buccos in July 2004? A: Jose Bautista) question to the guy answering it a section away, ensuring that he got the Home Plate Club tickets. I wasn't sure he heard me, but he gave a glance up to our section and I got an incredibly dirty look from the scoreboard MC. It was a strangely satisfying experience.
  
• Sheesh, Carpenter was on tonight. Everytime I looked down someone was striking out. We wondered why they yanked him after 7 innings. The answer is that it takes a ton of pitches to strike 13 people out. Just how good was Carp tonight? Good enough that even with Joe Randa batting fifth he went after Jason Bay everytime up and coerced him into 2 Ks.
  
• Of course on the night that Ollie shows his best control in years, his only walk ends up being the deciding run. Still, 77 strikes in 110 pitches is pretty damn encouraging. He seemed to be able to reach back for a little extra when he wanted a strikeout, though "a little extra" only means 93 these days. Every comeback has to start somewhere, I just wish we didn't have to say that once a month for Ollie.
• In the Roberto Clemente book, Clemente says that the best way to break out of a slump is to go up to the plate and swing the bat three times every at bat. If you get 12 swings in a game, he reasons, it's not a stretch to think you can get a hit from one of them. So... that's my advice to Ronnie Paulino. SWING THE F@$#ING BAT! I can only imagine what posses a man to look at strike three in the bottom of the ninth with the tying run on third and Jose Hernandez in the on-deck circle while a struggling closer is on the mound. I don't know if Ronnie realizes it, but if he walks there, Jose K is up (speaking of which, just what the hell happened to Castillo tonight, did he run over Tracy's dog or something?) and the game is just as over as it is if you swing at strike three in the dirt. But you can't hit the ball if you don't swing. I know he's just a rookie and it's a tight pinch to be in, but sheesh, what a bad way to lose.