Roundup

A collection of links from the past couple days that I've been unable to put up until now:

John Van Benschoten actually pitched and pitched well, though a 26 year old should pitch well in Rookie Ball. He's on his way to Altoona now, and I personally can't wait to hear him referred to as a "prospect" again by either someone at FSP or Pirates.com.

According to John Perrotto, Shawn Chacon was about to be released by the Yankees before we took him... for the best piece we had to deal at the trade deadline. This is yet another reason to hate this trade, right up there with turning on ESPN last night and seeing Craig Wilson in Yankee grays (via Bucs Dugout).

Finally someone has taken the initiative to drop Chris Duffy to the 8 spot in the lineup, and it only took a 3-for-29 spell in his return with the team to do it. I'm fine with Duffy getting a large chunk of the playing time for the rest of this year, but I hope it keeps coming in the 8 slot rather than leadoff. Ronnie Paulino batted sixth last night because of Duff's drop, but Tracy says that won't last as he wants to keep pressure off of his rookie catcher, which is apparently more important than putting together a decent starting lineup.

Billy at Romo relays an HW comment thread that compares Craig Wilson to Obi-Wan Kenobi,

...having been struck down by Darth Littlefield, Craiggers has become more
powerful than DL could have imagined.

Brilliant.