One more with the Padres

Shawn Chacon vs. Greg Maddux. Now there is a mighty pitcher's matchup. Maddux is exactly the kind of pitcher I expect us to struggle with. He doesn't throw hard and he nibbles the strike zone. We have no plate patience and swing at everything. Get ready for a SportsCenter montage about "the return of the old Greg Maddux" on the 11 PM show tonight. If we do find some way to overcome the immense odds and win this one, we'll have won a series from a good team at home. It would be nice to see, but I'm not really counting on it.

The draft and the future

Ahh, 'tis that time of year again.

Actually, that statement can go a couple ways. It's almost June and if you guys are anything like me, you're currently thinking, "Man, this Pirate team is awful. They're bad in the majors and I can't see how McCutchen and Walker are going to be good enough to completely turn things around in the next two years. We are hopeless." You probably have this thought just about every single year around June 1st. Maybe the names are changed, but the sentiment remains the same. I know that's about how it works for me.

But think about everything that has happened since this time last year. There was a draft. In the draft, we went for the "safe" pick. Brad Lincoln, a pitcher out of Houston whose stock had risen through the roof after a summer in the Cape Cod League and a great senior year. It's true that Lincoln was pretty widely regarded as the second best pitching prospect in the draft at the time. Then again, the guy that was rated as the best prospect in the draft was still on the board. We drafted Lincoln and he got hurt after throwing a very few number of innings for us. Could we have seen this coming? It's neither here nor there. But imagine we drafted someone else in that slot. Imagine we drafted Andew Miller and signed him or imagine we ignored the concerns around Tim Lincecum and drafted him.

Now fast forward a month and a half. It's the trade deadline. We made a ton of moves that day and most of them galled me at the time. Only one really still bothers me. You know which one... Oliver Perez and Roberto Hernandez for Xavier Nady. Nady is a platoon player. Perez is an immense baseball talent. The scales were so tipped on this trade it wasn't funny then and it never will be. For the Pirates to have completely given up on a talent like Perez at his age is ludicrous. It will haunt Pirate fans and Dave Littlefield for years to come.

Now imagine we are in this alternate universe, one in which the Pirates had some balls at the draft table and the coaching staff to fix Oliver Perez. On May 31st, 2007 our starting rotation would be Gorzelanny/Snell/Miller-Lincecum/Perez/Duke or Maholm. Look at the National League Central. Tell me a team with that rotation wouldn't be competitive in the Central. And all we'd be short of our current team is Xavier Nady, a streaky hitter that generally can't hit right-handed pitching to save his life. One year and this team could be well on it's way to turning around.

So what's the point of this? I don't mean to harshly criticize anyone for taking Lincoln instead of Miller or Lincecum, a lot of people that know a lot about the draft thought Lincoln wasn't a bad pick at the time. But the real problem with the Pirates is that there's no vision. Their goal right now is 2009, a year that's too far away to know anything about. No vision is required to set 2009 as a goal in 2006 or 2007. You say, "the guys we have will be better and these guys will be here and we'll be good," and like magic you have yourself a three-year plan. Those things never work out. Unless every single move is geared towards making the team better as soon as possible, none of the moves being made are anything but lateral. That's where the Pirates are right now, and that's where I'm afraid they're going to stay.

Game 52: Padres 9 Pirates 0

The scene: PNC Park
The setting: The eighth inning. The Padres are up 3-0 with a runner on first. Jonah Bayliss is coming in to replace Paul Maholm. My dad and I are in our usual seats on the right field wall. Mike Cameron is on first base, Josh Bard is at the plate.

Bayliss sets and delivers, Cameron breaks for second and easily steals the base on Ronny Paulino's Little League arm.

Me: Wow, that sucked. Paulino is awful.

Paulino then signals for the intentional walk of Bard.

Me: This makes no sense. Bard's hitting like .240 and clueless tonight. Bayliss can't throw strikes anyways. This is a stupid move

Dad: What's even the point of this. Why put another guy on base that could score with Bayliss on the mound.

Bayliss finishes walking Bard intentionally, then walks Kevin Kouzmanoff unintentionally.

Dad: If I'm Tracy I get him out of there right now.

Bayliss falls behind 2-0 on Green.

Dad: Oh my god, he's going to walk a run in.

Me: Nah, grand slam.

Khalil Green: Grand slam.

Dad: So you wanna get out of here?

Me: Yeah, let's go.

Why does no one go to Pirate games? Because of infuriating crap like this. My dad and I sat on the wall in right field and knew from the second that Bayliss took the mound that trouble was coming. We knew the intentional walk was a stupid idea. After he walked the bases loaded, my dad called for Tracy to go get him. After he fell behind in the count, I predicted the damn grand slam. How can we see this and the people that run the team can't? Did it cost us the game? Probably not. But it might've. When Maholm left the game, it was 3-0. You can trip and fall over three runs when an on-fire Jason Bay is anchoring your lineup. There have only been three relievers this year that have been any good at getting hitters out, Marte, Capps, and Torres. You only need four outs from your bullpen tonight. Use someone that can get people out, keep the game close. Wishing for an out from Bayliss is like wishing for a million dollars. I might get it, eventually, but a lot of things are going to happen between now and then. Ugh. I am over four hours removed from this and still incredibly pissed about it.

My Tony Armas streak ends

My streak of going to games started by Tony Armas will finally come to it's painful close at a whopping two. Instead, I get to see Paul Maholm tonight. Consider me tickled pink. By my count, this will be the sixth game I've attended this year. Currently the Pirates are 0-5. I am not positive about tonight, however, as former Bucco prospect Chris Young will take the mound for the Padres and he seems bound and determined to no-hit his former employers. Last year in two starts against us, he took a no-no into the sixth once and into the ninth another time, the last time being foiled by a Joe Randa home run. The last game I went to, Chuck James flirted with a no-no for the Braves. Perhaps this will be a culmination of everything this time around.

I kind of hope not, despite everything that has happened this year, the Pirates are in second place and only 5.5 games out of first. An undeserving bunch of underachievers is probably going to win this division. Why not us?

Also, to the Pirate marketing department, if you're out there, An undeserving bunch of underachievers is probably going to win this division. Why not us? is a much better team slogan than We Will. Just saying.

Links and stuff

Looks like Ryan Freel didn't make that amazing catch after all. Here's my take on it over at the Fanhouse, if you're interested.

Dejan does some Qing in the Q&A today. I've actually got some thoughts somewhere along the lines of this subject that I'll probably post tomorrow. Rowdy's thoughts are up now.

Unrelated to the Pirates, this was really really cool.

Jeff Passan has his all overpaid and all underpaid teams up in his latest column. No Pirates show up on the list, though we are paying Jason Kendall some of his salary. Getting Jason Bay for $3.25 million is a steal. He'd be on my list somewhere.

Where have you gone, Doug Drabek?

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much.

Doug Drabek was quite nearly my favorite Pirate as a child. In fact, this blog would have quite nearly been "WHYGDD" if not for all of the qualities that make Andy Van Slyke a 5-year olds favorite player. Still, who wouldn't love the mustache and the mullet to go with the dominant pitching that Drabek brought to the table.

First things first. Drabek started the very first Pirate game I ever attended. The details of his start are murky, but he must've been good because I know the Pirates beat the Expos 6-1 that night. I distinctly remember getting a baseball card that off-season that said "Award Winners" on it with Drabek's picture and the caption "1990 National League Cy Young Winner." That lead to a discussion between me and my dad about what a Cy Young Award was. Funny what sticks with us, isn't it?

I don't remember a lot about Drabek's 1990 campaign, but damn, those numbers are impressive. 22-6. Three shutouts. 2.76 ERA. 1.06 WHIP. That's a dominant season. He followed it up with two more fifteen win seasons. The Pirates have had one fifteen game winner since he left. I remember being a little kid and thinking that every single time I went to a game with my dad, Drabek was on the mound. Looking back, maybe that wasn't a coincidence. He caught some bad luck in '91 with 14 losses, but he didn't really pitch a whole lot worse. After he left, I remember getting trounced by Astro teams that he pitched for on Sunday afternoons and wishing he was still in black and gold.

But the thing that will probably stick with me the most is Drabek in the playoffs. I decry the description of players as "clutch" all the time, but damn am I tempted to use it to describe Drabek. I know he started at least two of the Pirates NL East division clinchers and I think he may have started all three. Whether or not Drabek was a clutch pitcher, he certainly turned in some big time performances in the playoffs. He made 7 career NLCS starts with the Pirates and had an ERA of 2.05 and a WHIP of 1.12 to go with it. I hate to bring this up, but he tossed eight shutout innings in game 7 of the '92 NLCS before running out of gas and giving way to Stan Belinda and... I'm not going there.

Just think about Drabek. Staring a hole in a batter from above that giant mustache with his mullet flapping in the wind behind him. I mean, how could a hitter not be intimidated by him? That's what this pitching staff is missing. After Snell (who everyone knows is nuts and must scare the bejesus out of everyone he faces), Gorzelanny, Duke, and Maholm all look like little kids. There's just not anyone on the team (and not many people in the league in general) with an image created specifically to scare batters. Doug Drabek wasn't afraid of anyone. And that's why I remember him.

Game 51: Pirates 4 Padres 1

In the first inning of this one, all I could think to myself was, "Well, this must be Tom Gorzelanny regresses to the mean night." He really struggled in the first, walking two batters, loading the bases, and needing 34 pitches to get three outs. It was painful to watch, and he didn't even give up a run. Clearly, we were going to need to bring the bats out tonight. And yet, we didn't have to. Gorzelanny buckled down and gave the Bucs seven strong innings and only allowed one run. He only walked one more batter the rest of the way, picking up his sixth win of the year. It was really an impressive start on all fronts, especially given the scary way that his last one ended, with him taking a liner off of his thumb and all.

As for the offense, well, it wasn't great but they did manage to chase David Wells after five innings. Jose Bautista continued to be a good leadoff guy by singling twice and scoring twice. It was a pretty well oiled machine early in the game. Bautista would single, Freddy would get a hit and eventually score, either on Freddy's hit or someone else's. After the Padres narrowed things down to 2-1, Jason Bay responded by homering off of Cla Meredith, which is not a particularly easy thing to do (only four homers allowed in 77 career innings before tonight). Bay is locked in right. Adam LaRoche also had three hits and knocked in one last insurance run late in the game tonight. He's now batting .218. Watch your ass, Ronny Paulino. The LaRoche train is coming.

The Pirates have now won four of five, with the only loss coming in Snell's start in the rotation. Go figure. With the Cubs loss tonight, the Pirates have assumed second place in the NL Central. That is insane. Mostly because we're five games under .500.

What the hell, bring on the Padres

The Pirates had one of the better weeks of any team in the NL Central last week. That's because they didn't play any teams outside of the Central while the rest of the division was going 5-23 against teams not from the Central. I know. Damn, that's bad.

Anyways, the Padres were among the beneficiaries of the crappiness of our division, going 5-1 against the Brewers and Cubs. Accordingly, I think we're probably screwed in this series. The Padres are tied for first in a division that currently has three teams of at least 7 games over .500. Diamondback fans must currently hate the NL Central to think that we're getting a playoff spot that they would be missing out on if the season ended today.

Tonight we get Tom Gorzelanny vs. David Wells. David Wells is fat, old, and crappy. He's pitched very well in his past two starts. Care to guess who he pitched against? Yep, NL Central teams. Which means look for dominant, Yankee-era David Wells tonight. As for Gorzelanny, well, I'd look for him to pitch well and keep us in the game. That is, of course, maddening because losing close games always sucks more than losing blowouts.

Not that it matters much tonight. The House season finale is on and everyone wants to know if Dr. Foreman is actually going to leave and take that job offer coaching the Steelers, or if House can convince him to stay.

Let's have some fun

I'll admit it, I'm falling kind of into a rut here with the Pirates being the way that they are this year. Sure it was fun to watch them obliterate the Reds in a few games this weekend, but the fact remains that they ended the series with a shutout at the hands of Kyle Lohse. It's really hard to be interested in a team like that. So what to do? I think it's time to shake things up here at WHYGAVS. Not a huge shakeup, mind you, just kind of a change of pace to keep both myself and everyone else interested. I'll keep putting up gamethreads, writing recaps, talking about news, and maybe even doing the occasional liveblog, but I've got some ideas to spice things up a bit. I'm going to start some new (hopefully) regular features on the site to keep the fun alive. Some ideas I'm kicking around:

• Where Have You Gone, [insert former Pirate here]- There are a lot of Pirates that have been through Pittsburgh since my Pirate memory begins at about age five (that's 1990 if you weren't sure). I'm not actually going to track them down, I'm just going to reminisce about them. Don't count on seeing Barry Bonds show up in this space though.
• The Pittsburgh Pirate Promotional Review- The Pirates have given out a ton of shit in the past few years. I've gone to a ton of games in the past few years. Accordingly, I've accumulated a lot of shit from the Pirates. I'm going to take pictures of it and make snarky remarks about everything I can find that the Pirates have put their brand on. Expect lots of bobbleheads here.
  
• A podcast- I'm still kind of tentative on this one, but I just got myself a sparkly new Mac and it comes all equipped with a microphone and podcasting software and everything. I have no faith in myself to talk for very long, but I've been told that I have both the perfect voice and face for radio, so I think I may try a week-in-review-podcast every Monday (or maybe Tuesday for this week since it's a holiday week if I'm feeling ambitious tomorrow or later tonight). We shall see.
  
• The 1979 World Series recaps- I've always wondered what my blog would read like if I was writing about a good team. I also have the full 1979 World Series DVD collection. This is admittedly a giant project that I may work on all summer and may not see the light of day until the off-season, but it's going to happen eventually.
• Also, we do need to have a WHYGAVS night at PNC Park. I will be a resident of Western PA until around August 1st, at which point I head to North Carolina to start grad school. WHYGAVS will continue, but the chance for a WHYGAVS night will be rather slim after then. Who's interested? What nights are good for everyone? Let's talk it out in the comments.

And tell me what you think of the proposed new blog features. Like them? Hate them? Have other ideas? Click the comment button and go to work.

Game 50: Reds 4 Pirates 0

Well, that was predictable. After four days of explosive offense, the Pirates sent their ace out to the mound against the worst pitcher the Reds started in this four game series and lost. Got shut-out in fact. By Kyle Lohse. Is it bad form to complain about a shutout after 33 runs in the prior three days? I dunno, but I certainly feel like doing it today. Jason Bay tripled in the second inning and was thrown out at home on a ground ball by Xavier Nady, and that was pretty much it for the whole game. Snell was solid. Not bad but not spectacular either. He probably should've been good enough to win, but that's neither here nor there.

The story of this one was, as you've probably heard by now, Ryan Freel. He managed to make a great running catch in right-center field today while recieving head and neck contusions from colliding with Norris Hopper at full speed. It was really ugly looking and Freel stayed down for a long time before being taken off by ambulance. I really don't know how he managed to keep hold of the ball. Anyway, word now is that he's OK and that's good, because who doesn't like Ryan Freel?

Sweep with Snell?

The Pirates are going for a four game sweep today? Does that seem right? Whether it seems right or not, it's what's happening today in Cincinnati. Kyle Lohse will attempt to prevent that from happening, and given how we've been hitting the ball, it seems to me like the Pirates should keep on piling the runs on for at least one more day.

Attempting to take home the sweep whether or not the Pirates score ten runs today is Ian Snell. He's given up four runs in his last two starts, which is pretty damn un-Snell-like given the way he started the season. It would be nice to see him get back on track today against the Reds, though it is worth noting that the Reds have scored 19 runs this series thus far and if we don't keep hitting, they probably will.

As for the Snell insult today, well Groucho Marx said this about someone and I don't know who, but it could've been Ian:
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.

Game 49: Steelers Pirates 14 Reds 10

OK, seriously, what's going on here? Where are the Pittsburgh Pirates? Today, they piled five runs and seven baserunners on Kirk Saarloos before he managed to record an out. Of course, being the Pirates they managed to never actually pull away from the Reds and kept everyone on the edge of their seat all afternoon. They had leads as big as 6-0, 11-5, and 14-9 while the Reds pulled as close as 7-5 and 11-9 while attempting to drive me completely insane.

Zach Duke sucked again today. He started off well, but got into some serious trouble in the fourth inning, allowing five hits in six batters, with the only out being a sac bunt. He's just so freaking hittable right now and I don't know if he's capable of doing anything about it. From him, things just got scarier as Tony Armas, Jonah Bayliss, and John Grabow took the mound with the specific goal of giving up as many homers as possible. Our bullpen is a terrifying, terrifying thing right now.

Lucky for the pitching staff , the offense is killing the ball right now. Jason Bay is on another planet and added three more hits, including his first inning three run homer, today. If he played for the Reds, he'd bat .320 with 40 homers and 130 RBI every year. He loves Great American Ballpark. LaRoche and Freddy kept up their recent hot hitting as well with two hits apiece and six RBI between them (four for Freddy). Every regular had at least one hit. Things were going so great that even Jack Wilson hit a home run. The Pirates have scored 33 runs in the past three games against the Reds. I am unsure how to process this piece of information. It just seems kind of unfathomable. I am fully expecting a no-hitter from Kyle Lohse tomorrow.

Not a sweep yet

The Pirates go for three in a row against the Reds today, though that wouldn't make a sweep because there's a fourth game coming tomorrow. The Pirates have hit well against Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo the past two days, so you'd assume that they could rock Kirk Saarloos today. Too bad you can never assume anything with the Pirate offense. Zach Duke will take the mound for the Buccos and he's been quite bad this year. I saw him on Fox Sports Pittsburgh last night talking about looking at tapes of 2005 and trying to get back to what he was doing then. I think we'd all like that.

Game 48: Pirates 9 Reds 5

Shawn Chacon replaced Tony Armas in the rotation tonight because Armas was struggling with the strike zone and not pitching far into games. Somehow, the team wanted fans to believe that Chacon, with an almost identical K/BB ratio as Armas, would stabilize the gaping hole in the rotation created by Armas and give the Pirates a solid start. Instead, Chacon did just what he always does, throw lots of balls, walk lots of batters, and scare the crap out of me. He only lasted 3 and 2/3 tonight and walked five batters in that stretch, exiting with a 6-1 lead and the bases loaded and John Grabow in to clean up his mess.

But you know what? We won tonight. That means writing an entire post bitching about Chacon is kind of unfair to everyone else. The offense brought the bats out again tonight, and smacked Bronson Arroyo all over the park tonight, bringing a smile to just about everyone's face. Xavier Nady hit a big three run homer in the first and Jason Bay and Adam LaRoche did a lot of the damage from there on out as the Pirates did a nice job keeping the Reds at arms-length all night, despite the crappy performance by just about every pitcher to take the mound for us not named Salomon Torres.

We walked nine guys tonight and the bullpen served up three home runs. Know how many games were going to win doing that? Not very many, that's for sure. Sure, two of those homers came from Brian Rogers watermelons, but still, it happened. Then again, Greg Brown and John Wehner agreed that those homers were better than walks would've been (coincidentally, I'm thinking about watching the games on mute at this point). Still, we won two games in a row and the pitching matchups were Aaron Harang vs. Paul Maholm and Bronson Arroyo vs. Shawn Chacon. Arroyo and Harang haven't been great lately, but that's a pretty nice accomplishment given how bad our offense has been this year.

BP Chacon is back!

Tonight is the highly anticipated rotation debut of the one and only BP Chacon. It took him until May 26th to crack the rotation again. The real question now is how long he'll last. July 1st? Probably longer than that. I'll go with August 1st.

There are positives to Chacon starting. Actually there's only one... the fact that he isn't Tony Armas. The fact that Armas is in the bullpen now is equally terrifying, but at least he won't be starting tonight. If you're counting at home, that means we've got a bullpen that now includes Armas, Jonah Bayliss, and Brian Rogers. Damaso Marte and John Grabow are among our better relievers at the moment. That is absolutely terrifying.

The Reds will start Bronson Arroyo tonight. I don't like him at all. He looks stupid and he talks way too much. He still holds a grudge against the Pirates for cutting him before the 2003 season. While it was pretty stupid to just let the guy go, let's not forget that he really sucked before we let him go. It's a stupid grudge to hold. If he stayed with the Pirates through the first six years of his career, he'd be nowhere near the pitcher he is today. If anything, he should be greatful to us for cutting him.

Game 47: Pirates 10 Reds 4

Well, that was unexpected. Who saw eight runs coming in the top of the tenth? Stares around the room. No hands are up. I mean, two solo homers produce all of the offense all game, then EIGHT runs in the tenth? We've only scored eight or more runs in three other games all year. I suppose these guys really wanted to put a cap on that losing streak.

The other nice thing to see last night was Paul Maholm make a good start. All I really ever want to see from Maholm at this point is pitch well enough to keep us in the game and it's pretty rare that he can even do that. Seven innings, two runs on seven hits, and six K's will keep even the Pirates' offense in things, so I can't really complain about Maholm last night. He did allow homers to Griffey (who passed Killebrew on the all-time list) and Phillips, but they were solo shots, which is a nice way to minimize damage.

It was also nice to see Torres get the yips out with an eight run lead rather than a one run lead as he has in the past. But admit it, you were a little scared after he let the two runs in and the Reds closed to 10-4. Not that scared, but more than you should've been.

Mike Gonzalez out

It's pretty rare that I put a post up in the middle of the game, but Mike Gonzalez is out for the season in Atlanta with Tommy John surgery. Chalk one up for DL, I suppose. Well, unless Schuerholz files a grievance, I suppose.

The Battle for the Bottom

It seems like the Pirates are involved in more of these "Battle of the Worsts" than any team should be (or any group of fans should be humanly expected to follow). Still, that won't stop this four-gamer against the Reds from actually being played. The Reds have the worst record in the National League and the Pirates are playing some of the worst baseball. If the recent series is any indication this is probably just what the Reds need to pull out of this funk they're in.

Paul Maholm will take the mound tonight to try and end the five-game losing streak. That's not really a comforting statement. Aaron Harang will face off against him for the Reds. Subjectively, it seems to me that Harang has owned us the past couple of years. The splits kind of bear it out, he's 10-3 against us in his career despite a 4.50 ERA. It's probably the strikeouts, he's K'd 90 Pirates in 94 innings of work. Somehow, I get the feeling that the trend will continue tonight.

Why press on?

It's a question I've seen posed a lot in the comments recently. Just why should we keep pressing forward as fans of this pathetic franchise? I mean, the team is getting on base at like a .306 rate and the manager is in the newspaper hollering about clutch hitting. The minor leagues are mostly bereft of talent. Is there really a point to moving onwards as a Pirate fan?

I dunno, I guess that's a question each fan has to answer individually. As bad as they are this year, they're certainly not any worse than they've been in the past. Is it any more depressing this year to know that help isn't coming? I dunno... when has help ever really been coming? The saving grace for Pirate fans this year is that Dave Littlefield is quickly going to become a PR liability, meaning he can be fired at any point after the Nuttings realize that. We can hope they take the hands off approach that so many money-grubbing small-market owners use and that they hire someone competent and give them complete control of the franchise. It actually happened in KC last year, I suppose it could happen here, too. Beyond that, root for the players. Ian Snell is one of the most fun pitchers in the league to watch. Jason Bay can hit the ball and he really seems to be a genuinely good guy. Tom Gorzelanny is good. Ryan Doumit is THAT guy that everyone knew or knows in college. Freddy is Freddy. There's some redeeming value here. They may suck as a baseball team, but not everyone on this team is Jack Wilson or Jose Castillo or Chris Duffy (bad at baseball and bland or grating as a person that is).

Besides, what else are you going to do... root for the Indians?

Game 46: Cardinals 3 Pirates 0

I forgot this one was an afternoon game, so I was kind of surprised to touch down in Pittsburgh and come home, only to find the game was already over. Then again, it's not really a huge deal. Pirates lose, Gorzelanny hurts his thumb... just another day in the office. Don't worry though, I'll be going at this Pirates/Reds battle for the bottom of the Central at full force this weekend. These two teams are so freaking bad that this has to be fun.

This makes me sick

I don't even think I can read about this team anymore. I've been in North Carolina since Sunday night and I've only gotten close enough to the Pirates to give them some cursory blog posts and it's still been might depressing. Now we've got this in the PG today:

1. Hey, good news, we're updating our facilities in the Dominican Republic. Welcome to 1987. This is like saying, "Hey guys, we officially switched from DOS to Windows 3.1 on all the office computers! Aren't we great!"
2. And Dave Littlefield is confident that Shawn freaking Chacon is going to have a stabilizing effect on the rotation. Are we serious? I know the other options aren't great, but please don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
   

Ugh. I'm going to go sit in an airport and not think about the Pirates for a while. The gamethread may be a bit late in coming tonight, depending on when I get back home. If I'm incredibly late, just use this thread to bitch about the team.

Game 45: Cardinals 5 Pirates 3

Sometimes box scores can't tell you everything about a game. Sometimes they can. Here's what you'd get from Yahoo's box-score of tonight's loss:

	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	Season ERA
K. Wells (W, 2-8)	7.0	5	2	1	1	4	0	6.10

And this is from the scoring summary:

Bot 1st: St. Louis

- D. Eckstein homered to deep left

Bot 2nd: St. Louis

- J. Edmonds homered to deep right

Bot 5th: St. Louis

- C. Duncan homered to deep right, K. Wells scored

Really, any questions about the outcome of this one? Didn't think so.

Kipper vs. his old mates

Seriously, if Ian Snell loses to Kip Wells tonight, we might never win again.

Hey, Ian. You're short. And ugly. And you play for the Pirates. Come on. Get mad.

Ahh the human drama

Today's Q&A opens up with the drama of John Van Benschoten and Brian Bullington as they deal with being an over-aged prospect in the minor league system of a crappy baseball team. I wonder what their reaction was to losing a rotation spot to BP Chacon. I wonder what BP Chacon will look like in the rotation. I wonder if the Pirates will have any fans left by Saturday to care.

Game 44: Cardinals 9 Pirates 4

Stop me if you've heard any of the following before:

• Zach Duke roughed up for 11 hits in 4 and 2/3 innings. Throw in two walks and no strikeouts for good measure.
  
• Terrible defense to boot. Heh. To boot. Funny stuff there.
  
• 11 runners left on base, 7 in scoring position with two outs.
• The bullpen failed to keep the Cardinals from widening an already big lead.
• Good news on this one, the guy that played that role tonight is joining the rotation!

You know where this is headed. You know exactly what I'm going to say. You were probably thinking it while you were watching the game tonight (though I'll admit, I saw none of this one, though then again the Greensboro Grasshoppers were probably better). Come on now. It's not that painful. Say it with me.

Same. Old. Pirates.

Bucs and Cards

Honestly, I'm a bit tired of the same old "The NL Central sucks" stuff. The truth is that while the division is not great, I think there are two tiers in the division that will emerge pretty clearly this year. The Brewers and Cubs and everyone else. The division was no good last year, but no more than three teams had any realistic shot at winning the thing and it was probably down to only the Astros and Cards. Just because no team is the Mets in the division doesn't mean the Pirates have a chance.

And so we get two of the rejects in the division this year facing off tonight at 8 PM in St. Louis (the thread is going up a bit early because I'm going to a Greensboro Grasshoppers game tonight). The Pirates are a bit ahead in the standings, but the Cardinals have played much worse, scoring fewer runs than the Pirates and allowing more. Still, they're the Cardinals and we're the Pirates. It's hard to get that delineation out of my head at the moment. Zach Duke takes the mound tonight and he's about as good against the Cards as he is against anyone, with a 3.72 ERA in five starts. His WHIP against them is high (1.45), but if you remove intentional walks, it drops to 1.34. I suppose that means the sample size is too small to do mean anything to anyone.

His opponent tonight is Adam Wainwright. Wainwright has pitched rather poorly of late. He says it's because of tendinitis. Tony LaRussa thinks that is bullshit. Great manager/player interactions on the Cards these days, huh? Anyways, Wainwright is about due for seven innings of five-hit ball in which the Pirates score two runs and he takes home a 5-2 win, don't you think?

It's Chacon

Brian Rogers was recalled from AAA today, meaning Shawn Chacon will start against the Cardinals tonight. I'm not a big fan of that move. Rogers was not terribly impressive in any way in his short audition last off-season and despite Chacon's good ERA this year, he's only got 22 strikeouts to go with 15 walks in his 31 and 2/3 innings. Not exactly great stuff there. I mean, I guess he's better than Armas, but I'm still fairly certain this is the same BP Chacon that we saw last year. I guess we'll see.

UPDATE: My bad, the Pirates skipped the Armas spot in the rotation spot this time around, meaning Duke will start tonight and it should read "Chacon will most likely start on Saturday against the Reds." Being out of state has me all discombobulated. Sorry.

Please ignore the man behind the curtain

Being a Pirate fan is so much fun. We get articles like this one:

Duke's Stats Don't Really Add Up

The gist of the article? Ignore the stats and the subjective reality that Zach Duke has pitched poorly. He's actually pitching well. You just can't tell because he's not pitching all that well.

Someone's gotta start tomorrow

Tonight we have an off-night (which is nice because I know all of you had tonight's Pirate game crossed off the schedule for the Heroes finale anyways), but tomorrow we've got a game to play. And the starter is still TBA. So who's it gonna be? Well, the recently re-instated Humberto Cota seems to think it's going to be John VanBeschoten. If you check out this week's WHYGAVS poll, that's clearly what the people want. If it's not going to be Chacon, I think it has to be JVB. Burnett and Bullington both have decent numbers but bad peripherals in AAA this year. VanBenschoten is the only one I'm convinced can keep his head above the water for any amount of time in the rotation at this exact moment. Plus, Armas' open spot in the rotation falls nicely right in his rotation spot in Indy. Plus, Chacon has to take Maholm's place. I mean, someone has to, right?

The requisite catch-up post

So... it's been a long two days. I'm going to be in North Carolina for the early part of this week, but I've got some solid internet access here, so blogging shouldn't be too interrupted. But what have I missed since early Saturday morning? Let's play catch-up.

• Thank God I didn't watch all of last night's game. I got in the car in Boardman, Ohio last night with the Pirates ahead 7-3. By the time I got back to my home in Hermitage, the Pirates were losing 9-7. If you are completely unfamiliar with the geography of Eastern Ohio and Western PA, the trip took about a half of an hour. Why does this always happen against the Diamondbacks?
  
• Accordingly, I'm half expecting Tom Gorzelanny to commit a murder sometime in the near future.
  
• As a result of last night's performance, Marty McLeary got his ticket back to AAA. So did Brad Eldred, to make room for Humberto Cota. If this means more playing time for Ryan Doumit, I'm all for it.
  
• Bob Nutting is "mixed" on the team's first half performance. Mixed nutting. He he. But seriously, this pretty much proves he doesn't know shit about baseball because we haven't played so hot.
  
• For good measure, the Pirates lost again today 5-2 to close out the series loss. I didn't see or hear any of this one, but Randy Johnson struck out a bunch of people and Maholm sucked. Maybe he'll be the one that gets replaced by John Van Benschoten, assuming that Chacon takes Armas' spot.
  

Umm, that's pretty much all I see. We'll get rolling back into high gear tomorrow.

Out of the office

I'm going to be out of the office for most of today and probably most of tomorrow. I'll try to throw a couple posts up if I get a chance here or there, but it seems pretty unlikely. Things for you to do while I'm counting Mayor Ravenstahl's "Moving Forwards" and wishing I had a flask at W&J's commencement today:

• Think about how much better Oliver Perez is than Xavier Nady.
• Wonder what a Snell, Tim Lincecum, Gorzelanny, Duke, Maholm rotation would be like.
• Wonder what a Snell, Perez, Lincecum, Gorzelanny, Duke rotation would be like.
• Realize that if the Pirates had taken Lincecum with that fourth pick, we would've all flown into a rage because he was an injury prone college pitcher.
  
• Cry.
• Rejoice that the Pirates have finally noticed that there appears to be talent in the Dominican Republic.
  
• Try and avoid thinking about the futility of replacing Tony Armas Jr. with Shawn Chacon.
  

These are just suggestions, maybe you have something better to do with your time. Feel free to use this comments thread as an open one until I can put another post up.

Game 41: Pirates 11 D'Backs 5

The red unis even got the best of Snell tonight and he was not his sharpest, hitting a hell of a wall in the sixth inning and almost giving a 7-0 lead back. Still, Tracy managed to hook him early enough and even though he brought Jonah Bayliss in, the Pirates managed to hold on to this one, especially after getting some insurance from a Ryan Doumit three run homer in the eighth.

Snell was pretty much untouchable through five, which made his sixth inning breakdown pretty frustrating (for him and me both I'm sure). He had seven K's through five and was cruising with a three-hitter before hitting the wall in a way that was reminiscent of last season.

The offense was the star of this one, starting with Xavier Nady's three run homer in the third and ending with Doumit's three run jack in the eighth. Freddy had two hits and scored three runs, Bay had two hits and scored twice, LaRoche had two hits (.203!) and scored twice, and Castillo had two hits and drove in two runs. And of course we have to applaud Jim Tracy for leaving Ryan Doumit on the bench, just knowing that he was going to come through with the clinching three run homer in the eighth. The pen held strong in this one with Bayliss more or less cleaning up Snell's mess, Marte cleaning up Bayliss' mess, Matt Capps being awesome, and Salomon Torres once again looking very solid.

As a random aside, this game was very strange for me to watch unfold. Last night I was reading through the chapter on managing in the BP book Baseball Between the Numbers. In it is the famous Earl Weaver quote about pitching, defense, and the three run homer being his main managerial strategy. We only had one of those three tonight, but it was enough to win this one comfortably.

Intraleague play can be fun too

While the whole league is off having fun with their natural rivals, we get to host the Diamondbacks here in Pittsburgh. I think this whole interleague stuff is a bunch of shit, to be honest, and I don't really care for it. Maybe if baseball had a clue, I'd be a little more predisposed towards it. Tonight, Mach Snell and Doug Davis face off in the only game that falls under the "NL Games" category.
Davis is certainly familiar having spent the past few years with the Brewers. He's pretty blah against the Pirates with a 5-4 record in 16 starts. Interestingly, the Pirates draw like 4.5 walks/9 innings against Davis. That's a pretty astronomical number for a team as impatient as a hungry 2-year old.

Tonight's Ian Snell insult is Dr. Cox inspired:

Dammit Ian, are you a real pitcher, or are you a pitcher like a pitcher of water is a pitcher?

Being a fan

I've been wanting to post on this for a bit, but I finally got some motivation reading Dejan's Q&A today, as well as Cory and Rowdy's responses to it.

Here's the deal. I am a huge Pirate fan. You probably guessed that, as anyone that can keep a blog going for two years and almost 2,000 posts about such a bad baseball team would have to be. I love baseball, I have for as long as I can remember. And I've been a Pirate fan for just as long. In fact, despite the fact that I just graduated from Duquesne with a BS in biochemistry and am going to grad school in the same field in the fall, the first thing most of my friends and family (even the friends I've made in the same major as me at Duquesne) think of when they think of me is the Pirates. Perhaps this means I am in the wrong field. I tend to think that it just means that I like baseball a whole lot.

But here's the thing. I know I'm unique. Last night with the season finales of The Office and Scrubs on, I still had a laptop open with the Giants and Astros playing on MLB.tv so that I could watch Roy Oswalt and Tim Lincecum go at it (how did we draft Lincoln ahead of Lincecum last year... but that's a different post). I didn't do it so that I could write about it for the Fanhouse, I did it because I was honestly excited by the pitching matchup. When both pitchers dominated, I was thrilled. Most people find a 1-1 game after nine innings boring, but I love it. I realize that I'm pretty unique. Maybe not among the people that read this blog, but among the general population. When I spent the last two summers in Pittsburgh, I went to probably 20 Pirates games each season. I didn't go to 20 games with one other person. I went with a various collection of people- I was the only constant.

But I get it. When people tell me that they're sick of the Pirates and they just can't muster up the heart to go to the ballpark any more, I don't ask why. It's obvious why. The Pirates are a soul-sucking mess. I'm not saying that to be funny or dramatic or superfluous. I mean it because it's absolutely true. There are nights when after watching the Pirates or being at PNC, I am physically and mentally drained. Games like this one inevitably lead to hour long phone calls or conversations with my dad about how hard it is to watch the Pirates. People are sick of it and I can understand that.

The Pirates are not lovable losers. They are not the Chicago Cubs. They have a proud history. Every single kid my age that grew up in Western PA watched Andy Van Slyke, Barry Bonds, Doug Drabek, and company go to the playoffs three years in a row while listening to stories from our dads about Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell and the magical 1979 Pirates. A champion Pirate team is not some kind of strange and mythical beast that may or may not have existed. The 1979 DVD collection is staring at me as I type this. It is a real and tangible thing. It is achievable here in Pittsburgh right now, in 2007. But choices have been made through no fault of our own to keep the Pirates from adding to that legacy. If people want to stop going, how can anyone blame them?

New poll

Remember back in the day when I used to have polls all the time instead of a stale box that just said "New poll coming soon?" Well, today I've actually got one. We are dealing with, of course, the fifth starter position on the team. Who should fill it? Why? If you clicked other, who do you have in mind? As usual, discuss in the comments.

Game 40: Pirates 7 Marlins 2

So.... Tracy went with Armas tonight, only to ditch him after three innings before anything disastrous happened. Meaning that he might as well have not even started him in the first place. And BP Chacon went a pretty solid five innings in relief, only allowing two hits and a walk meaning that the Pirates did manage to get the split with the Marlins tonight.

What I got perverse enjoyment out of tonight was watching Ronny Paulino drive in three runs batting behind Jason Bay and Ryan Doumit, the two best hitters on the team right now that also happened to be occupying the 5 and 6 slots of the order. Not that Bay or Doumit did anything particularly great tonight... it was just stupid, that's all.

More fun came from watching (well, not watching because for some reason this game wasn't on TV) the Pirates turn some Marlin mistakes into three unearned runs. It's always nice when the opponent plays down to our level and we actually do something about it. It's not like it happens all that often, but it's nice when it does.

Tony Armas and the fight for relevancy

Tony takes the mound with his rotation spot on the line at 7:05 tonight against Ricky Nolasco. Nolsasco had a decent rookie year last year, but has been pretty damn bad this year. Not nearly as bad as Tony Armas, but bad nonetheless. I've already written what I think will happen with Armas tonight... it's right below this post. Given that I'm so positive he's going to get rocked, I suppose chances are quite good that he won't get rocked and he'll be in the rotation for some time to come. Nolasco is right handed, which means Ryan Doumit will play tonight. That's nice since he's killing the ball and all. If Adam LaRoche gets one hit tonight, he'll probably end the game over the Mendoza line. That would be nice.

It's stupid, it's senseless...

So let's get this straight, the Pirates have decided to give the guy with the 8.00+ ERA that couldn't even make it out of the second inning in his last start one more go at things. Fine, it's early in the season, whatever. Van Benschoten isn't getting any younger in AAA, but give Armas one more shot. I can almost understand that. But then... hot damn Armas is 3-12 with a 5.98 career ERA against the Marlins. I understand that the Marlins flip their roster around like once every two years, but Armas clearly is afraid of the color teal. Is there any doubt how this game is going to turn out tonight? Any at all?

Game 39: Marlins 4 Pirates 3

On the bright side, Adam LaRoche went 3-for-4 with a homer off of a lefty and raised his average to .197. His slugging percentage is over .300 now. No one has this game added into his May splits, but they were already pretty good coming into this one, especially compared to April. I'm calling it. Let's find something else to bitch about.

On the not-so-bright side: LaRoche accounted for half of our hits tonight. Six hits ain't gonna win many games, and that's the truth.

On the bright side: Zach Duke was fairly effective tonight. It was probably more luck than anything since he gave up eight hits, walked two, and only struck out two, but hey, two runs in seven innings can't be bad, right?

On the not-so-bright side: Matt Capps really sucked tonight. He even walked a batter!

Still on the not-so-bright side: We lost. I'm not positive, but I think that five games under .500 is the season low.

A split would be nice

Zach Duke and Scott Olsen will try and take the mound tonight in the third game of our four game set against the Marlins tonight, weather permitting.

Assuming this one does happen, the Pirates will be looking to lock the series split up in three games and let's face it, it would be nice to at least split a series with a team that's pretty similarly talented to us. Of course, lots of things would be nice and we never get them, so whatever. The lineup's already up and there's no Ryan Doumit in it, which is pretty damn mystifying from where I'm sitting (which is my couch) even with the lefty Olsen on the mound. Castillo starts again at third where he gave us one hell of a webgem last night. If only he could hit consistently. I think I'd like that.

Who to ditch?

There's a question I've seen kicked around a lot lately that really bugs me. Finally, after seeing it in today's Q&A with Dejan, I feel spurred to action. And by action, I mean angry typing. The basic
question is this, "I know the offense has been really bad, but who do you change to fix it?" The reason this question bugs the crap out of me is that it's incredibly narrow minded. Where to start?

• I love Xavier Nady. Seems like a great guy, he's got a great nickname, looks like a badass, I could go on. Weapon X's problem is that God did not put him on earth to hit right handed pitching. He doesn't even have a .700 career OPS against righties. He should never play against a right-handed pitcher.
  
• I know Ronny Paulino hit .310 last year. That's fantastic. But when you consider his numbers as a whole, his OPS+ was below 100, meaning below average. Still a good year... for a catcher. Paulino's defense has been waay below average this year and I think we finally put the cERA myth to bed. Ryan Doumit is a good hitter. He's not a great hitter and he'll rarely be more than an average hitter at right field or first base. But he'll be an above average hitter as a catcher. Letting him catch full-time would allow for his bat in the lineup along with a right fielder and a first baseman. That's a good recipe for a team that hasn't found a way to clone Jason Bay.
• I know people hate it when I say this, but I still see no evidence that Chris Duffy can be a reliable contributor every day in center field.
  
• Jack Wilson's career OPS+ is really bad. It's 75. Average is 100.
  

It's not to say that no major league team could win with Xavier Nady or Ronny Paulino or Jack Wilson or Chris Duffy in the lineup. It's to say that one can't win with all of them in the lineup. And yeah, I know there's no immediate help in right field or at shortstop or in center field. I realize this. But saying that there's no one to pull out of the lineup to help the offense just is not true.

Game 38: Marlins 9 Pirates 3

Perhaps it's mean to say, but no one can turn a close game in a laugher closer than Paul Maholm. For the second time this year, he just hit a brick wall last night. He gave up three gopher balls, then Marty McLeary gave up another one and all of a sudden a 1-1 game after five was 7-1 after six and a half. The Pirates tried to come back, but a deficit like that isn't easy to come back from for a team with our offense.

Dunno what else to say about this one, besides maybe that we made another crappy pitcher look good (Sergio Mitre, this time). That's kind of old hat now, and it hardly seems worth mentioning.

If we win tonight, that's three

Sergio Mitre and Paul Maholm, already in progress m(0-0 in the second). Mitre's been very good this year, which is surprising because he's got a pretty long history of sucking. Maholm's been pretty bad this year, but that's not as surprising. The Pirates have won two in a row, the Marlins have lost four in a row.

Links

Derek Bell returns. Holy hell. Thanks to boswell in the comments for this one.

Wilbur Miller issues grades for Baseball America's top 30 Pirate prospects.

The Stats Geek says more blowouts would be good.

"Youth Movement" better than "losing team." Check out the first "Stuff You Might Have Heard" at the Sports Pickle today before DJ changes it tomorrow. Great stuff.

Pittsburgh only has the 24th rudest drivers in the country. Nice to know.

Game 37: Pirates 7 Marlins 0

I spend a lot of time being negative. I don't do it for the sake of being negative, it's just who I am. By nature, I am a pretty cynical guy. When it comes to the Pirates, that leads to a lot of snarkiness on my part. It's just how it goes. That being said, let me be positive here for a moment. Tom Gorzelanny has surpassed my wildest expectations in 2007. This is coming from a guy that defended Gorzo more than most after his rough spring (at least I think I did, you can troll the archives and tell me I'm a moron if I'm wrong). He was just great tonight against a very good offensive club in the Marlins, going seven shutout innings allowing only five hits. He struck out five and didn't walk anyone. After talk all spring about how we didn't have a rotation with any aces and it was hard to separate the four young starters, Snell and Gorzo have completely separate themselves from Duke and Maholm. Gorzo hasn't been as good as Snell to this point in the year (Snell has struck out more batters) but he's been very very good and tonight was another step in the right direction.

But that wasn't all that was encouraging tonight. Ronny Paulino hit a homer and walked three times. Dejan keeps saying that he thinks Paulino will break out of his funk and who knows, maybe his benching on his own bobblehead night will catalyze that. The best part about tonight was sitting around thinking "I don't know if this 2-0 lead will cut it" and watching the offense pour five runs across in the eighth inning. The Marlins made some mistakes and we catalyzed on them. That's just good baseball there. Hard to believe it, huh?

This should be a fun one

Fun pitching match-up tonight with Dontrelle Willis and Tom Gorzelanny taking the mound. Gorzy's been almost Snell-like this year to start the season and Willis, well, actually Dontrelle hasn't been that good this year. He is 5-2, but that's about the only thing going for him this year. His WHIP is 1.56 and he's not even striking out two batters for every walk he's issued (a problem that plagued him last year as well). Still, he's got good career numbers against the Pirates (shocking, I know) and even with the 13 runs the Pirates put up yesterday, I wouldn't exactly count on that again tonight.

On the flip side of things, Gorzelanny threw seven strong innings last time out, only allowing a lead off homer to Alfonso Soriano. Unfortunately for him, that was all the Cubs need as Jason Marquis shut-out the Pirates on three hits. I don't really want to talk about that anymore.

A day late

Perhaps it is ill-form to write another post about the offense the day after a 13-2 win, but in my own defense I had it formed in my head yesterday and didn't have time to post it on Mothers' Day. Plus more people read on Monday, so I wanted an extra day to go over it and fix things up.

In yesterday's Inside the Pirates bit at the PG, Dejan took a look into the Pirates' system to figure out what's going on with the hitting. The whole piece was topped with this caveat:

With the Pirates off to a historically poor offensive start, this public complaint might be more common than any:

What are they teaching these guys?

Well, before attempting to answer that, know this: Of the eight regulars in the major-league lineup of late, only Ryan Doumit, Jose Bautista, Chris Duffy and Ronny Paulino came up through the Pirates' system. The rest were taught somewhere else.

I don't know where this came from. It could've been Dejan, but I'd bet on someone else quoting this fact to him. Because immediately after that quote, Brian Graham starts professing that the crappy hitting in the majors has nothing to do with what he's teaching in the minors. Of course, it's not really anyone's fault that we can't hit. It's just bad luck that this many bad hitters ended up here.

Here's what drive me nuts. When no one hits, well, hey, none of these guys came from Pittsburgh! We're handcuffed here by whoever taught that Jason Bay clown to hit! But when the team is playing well, things show up like this Pirate Notebook from last August in which we get to learn all about the great homegrown talent the Pirates have.

No more excuses for Littlefield and company. He and his front office have been on the job since 2001. If there's a guy on the Pirates with a poor approach at the plate that they didn't teach in the minors, it's their fault for acquiring him. And you can't just point to the minors and say "Things are great!" Half the guys that play for Altoona and Indy are old enough to be my dad (OK, maybe not). They're never going to amount to anything for the Pirates. It's great that Randy Ruiz can take a walk, but he's a 30 year old AA player. Don't care. Let's be accountable here, people.

Game 36: Pirates 13 Braves 2

Does it make me a miserable bastard to say that I wish the Pirates had saved some of the runs they scored today for, say, the next time Tony Armas starts?

Seriously though, I don't know if it was the pink bats or what but the runs just kept coming today. I mean yeah, the Braves sucked (I'm looking at you and your two run throwing error on Ian Snell's bunt, Anthony Lerew) but 13 runs, 18 hits, and 7 walks drawn (with a HBP too)? Crazy. Jack Wilson got on five times and had three hits, with Chris Duffy and Freddy Sanchez adding three hits as well. Jason Bay, Ryan Doumit, and Ronny Paulino (who was clearly getting vengeance from being benched on Ronny Paulino bobblehead night when "Friends and Family of Ronny Paulino" was one of the groups welcomed on the scoreboard) had two apiece. Unfortunately for Doumit, that actually dropped his average to .418. The guy is on fire.

While we're at it, can't talk about this one without mentioning Ian Snell. He went seven innings allowing seven hits with seven strikeouts and let two runs score with two walks. All twos and sevens in the line score. The thing about Snell this year is that if he'd done anything else, we probably would've been disappointed with the outing. That's why it was sad that we wasted all of the runs on his start today. Run support? Snell doesn't do that. Well, maybe a little. Afterall, the guy is only 3-2 even with his sterling 2.38 ERA.

Snell to avoid the sweep

It's up to Ian Snell to pull the Pirates out of the funk they're in this afternoon, as he gets the start to try and avoid starting this long home stand out with a sweep. He started on Mothers' Day last year too, and got lit up by the Marlins and their pink bats. It was Snell's last bad start for a long while in 2006 if I remember correctly. He hasn't had a bad one this year and now would certainly be a bad time for him to start. The Braves will start Anthony Lerew who I honestly know very little about and don't feel like looking up at the moment because here's what's going to happen: he's probably going to have the best start of his young career today. That's just what the Pirates do to people. Anyways, I've got an insult for Ian Snell before I post this thing up:

Hey, Ian! You just aren't good enough to win games with the Pirate offense. If you win ten games this year, I'll be shocked! No excuses, Tom Gorzelanny has four wins, where are yours?


And of course, happy Mothers' Day to all the moms out there!

Game 35: Braves 9 Pirates 2

If you figure that the Pirates lose (on average) 10-12 games per year more than the average baseball team and they've been doing it for almost fifteen seasons now, that's around a full season of losses more than an average team since 1993. Depressing, I know, but that's not my point. My point is that it's probably a minor miracle that the Pirates have never been no hit during this losing streak. It's going to happen this year, people. It has to. I mean, come on. Chuck James took one 6 and 1/3 last night. From Dejan's write-up in the PG:

The Pittsburgh Baseball Club has been in business for 121 years now, and it has known boppers from Honus Wagner to Ralph Kiner to Willie Stargell, as well as some lengthy dry spells.

But it might never have seen an edition as offensively inept as the one that was nearly no-hit by someone named Chuck James in a 9-2 pummeling by the Atlanta Braves last night.

That's about right. No offense to Chuck James or anything, but given the recent history this all goes on the Pirates.

Also: Tony Armas Jr. sucks. A lot. It's time to see some John Van Benschoten up in here.

How does this happen?

Somehow, it seems like every time I try to go to a Pirate game these days, Tony Armas Jr. is on the mound. That's just plain unfair. The Braves will send lefty Chuck James to the mound against Armas and I'm rather curious to see what kind of lineup Tracy will use to counter the lefty. James has had some control trouble this year, walking fourteen batters in 35 and 1/3 innings, including four walks in less than four innings in his last start. Accordingly, I don't look for the Pirates to draw more than one or two walks tonight, because that's what we do.

Now THERE'S an endorsement

Fear not, Pirate fans! Adam LaRoche will be fine this year! How do I know? Jeff Francoeur tells me so in today's PG Pirate Notebook:

"[LaRoche] will end up hitting .270 here with 25-30 bombs. I still swear by it," Francoeur said in the Braves' clubhouse yesterday. "Hopefully, they'll give him a little time. I think he was trying to do so much right away because everybody made such a big deal about him coming here. But I stand by it: It's going to be him and Jason Bay carrying that team. Adam's a heck of a player, and this city's lucky to have him."

Well now that Francoeur says everything's OK, I feel great. I will definitely trust a guy that's walked 45 times in over 1100 career plate appearances. That is not a typo. Talk about a guy with "Future Pirate" written all over him.

If we assume LaRoche will get 492 at-bats like he did last year, he will need 133 hits to bat .270. He's currently got 19 hits in 115 at-bats. That means he'd have to bat .302 the rest of the season to bat .270. Honestly? That's not nearly as impossible as I expected.

And yes, I saw the lead item in the notebook today about Jose Castillo demanding a trade, but I posted it over at the Fanhouse.

Game 34: Braves 4 Pirates 1

Wait, so a struggling pitcher threw seven innings and only gave up one run on seven hits, despite walking two and only striking out one? Must be playing the Pirates! The Pirates went with their Nady in center lineup last night and though I didn't see the game, I got a text message and see Charlie's write-up, which means that it kind of seems like Nady's center field defense cost us four runs last night, which almost certainly means Duffy will be back in center tonight and we'll be benching Doumit or Nady because we certainly won't put Paulino or LaRoche on the bench, heaven forbid.

The Braves

So the ex-Pirates are happy to be ex-Pirates. The ex-Brave misses his teammates (well, kind of, LaRoche is definitely saying the right things in this situation). The Braves are very good again. The Pirates are very mediocre again. This one kicks off a ten-game homestand in which the Pirates really should probably win four or five of them to keep us interested. Tonight Zach Duke and Kyle Davies face off. Both have been rather not good this year. One of them has a good chance of turning that around tonight. Can you guess who?

The maturation of Snell

Nice article at SI.com about Ian Snell growing up this year. The article talks a lot about what some of us in Pittsburgh have already noticed, that Ian is finally becoming a pitcher (not to toot my own horn or anything, but here's what I wrote after the home opener). Anyways, the key excerpt from the SI article (that for some reason was buried on the second page):

Snell's newly found changeup, coupled with a slider he's developed over the last three years, his mid-90s fastball and a better-than-average curveball, has turned him from a hard-headed, hard-throwing youngster into a fledgling all-around pitcher. His assortment of pitches also has helped Snell cut down on the number of home runs he's allowed. In his first 46 innings this year, he's served up only two.

He's throwing four pitches this year. Last year in camp we were worried he could only throw one. His improvement since last year is the one clear victory the Tracy camp can claim, though knowing Snell and how competitive he is, I think a ton of credit has to go straight to him.

Hat tip to commenter JR for the tip.

I honestly don't know if I should be excited or terrified

Somehow, the Pittsburgh Pirates are only three games below .500. They're 15-18. This is mind-blowing to me. A part deep inside of me suspects that if you took film of this season's 33 games, spliced them up into individual innings, and showed them to an unbiased observer, they would have to think this team is closer to 10-23 than 15-18. Another part of me wants to say, "Holy hell! 15-18! And that's scoring 3.45 runs a game! If the offense gets better, and it can't be worse, the team has to get better!" That part of me is much smaller, but the truth is that I'd like nothing more than semi-relevant baseball to write about this summer, no matter how unlikely it may be to happen.

I know it's possible to out perform your pythagorean record over the course of the season just like the Pirates have done for 33 games, but it seems to me that teams that do that generally do something very well, hit, pitch, field, SOMEthing that gives them an advantage their runs scored/runs allowed doesn't account for/ This Pirate team seems to do very little well, and maybe that's why I'm still holding my breath waiting to be whacked on the head with the other shoe in the form of a 10-game losing streak. Just as Freddy and LaRoche's bats are likely to come around, Gorzelanny and Snell are likely to come somewhat back to earth.

Does this really feel like a team that's a couple of improved bats away from being decent? Because it doesn't to me.

Game 33: Pirates 6 Cubs 4

Who would've thought that a lineup in which the five best hitters on the team occupied the first five slots in the batting order would've resulted in an un-Pirate-like 6 runs and a win? Amazing, isn't it?

All joking aside, isn't it kind of sad that we consider six runs in a win to be more or less an offensive outburst? Still, we did manage to win the series against the previously on fire Cubbies and that's nothing to complain about. Paul Maholm threw 7 and 1/3 pretty decent innings (allowing four runs) and Jason Bay's bat finally woke up as he doubled two runs in in the first and scored later on Xavier Nady's sac fly, then homered in the fifth to help provide two-thirds of the Pirates' six runs today. This is about the time that he caught fire last year and started hitting homers like he was playing on a Little League field. It'd be great if he could do that again. And it would be unfair to fail to mention that Salomon Torres had his second lights out save of this series, striking out two of the three batters he faced. Maybe they really were just the April blues for Sully.

Somehow, despite the terrible offense this year, the Pirates are 15-18 coming into a million game homestand this weekend.

I don't see how this will make things better

Carlos Zambrano has struggled a lot this year. After holding out all off-season for a big new contract, he's 3-2 with a 5.80 ERA. Luckily for him, he's facing the Pirates this afternoon. Since it's an afternoon game, Jim Tracy will likely trot out some moronic lineup that... oh wait, he started Don Kelly last night. Nevermind. Then again, it doesn't much matter who Tracy starts when your team batting line is .236/.294/.358. That's ugly.

Paul Maholm takes the mound for us today and ever since his mirage of a shut-out against the Astros he's been downright awful. His career line against the Cubs is not particularly great (4.86 ERA, 1.38 WHIP) and I don't exactly have high hopes for this one. It'll be on WGN if you're somewhere that gets WGN (sadly, I do not at home), but not on FSP I don't think, so if you can't watch it on TV, fire up the radios.

Game 32: Cubs 1 Pirates 0

First things first, sorry for missing the gamethread earlier tonight. The internet at my house has been... sub-optimal since I've arrived here.

Anyways, 1-0 losses suck more than anything else in the world sucks, I think. Chances are fairly good that your team had at least one solid shot at scoring one freaking run and they pissed it away. That really wasn't the case tonight. We got two runners to second base and they both arrived there with two outs. Mostly we just got shut down by Jason Marquis. That's probably worse than pissing away like seven chances to score runs. Speaking of that, the Cubs could've won this game like 5 or 6 nothing, but they left a ton of people on base. Tom Gorzelanny allowed 6 hits and 2 walks in his 7 innings of work, but the only batter that crossed the plate was the first one, Alfonso Soriano lead off the bottom of the first with a homer and there was nothing from there.

Anyways, yeah. We wasted a good start by Gorzo because we only got three freaking hits off of Jason Marquis. How does that happen? I mean seriously, Jason Marquis? The guy sucked last year and it's not like he sucked in the American League and came over to the NL and has benefitted from the inferior level of play and the batting pitchers. He sucked last year in our division. The telling stat in this one? Coming in, Marquis had 19 strikeouts to go with 13 walks. That is not a pretty ratio and it's fairly telling of a guy that's about to come crashing back to earth. Until he strikes out five Pirates and walks none in a complete game shutout. Ugh.

More on Capps

You know what happens when the local baseball team is playing terribly? A reliever plunking a star from another team on the arm after a homer and subsequently getting suspended for it becomes a huuuuge story. Today we get no fewer than TWO columns in local papers about the suspension. Gene Collier thinks it's ludicrous and the Pirates should spend more time head-hunting at players that wrong them. Bad news, Gene, if we do that we're going to fill up a hospital ward with the opposing woudned. Joe Starkey, meanwhile, thinks the suspension is warranted.

Here's what I think: WHO GIVES A RAT'S ASS? Capps hit Fielder. He probably threw at him. He should've been pissed and it was nice to see a Pirate get emotional. The league was also right in suspending him. End of story. Why not focus some column space on something that actually matters? Like why with runners on second and third and no outs in the fifteenth inning, Zach Duke was STILL AT THE PLATE?!?! Yeah, I know it was a two strike count and only Brad Eldred was left on the bench, but still, just handing the other team an out is bad. It's just stupid. Kind of like, say, NOT STARTING RYAN DOUMIT YESTERDAY. We could also run with the fact that the Cubs played a terrible, stupid baseball game yesterday and it still TOOK US FIFTEEN INNINGS TO BEAT THEM. I mean, seriously, this team is awful and decisions are made on a regular basis that make me think that the people running the team like losing, and all we can talk about is some stupid damn suspension? Let's get with it people.

Game 13 31: Pirates 4 Cubs 3

I think at some point Ian Snell actually took the mound in this one. Here's what I know: I went to see Spider Man 3 (which if you like Spider Man or movies in general, I would strongly recommend you avoid) at 7 tonight. Got home about 10ish and put the game on. It's almost one now and I'm starting the recap. How do we get ourselves into so many of thse games?

So what kind of game was this? Jason Bay and Xavier Nady went a combined 7-for-13 with two doubles and scored one run apiece while driving in none. Jack Wilson went 0-for-6 but drove in the tying run in the ninth and winning run in the fifteenth with sac flies. Of course I also had to listen to Bob Walk praise his fouling off a pitch eleven feet out of the strikezone to keep from striking out while thinking to myself, "Wouldn't it just be easier to, you know, not swing at balls that far out of the strike zone?" Despite getting breaks left and right in the extra frames, the Pirates didn't actually break through until Aramis Ramirez's brain exploded and he tried to catch Michael Barrett's throw to third base while he was charging trying to cover an anticipated bunt and Cesar Izturis covered third. I'm still not fully sure what happened on that one.

Let's see, what else... Ian Snell gutted through seven innings, allowing 10 hits but only two earned runs and an unearned one. He didn't walk anyone, which is probably what saved him in this one. He left the game in the bottom of the eighth with runners on second and third and no outs, but Damaso Marte managed to come into the game and not destroy our chances of winning by getting out of the jam. In fact, the bullpen was excellent tonight, most likely because Jim Tracy was stripped of the option of going, "F*** it, I'm old. I want to go to bed. Let's bring Wasdin in." Yes, I'm fully aware that Jim Tracy is not that old. I'm just tired.

Anyways, just for fun, the Pirates stranded a runner on third in the tenth, got one thrown out at the plate in the eleventh, and stranded another one at third in the twelfth before finally getting a run across in the fifteenth. The offense is so bad that when Jack Wilson squared around to bunt with the tying run on third my dad yelped in pain at the sight and I said, "Well what the hell is Jack going to do? HIT him in? I don't think so." I suppose I was wrong, but only partially.

The highway to Snell

First off, kudos to Bucdaddy for the post title here. What to say? The offense sucks. Ted Lily goes for the Cubs, so that's not really good. Ian Snell goes for us, which is kind of good because he's been quite good so far this year. Time to insult Ian Snell. This one is inspired by Full Metal Jacket:

How tall are you Ian? I've seen piles of sh*t stacked higher than you!

Remember winning? We should try that again tonight.

Links

I posted my take on the Matt Capps situation (which I kind of failed to comment on over my busy weekend) at the Fanhouse. Sorry about that, but I do have to put some Pirate stuff there.

Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus did his Top 50 Players list again, only this year it's at SportsIllustrated. Jason Bay falls from #9 to #35 this year, based mostly on his drop in VORP from 2005 to 2006.

The Stats Geek looks at the Pirates offense in terms of the sabermetric "Runs Created" statistic. As usual, it's good stuff.

Charlie of the Bucs Dugout hits the big-time with a piece for the Denver Post's Fantasy Baseball Blog.

And finally, I missed this yesterday, but Dejan made more comparisons between the Pirates and the Brewers in the Q&A yesterday before launching into a rant about how freaking terrible the offense is.

Off-day

Don't you just love these Monday off-days? I feel like I have nothing to talk about, Pirate-wise, today. I mean, they suck. You know they suck. I know they suck. Things are headed downhill from here, I think we can all feel it. I suppose this can just be an open thread to talk about whatever seems exciting until tomorrow when maybe I'll be feeling more original.

This just in: the offense is bad

And how do you know when the offense is bad? When PAUL MEYER writes an article that's critical of it. Yeah, that Paul Meyer. The Pirates have scored 18 runs in 6 games in May, winning only one of them. That's pretty much what happens when you score three runs a game, you lose a lot. You know what the scary part is? Adam LaRoche is hitting .316 in May. I know he's only slugging .328 on the month right now, but the point is that he's actually putting the ball in play and we still aren't scoring. And I don't think the runs are coming, either.

Brian Bullington

I'm sitting around my house watching Rob King and Chris Peters (who still looks like he's 11 even though he's got to mid-30s by now) talk about Brian Bullington. They both think that there's no choice but to bring Bullington up right now. Most of the callers on the show agree with them. Call-in shows drive me insane, but I think it's a good idea to talk about Bullington (not that I'm the first person to do this, Charlie has been pointing it out for a while now, but he's absolutely right and it bears repeating).

Yes, his 5-0 record is impressive, but record is virtually meaningless when trying to figure out how good a pitcher is (remember Roger Clemens in 2005... he probably had one of the best seasons in modern history and only finished 13-8). His ERA is 0.96 and his WHIP is 1.14. Again, both are impressive, but again we've got a small sample size and those numbers don't tell the hole story. In 37 and 2/3 innings, Bullington only has 19 strikeouts and 15 walks. That isn't going to fly in the bigs, plain and simple. Zach Duke's biggest problem has always been not enough strikeouts. This is at least partially because our defense sucks. He pitches the worst when he walks a ton of batters. Bullington isn't striking anyone out and is walking a lot of people, in AAA. He's getting lucky. THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES! THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!

Game 30: Brewers 6 Pirates 4

The Pirates actually tried to mount a comeback against Ben Sheets today. Of course, tried, is the operating term here. The Brewers ran up a 4-0 lead on the strength of Prince Fielder being a monster of a human being (he killed two homers and just missed a third by about 10 inches) and Tony Armas being not a very good pitcher.

The rally was actually a bit inspiring to see. Chris Duffy, who's line has dropped to .239/.314/.321, somehow managed to swing at a pitch, connect with it, and deposit it over the fence for his second homer of the year. From there Adam LaRoche (four hits in two games, up to .167) singled in a run and Ryan Doumit (insane, batting .441) did the same to tie it up at four. Of course at that point the bullpen struck again and John Grabow lived up to his old nickname (GraBLOW) while Matt Capps continued to prove that an immediate ascension to closer is probably a bad idea, and before anyone knew it, it was back to 6-4 and the Pirates were 13-17 and only a half game away from home... I mean last place.

The finale

This is a huge, huge game for the Pirates. They've played terribly the last two nights and are falling further and further away from the ever elusive .500 mark. Unfortunately, Ben Sheets and Tony Armas face off this afternoon and Sheets still pitches for the Brewers and Armas still pitches for the Pirates.

How else to put it? A loss today makes it five of six and seven of ten. These are the stretches that the Pirates get into every single year that buries them deep into holes that they can't dig out of. It's stupid to say that a game on May 6th is a must-win game for a non-playoff team, but that's exactly what it is for the Pirates today. If they wish to remain relevant in the National League Central beyond May for once, they have to win today. That's all there is to it.

Brewers 6 Pirates 3

Again, missed most of this one. Heard a bit on the radio. Three runners thrown out between third and home? Embarassing. That's all I got.

Rebound

Zach Duke and Jeff Suppan. Bouncing back from 10-0 losses and keeping them from becoming 10 game losing streaks is essential.

Game 28: Brewers 10 Pirates 0

So, umm, what to say about this one? I didn't catch much besides glimpses here and there and every time I looked the Brewers had more runs. Perhaps Jim Tracy can summarize last night for me in a succinct and Jim Tracy-ish manner. Jim, any thoughts?

"Not a whole lot to say," the Pirates' manager said. "We didn't pitch very well and obviously we didn't score any runs. You're not going to win with that. It's as simple as that."

That'll do, Jim. Just an incredibly deep statement.

Thanks for all the kind words in the comments yesterday. Duquesne's graduation is now a two-day affair so I won't be around much today either. I will get a gamethread up before things kick off tonight, but I can't promise more than that.

Can lightning strike twice?

This gamethread has to go up uber-early tonight because, well, I have to graduate from college this afternoon and I don't know when I'm going to get to a computer again.

Paul Maholm and Claudio Vargas face off tonight at 8:05 with the Bucs trying to pull back to .500 and within 3.5 and of the division leading Brewers in the Bizarro NL Central.

Pirates 4 Brewers 2

Well, that was an unexpected and highly gratifying win. In similar fashion to the Monday win against the Cubs, the Pirates dug themselves a hole early and then managed to actually get themselves out of it, this time with the ultra-rare four-run inning lead by Jose Bautista and Ronny Paulino's homers.

The nice thing about scoring the four runs in the seventh was that in enabled us to win a game that we had played well enough to win otherwise. Tom Gorzelanny gutted his way through seven innings, only giving up two runs on six hits. He wasn't perfect though, and the Brewers ran themselves out of two runs last night. In the third inning when they tried the Little League "You steal first, I steal third" double steal for the second time in two nights. This time it failed as Freddy Sanchez cut Ronny Paulino's throw to second off early and nailed JJ Hardy at the plate. In the fourth, Bill Hall was sent from third on a bouncer to Jack Wilson at short. Wilson lasered Hall down at the plate, and the 1-0 deficit was preserved. Any time a team takes two runs off their own total, you've gotta take advantage of that. Surprisingly, the Pirates actually did last night.

Bring on the Brew Crew

So the Brewers are the best team in baseball, at least record-wise. I thought they'd be good this year, but I didn't really see this one coming. They're runs scored/runs allowed isn't quite matching, but they've already opened a big lead on the NL Central. Tonight Tom Gorzelanny takes the mound to try and stop the losing streak at two games. Dave Bush will start for the Brewers.

UPDATE (6:46 PM): Adam LaRoche is going to be on the bench tonight even with the right-handed Bush on the mound. Xavier Nady will start in right and Ryan Doumit will start at first.

This Oliver Perez guy

Reader Charles Star just sent along this link from the New York Sun: Perez Trade Ranks as One of Mets' Best.

A quick excerpt:

With two outs in the sixth, Perez gave up two singles and a walk to load the bases, and then surrendered a hard liner to give up two runs and end his day. David Wright probably could have snared the liner, and Perez's small collapse came after a long half inning in which he'd run the bases as the Mets sent eight batters to the plate, but a pitcher so incapable of a basic regularity in his delivery gets little benefit of the doubt. His inconsistency from season to season, game to game, and inning to inning is all of connected with his inconsistency from pitch to pitch.

Mets fans should be happy about this for two reasons, though. The first is that a less disciplined player can become a more disciplined one; the second is that a pitcher of Perez's immense gifts would never have been traded if not for this flaw. Perez either will or won't learn to focus, but if he does — and the first five innings of yesterday's game, along with most of what has so far been a very good season, prove that he can — he'll be an ace. If he doesn't, he'll be fitfully brilliant and very much worth having around.

"Fitfully brilliant and very much worth having around." Unless you're the Pirates. Then you'd probably trade him for a platoon player that you plan on sticking in the lineup daily, anyways. Check out Ollie's 2007 stats here. Yep, 36 Ks to go with 10 walks in 29 innings. Ugh.

Via Can't Stop the Bleeding.

Links and stuff

I have been really crappy at linkdumping lately. I will try to do better. Let's start now.

Yep, the rumors are true... Wayback Wasdin is gone and Marty McLeary is back in Pittsburgh. Why the hell did it take so long? Of course it's only happening becase Wayback is going on the DL.

Here's a great quote from Adam LaRoche in the PG today:

"I'm not seeing it," LaRoche said, his voice as quiet as his bat had been in grounding out twice, striking out and flying to center for the final out. "It's the ball. I'm just ... not ... seeing the ball."

Yeah, that makes me feel good. Anyways, the article by Dejan is good and Charlie has his thoughts posted on it as well. And while we're at it, Rowdy Bones has a potentially brilliant solution.

Pittsburgh Lumber Co.'s Randy Linville made his annual trek to PNC. He's got a great post about it here, and some great pictures of the park here.

And finally, this has nothing to do with the Pirates, but is so awesome I had to share it with someone:

Cubs 8 and 7, Pirates 6 and 1

Pirates finished up losing the game they should've won last night, then get hammered in the finale of the nine game homestand. The pen was awful last night and this afternoon. We got four hit by Jason Marquis, Mike Wuertz, and Scott Eyre this afternoon. The Pirates went 5-4 on the all important 9 game homestand, but lost 4 of the last 6 and a clearly going backwards. Now we're going on the road to face the best team in the league. I have a feeling things are about to get ugly.

Let's play two... well, kind of

The Pirates and Cubs get to finish this series up today at 12:35 when they resume the game that should already be in the books as a Pirates win except for the bullpen meltdown in the bottom of the seventh. The Cubs played an awful game to that point in which they proved that they had no clue how to actually field a bunt, but because we're the Pirates we only managed to score five runs (the game should be at least 6-6 but no one taught Tony Armas how to slide into home plate).

The second one is supposed to kick off a half hour after the first one ends and it'll feature Ian Snell and Jason Marquis on the mound. Marquis got a 3 year $21 million contract that everyone laughed at this off-season, but he's been almost as good as Lily and Hill to this point in the year. He's 3-1 with a 2.35 ERA and a 1.17 WHIP. Clearly, something is eventually going to give here. Ian Snell will take the mound for us and I don't have to tell you how he's pitched this year. I do, however, have something to say to Ian.

You're a mean one, Ian Snell.
You really are a heel.
You're as cuddly as a cactus,
You're as charming as an eel.
Ian Snell.

Let's win two today. Neither one is on TV but feel free to put it on the radio and talk here.

Rain

The rain finally did come, and wouldn't you know it, on a day when the Stats Geek told us all about how good the pen has been, minus Torres, that Grabow and Bayliss absolutely collapse and cost the Pirates what should've been a six-inning rain-shortened win.

Anyways, there's some debate in the comments about the rule changes and how that affects the rest of this game so here's my understanding on things: the main rule change this off-season was that any game that's past the fifth inning and not completely decided is just completed at the next possible date (in this case tomorrow). That means tie games and games in which the visiting team takes the lead in an incomplete inning. I don't think the old rule would've rolled the Cubs four runs in the top of the seventh back and given the Pirates a 5-2 win, I think it would've mandated that the game be replayed from the start. The only time the game reverts (or ever reverted) to the last full inning is when the outcome of the game can't be decided in the incomplete inning. I could be wrong on this, and I'm going to do some digging on the rule changes to make sure.

What we know for sure is that they'll finish this one up to the full nine innings tomorrow starting at 12:35, then kick off tomorrow's real game in short fashion.

UPDATE: Here's the official release from MLB about the off-season rule changes. It makes no mention of games like tonight. Perhaps they've always been suspended and finished the next day.

Maybe I should root for the thunderstorm

So tonight Tony Armas Jr. is scheduled to take the mound against Ted Lily while a thunderstorm is scheduled to blow in around game time. I've got tickets for this one, which is the only way I'd be headed to the park on a Tony Armas night. I don't know if I should root for the game to happen or just hope it gets washed out and I'm spared all of the indignation that will certainly boil up inside of my in the right field stands with Armas on the mound tonight.

All kidding aside, Lily has been lights out this year. Like at least as good as Rich Hill and maybe ever better. He's got to come back to earth eventually, but I would never count on it happening against us because that's just silly. Still, things have to come around soon. I like what I've seen from LaRoche lately and Doumit looks like a man possessed (and not just because of his black eyeballs, either!). Bay is starting to hit, too, which is certainly a nice thing to have happen. Will everyone ever all hit at once? Who knows. Not me I suppose.

The Salomon of Doubt

Soooo... April is over and the Pirates are 12-12. And somehow, they've done it with three blown saves from closer Salomon Torres. Understandably, everyone is upset with Sully's performance in the closer role. Everyone is especially upset because the guy we traded our closer for is batting like .133 right now. Still, there is something that's bothered me about how Torres has pitched so far.

The rallying cry around LaRoche from people like me who keep defending him is that he's a slow starter. He never hits well in April and he always heats up with the weather. Maybe he needs to hit the weight room or whatever in the off-season to hit his stride earlier, but that's the way it goes for him and that doesn't look like it's going to chance. But what about Torres? Starting in 2004, when he became a full-time reliever for a full season, he's had three very good years. Let's look at his April splits vs. the rest of his season.

2004: 5.06 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 2.53 K/9 in April, 2.64 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 6.1 K/9 on the season
2005: 4.09 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, 2.45 K/9 in April, 2.76 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 5.2 K/9 on the season
2006: 3.12 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 6.23 K/9 in April, 3.28 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 6.9 K/9 on the season

It is worth noting that Torres had an awful May last year and was practically unhittable from July through the end of the year when he took over as closer for Gonzalez.

Still, in three good seasons, he's had two bad Aprils and a bad May and he's always pitched much better in the second half than he has in the first half (you can look at the splits yourself, they're linked above). What does this mean? I still think they should probably yank the chain on him as closer right now. The problem is, however, that he actually is a guy that pitches better as the season wears on. They say that about a lot of guys, but it's true for him. If Tracy banishes him to the back of the bullpen right now, he's not going to turn things around this year like he has in the past when he's pitched over 90 innings each year.

The question that remains is what to do with him until he pitches himself into shape like he always does. Having a closer that blows 30% of his save chances is not acceptable. Still, Matt Capps being the sole closer would worry me a bit, just because of how young he is. I don't know how well closer by committee would work with the group that we have. For as much as Tracy likes to use Grabow as a LOOGY, his platoon splits are actually pretty even (also, he is not particularly great at getting people out). Jonah Bayliss has pitched well, though I am not completely convinced he's the answer either. Perhaps just mixing things up and seeing how people respond to the role will work. Something has to happen though because I think we'll all go crazy waiting for the second half Torres while he loses games in the first half.