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.