Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

Being at the park tonight, it's hard to say how many people got out of their seats after the third inning. I'd put it somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000. The part that was sad for me was that maybe 100 or so left the park altogether. I don't see what kind of message gets sent by a couple thousand people standing around the concession area for an inning, then sitting back down. In fact, this was a depressing Pirate game tonight. Just around me in my section on the right field wall was some disinterested 12-year old who destroyed his Bob Walk bobblehead while his dad looked on like he couldn't do anything about it, six brain dead college age kids who were literally threatening the life of Austin Kearns every time he took the field, and two enormously obese women who needed four seats between them and spent most of the time swearing into their cell phones. Anyways, the owners win. Whenever people tell me that Pittsburgh isn't a baseball town, I defend it with my life. T...

You probably feel like I've been avoiding talking about this, other than posting news bits about it on the Fanhouse, and if you do, I understand. It's my fault. I'll be honest with you guys, outside of the blog, I've been having a bad, bad week (I don't like to drag my personal life onto to WHYGAVS, but let's just say a girl is involved and leave it at that, lest you guys worry about the health of my family or something) and I haven't been thinking about the Pirates or the protest terribly much. I've known since the date was announced that tonight was on my dad's season ticket plan and I've been putting off what I'm going to do tonight until my uncle gave me a talking to this morning and basically told me that as a prominent Pirate fan, it's my duty to everyone that comes to this blog every day to not only go to the protest and write about it, but to take a stance and make sure people know what it is. I don't like to think of myself a...

So let me get this straight, in a Pirates' game tonight a team wasted a great outing by their starter, had a 2 run lead in the seventh inning, and then watched it disintegrate in an awful, ugly, bad loss. But it wasn't the Pirates. Oh, man, Nats fans. I feel really bad about this because I know how you feel. But anyways, the Pirates played a good game tonight and if they saddled Snell with a loss, I would've been rather pissed and that probably says nothing about how he would've felt about it. In fact, I'm guessing the wrath of Snell is exactly what spurred the team on to victory. Nate McLouth had to get a hit when he pinch hit for Snell because otherwise, Snell would shoot laserbeams out of his eyes and murder him. And Bautista? Well, Snell knows how easy it can be to hit a sac fly and mentally influenced him into both the game tying sac fly and the game winner. Because come on... losing? Snell doesn't [expletive] do that.

Ian Snell faces off against Matt Chico. We've got ample evidence to believe that Ian Snell will be very angry tonight, and generally whenever Ian Snell is very angry, Ian Snell is very, very good. He's pitching against the Nationals, so I've gotta hope he'll be very good tonight. I'm not sure an Ian Snell insult is even necessary tonight because he's already so pissed, but it's a bit too easy. Hey, Ian! You call that weak [expletive] from last week a [expletive] tantrum? No [expletive] way!!! My [expletive] gramma throws bigger [expletive] tantrums than that weak [expletive]. Figures that a weak ouburst like that would come from such a [expletive] short pitcher, if that's what you call yourself. I bet you can't even beat the [expletive] Nationals tonight. Please don't kill me, Ian. I kid because I love.

Seriously, have you ever seen a more encouraging headline than "Armas' Days Numbered?" This guy has been nothing but bad news for us this year. Put anyone else in the bullpen instead. We've already got Wayback Wasdin, why do we need two White Flags in our bullpen? Answer: because our rotation includes guys like Zach Duke and John Van Benschoten, who can't make it through five innings. Regardless of that fact, seriously, it's time to dump the Tony Armas charade, eat his salary, and let someone else suck in the bullpen. *Note- if they cut Armas and fill his roster spot with Jonah Bayliss, I will probably scream. Just sayin'.

Holy cow, the Pirates played at noon today. I went to Pittsburgh to clean out my apartment and got home and the game was over already. These damn afternoon games piss me off. Anyways, another Pirate starter struggled and failed to make it into the fifth inning at all, only today Zach Duke left with a 6-2 deficit instead of a 5-2 lead like JVB did last night. Even though the Pirates ended up scoring enough runs to bail Duke out, they didn't bail out Tony Armas, who threw gas onto the fire and gave up a walk and a two-run homer in his first two hitters, and Shawn Chacon, who gave up one more insurance run to the Marlins in the eighth after the Pirates closed the deficit to 8-7. So basically, the storyline on this one goes, Duke sucks, Armas sucks, the offense can't cover for it. Sound familiar at all?

You can read my take on it at the Fanhouse . It's posted there because it can get a wider audience there. Here's the thing about this protest. It may not be the best organized thing in the world, but I certainly didn't put one together on my own, so who am I to complain? The local media has picked it up and given it a ton of publicity and that is a very, very good thing. I really think it can do a lot to give a wider audience an idea of how bad the ownership is here in Pittsburgh. The way the Pirates are attempting to wipe the whole thing off the record is despicable and it shows that they're at least a little scared of us. That's the bigger story here. That's the one that needs to get to ESPN and Fox Sports and everyone else. It's not that some Pirate fans (I honestly have no idea how many) are going to walk out of their seats on Saturday, it's that the Pirates are so terrified of this that they're asking their TV crews not to cover it and they'...

I can't believe we won this game. I am literally in shock. This is the type of game that we lose over and over and over again. We had two three-run leads (3-0, 5-2), but Tracy pulled Van Benschoten after 81 pitches and four rocky innings and brought in Wayback Wasdin. Wayback somehow only gave up one run in his two innings (he got hit hard), then Masumi Kuwata came in and gave up a monster gopher ball to Hanley Ramirez. Suddenly it's a 5-4 game with no outs in the seventh. Vomit check time. We're giving up passed balls, getting thrown out on the bases, basically doing all the same old shit we always do and I had this one chalked up in the L column. LaRoche and Bay went down like puppies in the tenth and I had a nightmare about who would blow the game in the bottom of the inning. Then some beautiful and awesome things happened. One of those things has a large hooked nose and the other has eyes as black as the devil's soul. Yes, Xavier Nay and Ryan Doumit hit back to back...

You know what the difference between the American League and the National League is? I don't feel hopeless playing the Marlins this week. Plain and simple, I feel like the Pirates can win two out of three in this series. Tonight probably isn't a great night for that second win to come. John Van Benschoten has been less than impressive in my eyes since he's been called up, and Sergio Mitre has suddenly become some kind of ace with his 2.34 ERA and 1.21 WHIP. Even his strikeouts are starting to match the way he's pitching. Raise your hand if you saw that coming. That's what I thought.

Seriously, everyone should be more like him. He used his drive to turn himself into a top notch starting pitcher, just to shove it in the face of the organization that thought he couldn't do it. After Saturday's ugly game, there was his expletive filled tirade to the PG. Today? After he heard that so many people loved his remarks after that game, he gives us this : "I don't think everybody's playing the level of baseball that they expect of themselves," Snell said. "I mean, they'll get mad or throw their helmet or hang their head or this and that ... it's not going to help you win a ballgame. I think if they just keep their heads in the game, work the counts as a hitter, get the out if you're a pitcher ... just show some heart. Don't be scared. Don't be scared to win. Nothing's going to hurt you if you win." He even goes on to tell me to shove it. Some might argue that the Pirates are not underachieving but, rather, performin...

Sorry for the lack of posts yesterday afternoon/last night. My internet went down and the cable went down with it, meaning our family did things like "go for bike rides" and "listen to the Pirates on the radio" and I was pretty stranded from getting anything posted. So I'm still here and I'm still blogging, though I don't know how long the internet connection here will hold out for. So... Paul Maholm was pretty good last night, eh? Three hits and a walk over 7 and 2/3rds is an impressive outing, even if he did manage to somehow give up two runs to the Marlins on that meager allowance. Then an amazing thing happened. The bullpen came into the game with a tenuous lead (one run) and got four whole outs without letting anyone on base or anyone score. That's pretty freaking good and not very Pirate-like. Kind of nice to see, what can I say. The offense wasn't very good against Willis, but it didn't need to be, either. They got their three runs ear...

I'm happy that Kuwata has worked out well so far. Really, I am. But it's very depressing to me that the best pitcher in our bullpen recently has been a washed up 39-year old former starter from the Japanese leagues. It would be great if he'd come and done a good job as a middle/long relief guy, but he's seriously the only person that can get outs reliably right now. I guess the thing that scares me the most about Kuwata is that this is what a lot of people predicted for him this year, early success while people were figuring him out, followed by him getting pounded. We are in phase 1 right now, and I have to wonder how far behind phase 2 really is. Maybe it's not coming, but in that case, what good does the guy do for us? He's almost 40 and he certainly won't get better. Could we actually trade him to a contender? I'd say chances are pretty slim there. I suppose where I'm going with this is that Kuwata is a nice story and it's good to see him suc...

The fan base is getting restless. Protests are planned, die-hard fans are listless, even bloggers are bored with the Pirates. This is about as bad as I can remember things in my 2+ years of blogging. I mean, this is really ugly. But little did I know the Pirates had a fool-proof plan to turn things around. Bring back Wayback . Yep, John Wasdin is back with the team. On one hand, he can't be worse than Jonah Bayliss. On the other hand, oh wait, yes he can, he's Wayback Wasdin. And just when I was about to institute the brilliant name suggested for Bayliss in the comments, "Gas Can." Jesse Chavez and Franquellis Osoria are weeping together in the Indianapolis clubhouse right now.

No podcast this week because, well, it's just not worth it. I'd just be rehashing things I've already said and I don't really have any urge to do that. Here's the thing; the Pirates are a bad baseball team. Very bad, in fact. Their lineup is bad, their rotation is bad beyond Gorzelanny and Snell, and their bullpen is awful. Their minor league system is bereft of talent besides Walker and McCutchen. Things are so bad down there that we view Brian Bixler as a major talent. The front office lacks any kind of vision whatsoever. They drafted a relief pitcher with the fourth pick in the draft. It's just very hard for me to put any sort of brainpower into the Pirates when things seem so cut and dried right now.

Pirates lose in soul-sucking fashion. Didn't see the game and don't care to learn more beyond "Angels 4 Pirates 3 F(10)."

Bartolo Colon has been awful recently this year, but I fail to see how that will matter in a week that both Jeff Weaver and Felix Hernandez have gotten untracked against our terrible offense. Since our win in the first game of the Seattle series, we've scored five runs in four games. That won't win you a lot of baseball games and in fact, it didn't win us any at all over the past four days. That's about par for the course for Tom Gorzelanny, who's used to pitching will and watching the bullpen blow leads or the offense not score enough. Still, he's been worked into the ground recently and I'm expecting him to be pulled out of a game early with "elbow stiffness" any day now. Whatever the case, today closes out the yearly nightmare that is interleague play for the Pirates. A win and we're 6-9, a loss and we're 5-10. Sadly, either outcome is better than any of us expected.

I don't think this PG article that talks about the Pirates being interested in Jared Saltalamacchia is worth too much. I mean, everyone's got to be interested in the guy and what do we have to offer for him? Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny, Neil Walker, Andrew McCutchen, and... wait, that's it. The only way he's coming here is if it's for one of them, or a package of players that come from Atlanta for Jason Bay, but if he's in the deal I don't think it would be a very large package. Keep reading the Inside Pirate Baseball and you'll see that Littlefield appears completely uninterested in anyone that isn't a pitcher

We got crushed. I am running out of things to write in recaps. Ian Snell didn't pitch so great, and that was pretty much our only chance against Escobar. I have a ton of family in town which means there is very little Pirate-watching time. A quick rundown, Escobar didn't really dominate us, with only 4 Ks and 2 walks in 8 innings, but we only got five hits and only scored once. Snell had one bad inning, but since he gave up as many runs in that inning as we've scored in the past four games, things weren't looking so good from there. Our offensive star, according to Yahoo! , was a fat piece of shit that couldn't even run around the bases, but stayed in the game all night because Tracy made our other catcher a DH and to remove Paulino and put Doumit at catcher would forfeit the DH for the night. I realize this is why Tracy has lobbied for Cota on the roster all year, but wouldn't it just be easier to play Doumit in right and DH Nady? Doumit's got a better arm ...

...or something. They're skipping both Jered Weaver and John Lackey in the rotation this weekend against us, which obviously means their aces don't want to play us. The best pitcher we'll get this weekend is probably Kelvim Escobar, who's pitching tonight and has quietly been one of the best starters in the American League this year. His mound opponent will be Ian Snell, who's quietly (to everyone else) been one of the best starters in the NL this year. The big question for Ian tonight will be how his burned finger is after the salad making incident last weekend. He's going to have to be good tonight because quite literally, no lead is safe with our bullpen and their "pitching." Between the Weaver shutout and last night's awful loss, it's really hard to get amped up about the Pirates right now. They're just not a very interesting or exciting team to watch. They are actually on TV tonight, which is a nice departure from the past two nights, ...

You've probably seen by now that the Pirates claimed Josh Phelps off of waivers from the Yankees . Jim Tracy refers to him as a "home run threat" and Littlefield talks about how he has "some power." What a load of crap. First off, he's right-handed. And we play in PNC Park. Major power decrease there. He slugged .363 with the Yankees this year and .424 with Tampa last year, hitting 7 homers in 265 plate appearances. Besides on year in Toronto, he's not particularly good at drawing walks. Phelps is like Ty Wigginton, except with less power and the ability to play less positions. And also, without the whole "murderous rampage against catchers" thing, which more or less makes him less fun.

It seems like whenever I drive from Boardman back to my house and the Pirates are playing, bad things happen to the Pirates. The simplest explanation is that bad things usually happen to the Pirates, so why should nights I can barely hear them on the radio be different? When I got into my car, I could hear the Pirates were winning 4-1. I couldn't tell what inning it was, but judging by the time, I assumed it was pretty early (6th or 7th inning was my guess). I heard the Angels score two runs, but my reception cut out. I tried the local Pirates affiliate, but they haven't carried any of the west coast games this year. I got back to my house and put the game on TV except that, oh yeah, it wasn't on TV because FSP has better things to put on TV at midnight on Friday in the summer. Looked up gamecast, tie game 4-4. Said, "screw it" and went to bed (it was like 1:30 AM, I had a long day yesterday). Woke up this morning and found exactly what I expected to see. 5-4 Ange...

Umm... I guess Felix Hernandez is better than Jeff Weaver. He's been pretty bad lately, but he does have that ceiling and all and the Pirates are good in bringing that out in everyone. Really good at it. I mean, we haven't scored since the seventh inning on Tuesday. That seems like a long time ago. I don't really know what else to say. Looks like Van Benschoten pitched pretty OK, but two strikeouts and two walks in five innings is not particularly great. Jury's still out in my book, but my hopes are not getting higher. I think maybe I just won't post until the Pirates score a run again.

The Mariners series ends here, starting at 10 PM tonight. Felix Hernandez and John Van Benschoten take the mound for this one. Felix has been struggling mightily since his return for the DL. Guess what the doctor ordered? Yep, the Pirates. I'll be interested to see him pitch, as well as seeing JVB face off against a non-White Sox opponent. If we win this one, it would be three straight series wins in a row. I'm not counting on it.

I don't feel like talking about the Pirates today. Everything seems kind of pointless after being shut-out by Jeff Weaver. I'll be back later tonight for the gamethread.

Jeff Weaver threw a complete game 4-hit shutout at us tonight. I'm not sure I can, or need, to say anything else. My pre-game prediction was waay to optimistic, and that never happens. Paul Maholm sucked tonight, but who cares? We got shut-out by Jeff Weaver. Jeff Weaver. In my life-time I have played for two (not one, but two) baseball teams that finished with 0-14 records. We specialized in losing by the ten run rule. I have never, ever, been so embarrassed by the outcome of a baseball game as I am this morning. Jeff Weaver shut us out. He shouldn't even have a job in the big leagues. He was thisclose to being CUT before tonight's game. And he shut us out. We could win every game for the rest of the year and it wouldn't make this suck any less. But we won't win every game for the rest of the year. Because we just got shut-out by Jeff Weaver.

Jeff Weaver? Raise your hand if you're happy the Pirates didn't listen to me and sign this guy. Yeah, me too. Weaver has been so bad (10.94 ERA, 2.19 WHIP, 0-6 record proving that pitcher record can be indicative of performance sometimes) that you almost feel like he's due for a good outing because no one can be this bad. Wait? Did I just say due for a good outing? Does anyone know a team that seems to excel at making bad pitchers look good? What? The Pirates are that team? Weaver's longest outing this year is six innings and he's reached that fine milestone twice. I'm calling seven innings and two runs on five hits for the nightmare Weaver tonight. His mound opponent is the Jekel and Hyde-like Paul Maholm, except that his Jekel is more "mediocre, adequate, not bad" rather than, say, "excellent." Regardless, he does seem to be getting his act together if his past four starts are any evidence at all. One would think he need not be very good to...

That's right, former Oakland A Dave Stewart is taking Dave Littlefield to task for being a shitty GM . It's a fun read. Nice to know that even former players know what a joke the organization here is. Via Baseball Musings .

Yesterday's Stats Geek and today's Pirates Notebook both got me thinking about the way the team is being run this year. The Pirates are using a ton of brainpower (insert joke about the Pirates having brainpower) to solve a problem that doesn't really need solved and their not using their brains at all on one that has an obvious solution. The problem the Pirates seem to be racking their brains to solve is the Jose Castillo- Jack Wilson- Freddy Sanchez situation. There are three players. There are two positions. Someone has to sit. Here's the thing. All three players are pretty similar. Freddy offers a little more offense, but a little less defense. Any combination of the three is going to give you pretty much the same thing every night. I know. It's practically swearing to lump Freddy in with those two, right? Not if he hits like he has this year. We know that .344 is a fluke for Freddy, because .344 is a fluke for anyone that isn't Tony Gwynn. But even when he...

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much. I'm not actually trying to find them. It was hard not to love the Pirates' catching platoon in the early '90s. Spanky and Sluggo. Slaught was the short half of the platoon when Mike LaValliere was in town, but he was always my favorite of the two. It may have had something to do with the fact that he was definitely a better hitter, but when my Minor League (that was the 8-10 year-old machine-pitch league back in the day where I'm from, Joseph's Paint rocked the house) made me the catcher and started calling me Sluggo it definitely sealed the deal. If any of you have Bill James' historical abstract (and I'm betting at least a few of you have it), Sluggo is in the top 100 (I don't recall where exactly and my copy is in Pittsburgh at the moment) and James makes the comment that had he played anywhere but catcher, he'd probably have turned into a really good hitter. Instead, ...

And the nice little run the Pirates are on against bad American League teams continues for one more night. There was good stuff all around tonight, the Pirates hitters drew 4 walks off of Miguel Batista in 5 and 1/3 innings, then two more off of Sean Green over the next 2 and 2/3. That kind of patience tends to pay off. Gorzelanny got a lead early and held onto it for seven innings, then Tracy played musical relievers with some success (Richie Sexson's monster homer off of Jonah Bayliss was the only run allowed by the pen tonight) to get the win. Freddy and Bay had two hits apiece and every starter other than Nady and Wilson had one. Shawn Chacon closed out the save with two straight strikeouts after Damaso Marte started the ninth. Of course, there were also downsides on this one. Gorzelanny started the seventh inning after 100 pitches and threw 123 tonight. This is really starting to add up. We struck out 11 times, which is puzzling because of how much we walked. Jonah Bayliss rea...

The Pirates have traveled cross country to play their first game ever in the city of Seattle (I was going to make a joke here about Seahawk fans, but I'll take the high road) with a nice little four wins in six games run going. The Seahawks are on the other end of the spectrum at the moment, having lost their past five to other NL Central teams (that's a no-no for anyone). The Pirates have to like the pitching match up tonight as Tom Gorzelanny will go against Miguel Batista. He'll have to be good because the worst bullpen in the universe is even worse now with Matt Capps finally suspended for three games. I would've liked to see Gorzo get the extra day of rest yesterday's off-day could've afforded, but Ian Snell's bizarre injury has prevented that from happening. Oh well.

If you read the below linked Ian Snell story today you probably noticed a funnily edited quote from former Pirate and former Pirate minor league manager Dave Clark. I couldn't help myself, so I wrote it up at the Fanhouse . I would've put it here, but that just needs a bigger audience. And I'm a sell-out.

Pirate links from the MSM today: Wait... so Ian Snell is motivated by naysayers ? Who knew?!? I am now 75% certain that he knows about the Ian Snell insult game. I say this all the time, but I know Paul Meyer articles just by reading the titles. Matt Capps will be suspended for the Mariners series . It certainly took MLB long enough to make a decision on that one. It cost us a bench spot for a full week. Anyways, Shawn Chacon will be the closer and a whole bunch of shitty relievers will do all the other stuff. The Stats Geek talks about the infield . I've been meaning to do this for a while, but haven't gotten around to it. Apparently we've never been to Seattle before . Then again, it rains at least once a day here, what more do we need to know? Seriously, it's like a monsoon outside right now.

I'll admit, one thing that I don't do nearly as much as I'd like since I started writing for the Fanhouse is trolling the internets for interesting stuff about the Pirates and baseball in general. Steve at The Parrot has video up of the Sopranos parody done at the ballpark on Saturday night. He's also got some thoughts on the ridiculous schedule that baseball has become so fond of in recent years. When do we get to go back to the NL East and play the Phillies and Mets and Expos all the time? I miss those days. Then again, I suppose you could figure from the very name of my blog that I'm a bit nostalgic at times. Matt at Wait 'Til Next Year has his surprises and disappointments to this point in the season. It's never too early to be talking about trades, which is what Cory is doing at the Lumber Co . Seriously, did you guys see this ? File it away under "most unlikely inside the parker ever." Jim Tracy won't be the first manager fired this ye...

You've all heard about Ian Snell's strange finger burning injury by now. I don't even know what to say about it. I wrote it up for the Fanhouse already, mainly just mentioning bizarre baseball injuries and introducing the unsuspecting world to how good Ian Snell has been this year. But seriously, what do you say about this? It doesn't seem serious and he's only going to miss one start, but do we laugh about this or get pissed at him? I don't know.

This week's podcast can be listened to or downloaded here , or you can subscribe on iTunes here . Some of the topics are: The Pirates have a winning week The level of competition and if it should matter John Van Benschoten's debut. Shawn Chacon, the reliever Ian Snell's bizarre injury Jason Bay's struggles The Rangers and Angels There's a bit of static for the last couple minutes. Still working the kinks out here, so you'll have to forgive stuff like that.

Nothing is easy for this club, is it? Today's win certainly could (and probably should) have been an easy one. Afterall, we've said again and again that if the bullpen could just bridge things from the starter to Capps, we'd have it made. And if Duke could give ups some good starts, we'd really have things going for us. Well, Duke gave us a good start... except for that one inning where he gave up five runs and almost blew the game for us. And the pen was great, except for that part where Capps gave up two runs and almost gave it back to the White Sox. And yeah, you can talk about Castillo's error that hurt Capps, but then I'm taking away Bay's homer saving catch that kept Thome from tying things up for the White Sox. Still, a win is a win and we've got four of these things in the "W" column this week, which isn't a bad week, even with the opponents taken into account. There were certainly good things today. Jose Bautista is killing the ba...

I thought that when Kip Wells was traded, the most frustrating Pirate pitcher was of the team. I should've known better. There's a long line of frustrating Pirate pitchers, from Wells, to Benson, to Schmidt, and so on back for quite some time. Zach Duke has assumed that mantle from Wells this year. I don't know what's happened to him, but he really sucks. He gets his chance to pitch against the offense that made John Van Benschoten and Paul Maholm look like world beaters today. If things don't go well for Duke today... I dunno. I would say we should demote him but I don't know who would take his place. The White Sox send Javier Vazquez to the mound against Duke today. I remember a few years back when Vazquez and Tony Armas were always my sleeper fantasy pitchers because no one payed attention to Expos. Unlike his former teammate, Vazquez seems to have regained some of that Expo form this year with his 4.15 ERA and 1.14 WHIP and 67 strikeouts in 78 innings. He...

So I suppose the first thing everyone wants to talk about is John Van Benschoten. He was OK tonight, and I think that's about the best way to describe it. He went 5 and 2/3rds innings and while two earned runs show up on the stat sheet, they were only "earned" because of the baffling decision to not give Adam LaRoche an error for an awful throw to the plate that would've nailed Jermaine Dye and ended the inning if it had been remotely on target. And while he certainly looked adequate tonight, let's remember he faced a terrible White Sox squad that started two guys tonight (Jerry Owens and Josh Fields) that I honestly had no idea existed before tonight. He wore down pretty quickly (no strikeouts after the third) and struggled with control a lot. I can't say for sure, but I'm afraid that a good team would destroy the pitcher I saw tonight. What else? The offense wasn't terrible against Buehrle, but it was also unable to string any hits together at any po...

Posting the gamethread early because I'm heading down from home to catch John Van Benschoten's re-debut against the White Sox this afternoon. I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure I didn't see JVB throw at all in his brief 2004 stint with the Buccos (I know I saw Burnett, though). One thing is for sure, with him in the lineup tonight we'll probably have a better hitter in the nine slot than the eight slot. Mark Buehrle goes for the White Sox and he's pitched well this year but is only 3-3 because of the well documented awful White Sox offense. And that's why it's at least a good move to make this Van Benschoten's first start. I'm not sure what kind of leash he's on, but this is definitely better than calling him up to face the Yankees. I don't have high hopes for him today or this year, but it is impressive that he's made it this far back. I didn't think he'd make it this far. Maybe he'll keep surprising me.

Jack Wilson may still not be a starter after his good performance last night. I hope Tracy keeps him on his toes for at least a little bit. Oliver Perez dominated the Yankees and outdueled Roger Clemens last night. Have I mentioned lately that I hate Dave Littlefield? Because I do. Actually, that's all I got for the moment. Brace yourself for John Van Benschoten tonight.

Remember two days ago when Jose Castillo was hitting the ball well and I said that while it was encouraging to see, I wanted to see him do it against a team that wasn't as pitching poor as the Rangers? Replace Jose Castillo with Paul Maholm, hitting the ball with pitching, pitching poor with hitting poor, and Rangers with White Sox and you've got the basic outline for this recap. It's not that I'm not impressed with Maholm's outing tonight, it's just that the White Sox are really freaking bad. Fellow Fanhouser and Foul Balls editor Tom Fornelli is a White Sox fan. This afternoon he pointed out to me that not only do the White Sox have a much worse OBP than the Pirates and not only have they scored 30some runs less than the Buccos, they've done it in the DH league. That is some bad offense. And yet, you can never take a seven-inning, six-strikeout start from Paul Maholm for granted. Forgive me for being glib, but sometimes it takes him two starts to get tho...

I just wrote about this for the Fanhouse , but the two worst teams in the league at getting on base will face off at PNC Park this weekend. I've got a gut feeling that this will be an ugly series for us. Gorzo and Snell won't pitch at all, so we'll counter the White Sox anemic offense with Paul Maholm, John Van Benschoten, and Zach Duke. The White Sox will find out just how bad their offense is this weekend. The Sox will send Jon Garland to the mound against Maholm tonight. Garland's been pretty good this year but his record doesn't reflect it because the White Sox don't score a lot of runs. It's gonna be a fun one...

I think it's a fair question. We can throw Ryan Doumit out for now, because he's got too small of a sample size. That leaves us with only two viable candidates for the title of "team offensive over-achiever" at the moment, Jose Bautista and Xavier Nady. We can start with Bautista. His hitting line is currently .275/.357/.432. That's honestly not a whole ton better than his PECOTA of .259/.338/.436. His stats as a leadoff hitter are slightly more impressive at .317/.404/.537, but he's only got 95 PAs from there, so it's hard to judge. We also have to remember he started last year really hot and slumped terribly in the second half. There is one area in which he's been pretty impressive this year. He's only struck out 38 times in 268 PAs, he struck out 110 times in 469 last year. That's a significant improvement and with his 29 walks, he's easily got one of the best batting eyes on the team this year. If he can keep this up, he's going to ...

I could quote you all of Kameron Loe's relevant stats and what a mess getting shutout by him is, but it's not like he's the first awful pitcher we've made look good this year and I doubt he'll be the last. What I'm more concerned about was Tom Gorzelanny's pitch counts before tonight's game. 117 against the Yankees, 120 against the Padres, and 118 against the Cardinals, with a 97 pitch outing against the Dodgers wedged in between the Padres and Yankees starts. Pushing 120 in three out of four starts makes it no wonder he gave up three gopher balls tonight and ran out of gas in the sixth and seventh innings against the Rangers tonight. What else can we say about this one? There wasn't much too it. A crappy pitcher dominated our suddenly struggling offense and Gorzelanny ran out of gas early and we got crushed pretty good by a pretty crappy team. Dan Kolb made a crappy debut. Masumi Kuwata pitched again, then in the 10 seconds I caught of Tracy's p...

I didn't think I'd be asking this question, but can the Pirates sweep the Rangers tonight? You've got to like the pitching match-up with Tom Gorzelanny facing off against someone named Kameron Loe, owner of a 7.40 ERA and 1.68 WHIP. The Rangers have played like a Little League team in all facets of the game over the past two nights and even though I had pretty low expectations for this series, I'd be disappointed if they didn't pull this win out and finish the sweep tonight. Will management cave to Jack Wilson's bitching and put him in the game despite Jose Castillo's recent run of decent play? Can the Pirates look competent for three straight games? Can the bullpen hold a Tom Gorzelanny lead? The answers to all these questions and more TONIGHT AT 7:05!!!

The Pirates just announced that Shawn Chacon is headed back to the bullpen, effective immediately, and that John Van Benschoten will be called up to take his spot in the rotation . It's terrifying that the team's answer to solidifying the bullpen is to put Shawn Chacon back into it. JVB has 45 strikeouts and 30 walks in 66 minor league innings. That's not good.

I just went out to the mailbox to see what the postman had for me today. Since it's Thursday, I fully expected a Sports Illustrated in the box. I flipped through the letters and saw the SI header in the back of things. I got to the cover. I saw a bunch of New York Mets. I read the title, "MIX MASTER." I read the description, "The Unlikely Story of How Omar Minaya Created the Melting Pot Mets." Then I saw it. On the cover are five Mets around Omar Minaya. Minaya's got his arms around two of them. One of the two? Oliver Perez. Oliver Perez is on the cover of Sports Illustrated in a Mets uniform. I want to vomit.

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much. Oh, that's right. Curtis Wilkerson , or as my head fondly remembers him, "Lloyd McClendon without the talent." That's a faulty recollection though. I remember Wilkerson as a fifth outfielder, BRef tells me he was a utility infielder. Oh, well, time glosses over all things in our heads, I suppose. Anyways, Wilkerson is a special player. Not because he was good, but because of how much he sucked. His career batting line was .245/.286/.305. His career OPS+ was 63. Despite that, he played parts of 11 seasons in the big leagues. His hitting line is eerily similar to one John Wehner 's. His career highlight was probably in 1988 when the Rangers traded him, Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams and a bunch of other crappy players to the Cubs for Jamie Moyer and Rafael Palmiero. Wilkerson only played one season with the Pirates, 1991. As per his career stats, he sucked in 1991 going .188/.243/....

Before we move on to anything else, let me just say that Ian Snell is awesome. He came out and actually looked kind of rusty through three innings despite four early K's, but then flat out cruised through the last six. It was one of those "didn't get to him the first time around and there was no chance from there on out" type outings that good pitchers seem to have so many of. The only run he gave up was on an error by Jose Bautista or we'd be talking about Ian's first career shutout tonight. Not that it mattered. In fact, I found myself wishing we had a bullpen so that Ian could've taken the night off after 7 innings and 85 pitches, but he got through this one in barely over 100, so things weren't so bad. Secondly, I love seeing Jose Castillo in the starting lineup. I'm as hard on Jose as anyone, but bear me out on this. The one thing that Jim Tracy (and his predecessor) talk about all the time is that the Pirates will be a hard working team and e...

Let's see here. The Rangers are the worst team in baseball recordwise. Ian Snell is either our best or second-best pitcher, depending on who you ask or what kind of stats you value. That's a pretty good match-up for tonight in our favor, I would think. Except that I'm going to the ballpark and the Pirates are 0-6 in my presence this year. Immovable object, meet unstoppable force. Something has got to give. Either that or we'll get rained out. That seems likely, too. Tonight's insult comes courtesy of azibuck apk in the comments below: Hey Ian, your mother's a snowblower!

So it looks like we won one last night. I didn't see any of the game, but from what I can tell we got out to a big lead and almost gave it all back. Typical stuff there. I'll do a "Where Have You Gone" post tomorrow because I haven't had time to work on one today and it's something that I like to put a decent amount of thought into. I'll have more up when I get some time this afternoon.

There's a chance this is the only post I'm going to get up today, so if that's the case the comments can double for a gamethread later tonight. If I get a chance, I'll get a gamethread up later. I'm thinking July 20 or 21 for WHYGAVS night for a couple reasons. This weekend is obviously too soon, I figured I'd leave the 30th open for people that would rather protest, and if we make it for more than a month away, people that want to come from further away have more time to plan. This isn't set in stone, but it's certainly looking like the best date to me. If I don't get a gamethread up, let me say this; this Rangers/Pirates series has the potential to be this year's Royals/Pirates series.

Disclaimer: The thread title refers to Daniel Moskos being the last thread for most Pirate fans, not the last thread on this blog ever. Sorry if I scared you. I'll be honest, as upset as I was the Daniel Moskos pick, the outpouring of public outrage over the pick has really surprised me. The pick itself didn't surprise me at all. There was not one bone in my body that thought the Pirates would pick Matt Wieters, and I was surprised to see that people that followed the team closely were flipping over the pick. Lots of you have already noted that someone is organizing a protest of the June 30th game at PNC Park. The Irate Fans have booted their website up again and are writing new articles. You all know that I actively helped the Irate Fans out last year and wrote some articles for them, but honestly, I don't know how much of a point all this has. Yes, it serves to show people that die-hard Pirate fans still exist and yes, it will get media attention. But if you think this...

Monday means podcast day. You can listen to it or download it here , or subscribe on iTunes here . Here's a list of topics: The draft. I included some of my interview on Steeltown Mike 's show here. Just why the draft pick was so damn bad. The past week, the Nationals series, the Yankees series, and why the Yankees sweep isn't surprising at all. Roger Clemens What to expect against the Rangers and White Sox (here's a hint, not much). Again, let me know what you think, if you have suggestions, etc.

And so the weekend concludes with the Pirates 47 year losing streak in New York intact. They got crushed today, which is pretty much what everyone expected with BP Chacon starting against the Yankees. We tried to hang around for a bit, but when the starter only lasts 3 and 1/3 innings and you have our bullpen, well, things aren't destined to go well. Let's see... how did the pen fare today? Well, Josh Sharpless entered the game with a 6-5 lead and two runners on, and immediately served up a homer to Alex Rodriguez. Masumi Kuwata came in next and started off decent, but then he walked Abreu and served up another home to A-Rod. This is where I stopped watching, but there was a Jonah Bayliss appearance where he served up three more runs and at that point I assume everyone wondered why he's still in the majors.

Oops, guess this one started at 1:15 instead of 1:35, so we're already in progress here. Shawn Chacon will attempt to show the Yankees up for trading him (yeah right), while the Yankees will sent Tyler Clippard to try and hold the Pirates under 7 runs and get the Yankees a win today. Oh, look at that, Bobby Abreu just tripled. Sheesh. Anyways, does anyone want to bet against a Masumi Kuwata/Hideki Matsui matchup. I was mystified as to why the Pirates would call a guy up just off the DL to fill a spot in our already awful bullpen until Greg Brown mentioned that Kuwata and Matsui were teammates in the 90s on the Yomiuri Giants and a matchup between the two of them would be huge news in Japan. And that's why we did it. Not to strengthen the bullpen, but to get on the front pages in Japan. Typical Pirates crap.

I meant to post this yesterday afternoon and I didn't really have time for it, but Steeltown Mike has posted the audio from my interview on his show yesterday on his blog. Instead of posting the whole thing here like I did last time, then posting another podcast tomorrow, I'm going to use some choice bits from Mike's show for the podcast. If you want to hear the whole thing though, take yourself over to Mike's blog and check it out. And as always, big thanks to Steeltown Mike for having me on his show.

This one finished just about how I figured it would, score-wise, but it didn't get there in quite the manner I envisioned. I was not terribly impressed with Roger Clemens today . I'm sure he'll be a good pitcher for the Yankees this year, but I'm not convinced he'll be a great one. He had the splitter working quite well today, but didn't seem to have great control over anything, worked deep into counts, and couldn't get his fastball much above 92 mph. It was good enough to look dominant against the Pirates, but not particularly great, I didn't think. He let the weakest part of our lineup (hobbling Nady, Paulino, Wilson) tie the game up against him in the fourth and I was honestly pretty surprised by that. Maholm struggled like crazy with the strike zone today, but still held a good Yankee lineup to three earned runs in 5 and 1/3 innings. That's honestly more than I expected out of him, but with our bullpen one can never expect to leave a game close a...

Clemens vs. Maholm. Clemens will be making like $1 million for this start. This matchup is a pretty good indication of what's wrong with baseball. I kind of feel like the Yanks are going to tee off on Maholm and it won't really matter what Clemens does. I also think that Clemens success against us in Houston is part of the reason why the Yankees wanted him to start against us instead of the Red or White Sox. Gotta make sure that first start is worth the hype, right? This one's on FSP, but I think it may be flipped to the Fox Saturday game in some markets (I have no basis for this statement other than TV loves Roger Clemens).

Homer Bailey made his debut for the Reds last night and looked fairly decent. Now the Astros, Brewers, Reds, and Cubs have exciting prospects up and playing for them. This division is depressing. Jerry Crasnick write an article for ESPN about how Jason Bay is good and pretty much everyone else on our team is bad. Thanks for everyone who pointed this one out to me. After three minor league innings, Masumi Kuwata is coming to Pittsburgh and Salomon Torres is going on the DL. As bad as Torres has been, I don't really think this is a good thing.

Umm... I'm not entirely sure I want to talk about this. Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming. That's what I thought. Seriously, four innings for Capps in two days? Another 115+ pitch outing for Gorzelanny? I realize there's no one else to go to, but at the same time if they get hurt, we're even worse off. They are taking some serious abuse this year. Melky Cabrera would've been a good Pirate, eh? If he didn't misplay Duffy's flyout into a home run, we're barely even worried about this one. Blech. I'll be on Steeltown Mike 's radio show tomorrow from 12:05 to 12:40 or so talking Buccos. That's WMBS 590 out of Uniontown if you're in the area. If not, I'll post the audio afterwards.

We did this two years ago, the Pirates were 30-30, the Yankees were, well, I don't remember, something slightly worse. Everyone was really excited about the Pirates chances in the series and maybe even a strong finish. We flamed out in the three games and got swept and lost something like 21 of 25. Last year we had an awful start, then played even worse in interleague play ( check out my Fanhouse post about our interleague struggles ). This year? We're 26-34 and the Yankees are 27-31. We're going to Yankee Stadium again and we're going to be the focus of national attention tomorrow when Roger Clemens makes his comeback against us. The Yankees need a jump start to get back to .500 and back into the AL Wild Card race. They're better than that record (315 runs scored, 278 allowed) and eventually they're going to play better. I've got a sinking feeling it's going to be against us. Our best chance to take one in this series might be tonight. Gorzelanny will t...

Just grabbed this screenshot off of Pirates.com . If you can't read the caption, it identifies what clearly seems to be Bob Walk as Steve Blass. And they wonder why no one believes what they readon the dot-com.

Anyone watch him pitch on ESPN today? I DVR'd it and am watching it now. I will post thoughts on his pitching in the bottom of this post when I have them. If you saw him today, feel free to talk about it in the comments. UPDATE (3:30)- So, having watched his 5 and 1/3 innings, I've got some thoughts on the guy. First off, he's going to fit in just fine. I don't mean the six runs in 5 and 1/3, I mean pitching well and watching your clueless teammates muck things up in the field. Of the runs he allowed, the first homer should've been a solo shot because the runner on base was only there after Clemson's right fielder badly misplayed a routine flyball into a single. His only mistake in the first five innings was shaking his catcher off and throwing a fastball that got whacked into the stands. In the sixth inning, the right fielder badly misplayed another flyball, the third baseman let a grounder under his glove, and Moskos gave up an aluminum bat homer, meaning that...

So lost in all of the hubbub about the Pirates making another really bad draft pick was that they did play a nice little game and pick up a win in Washington today. After they fell down 2-0 on a home run by Dimitri Young (where does steak come from? SteakGrowsOnDimitri ) they came back on an unlikely homer by Freddy Sanchez, seven strong innings from Ian Snell, Jim Tracy using Matt Capps for two innings instead of one because of his looming suspension, and Jason Bay with the big time homer in the ninth to pull ahead. That's right, the Pittsburgh Pirates just won a series. That's the first win since we took 3 of 4 from Cincy, which wasn't that long ago so I shouldn't complain. But actually, we only won one other series in the month of May (2 of 3 from the Cubs), so really, it is kind of nice to see happen. This seems like an opportune time to mention that the Pirates are still only 7 games out of first place. They have, however, fallen to fourth in the division, meaning ...

Is your 2007 first round selection for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Yes, a college pitcher. Get your needles ready , folks. Yet another low-upside, low-"risk" pick by the Pirates. If you're all watching a home, I'm sure you were thrilled when Gammons said, "This guy hasn't even started that much at Clemson. He's been used mostly as a reliever." Can you feel the excitement? UPDATE: John Sickels had Moskos as the ninth best pitcher in the draft. BA on Moskos : Stocky and compact, Moskos pounds the zone with a 91-95 mph fastball that bumped 97 out of the bullpen. He has a wipeout slider that has been up to 87 and also shows a more conventional curveball that he tends to use earlier in the count, just to keep hitters off balance. His changeup has fade, and he mixed all four of his pitches extremely well. Moskos has solid-average command of all of his stuff. He lacks projection and doesn't hold runners well. He joins Ross Detwiler and David Price as the c...

This thread is for both the afternoon game and the 2 PM Draft. Essentially it's so we can talk about the game and bitch when we don't draft Wieters. Today's pitching matchup is Ian Snell vs. Matt Chico. Matt Chico is the third consecutive Nationals pitcher that I haven't heard of in this series. He's got the worst numbers of the three. It kind of looks like we should tee off on this guy, honestly, given his numbers. Still, I'm not counting on it. As for the draft, I'll be around at least for the Pirates first pick and put something up after the selection happens. And as for Snell, this insult is courtesy of reader Edmund- Ian, you're so short that they should call a short-stack at Pamela's an "Ian Snell." If you're curious, yes, I'll be taking reader submitted Ian Snell insults all year.

The MLB draft is kind of hard to follow from a blogger's perspective. Except for the rarest cases, the players taken don't make any kind of immediate impact and half of even the first rounders are hit or miss anyways. Still, I can do a quick write up about guys that will be available at the four slot when we pick in the first round. After that, hell, I've got nothing. David Price- Hands down the best prospect in the draft. Lights out pitcher from Vanderbilt. Going to Tampa Bay in the one slot. Forget about this guy. Matt Wieters- Best college hitter in the group. He's a catcher, but may be moved from there. May go to the Royals at two, but may possibly fall further because he's represented by SCOTT BORAS (oooooo). Rick Porcello- Best high school pitcher in the draft. This is who most people think the Royals will take. Also a Boras client. Josh Vitters- A high school third baseman who is supposed to be a hell of a hitter. The Pirates are likely interested. Unfortuna...

See, now if we had won this game, it would've been a good win. Instead, we can file it away as another shitty loss. I mean, Zach Duke did his "I'll give up five runs and look like a crappy pitcher" thing and we were behind 5-1, but Adam LaRoche gained a measure of revenge on the world for being called out on a bogus interference call earlier in the game and launched a three-run homer to tie things up. And that set the stage for Salomon Torres. But you know what? It's really hard to blame Torres for this loss. I mean, infield singles aren't really ever the pitcher's fault unless they directly cause them. And on his walk of Austin Kearns, the home plate umpire literally flinched on a perfect 2-1 pitch that was right down the heart of the plate. Instead of a 2-2 count, it was a 3-1 count and Kearns walked. I mean yeah, the wild pitch is his fault, the walk is partially his fault, but it's really hard to hang this loss on him like some of the other ones th...

After last night's... win (I refuse to call it a good win, though there were several positive characteristics), the Bucs will line up for two in a row tonight against the National's Micah Bowie. Bowie is one of a number of Nats' pitchers this year that have good numbers, but are not really god pitchers. Bowie's been around forever- he's 33 and was drafted in 1993 by the Braves. Other people drafted in 1993 include Jeff D'Amico and John Wasdin (and Alex Rodriguez, Derrek Lee, and Chris Carpenter as well, drafted Charles Peterson in the first round, if you're curious). So Bowie is not some young kid trying to make it, but rather some old guy trying to hang on. Zach Duke is the opposite, a young kid trying to make it. You know all about Duke and his troublesome delivery and propensity for getting the crap beaten out of him on the mound. He's given up 95 hits in 66 innings this year. That's insanely bad. Seriously, I'm sick of watching him suck. I h...

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much. Ahh, now this is more like it. I opened with Doug Drabek, but guys like Espy are who I had in mind for this "Where have you gone..." feature. This is why Espy is important, because he is the first Pirate I ever remember thinking actually sucked. You see, when the Pirates were good, I was quite young. Thus, I had a favorable impression of everyone that wore black and gold in those times, no matter how bad they really were. I would name names, but that would ruin the fun of future WHYG... segments. The point is this: I never, for one second of my life, though Cecil Espy was a good baseball player. And for that, I will never forget the guy. A more objective glance at Espy's career shows that I was pretty much dead on as a six year old. In two years of partial duty as a Pirate, Espy hit .244/.281/.329 and .258/.310/.340. If you check out his gamelogs on BRef, you'll see that Espy was Chris Duf...

After this one ended, either Greg Brown or one of the other Pirate talking heads on FSP described this one as a "good, close win." Exsqueeze me? Horsepucky, I say! How is a lead in which you have a 7-2 lead and only win by one run a good win? Salomon Torres did a great job getting three lefties out in a row, you say? They were Brian Schneider, Ryan Langerhans, and Nook Logan! Sweet merciful crap, if he can't get them out, who can he get out? Perhaps I am being too harsh after a win. The Pirates did a nice job after Chacon gave the Nats a 2-0 lead by firing right back with five runs. Mike Bacsik didn't have good control tonight and we actually took advantage of it tonight, taking five walks in his 4 and 1/3 innings of work. And after Chacon, Marte, and Bayliss almost gave the five run lead back, Grabow, Torres, and Capps did hold it down for the one run win. In two outings as closer, Capps has now thrown 18 pitches and recorded two saves. It's hard not to love that...

Everyone is doing a lot of talking about how bad the Nationals are and how important a sweep is for the Pirates in this series. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Nats aren't that bad. At least not of late. Ever since they dropped to 9-25, they're actually 14-9. In those 25 games, they're 5-2 against the NL Central. This is not a team to be taken lightly. Tonight they send Mike Bacsik to the mound against Shawn Chacon. I have honestly never heard of him before in my life. The required action is to look him up on BRef, then maybe the Cube. Looks like he's been around a while, but not in the majors since 2004. He's been good for the Nats this year. This doesn't necessarily mean that he's good. Same goes for Shawn Chacon. We know all about his last start. He K'd 10 Padres in seven innings, then watched Salomon Torres blow the lead. Still, just because his last start was a good start doesn't mean he's a good starter. This should be a fun ga...

Everyone has been bitching about the Pirates for weeks now and the Pirates have finally made a change... Humberto Cota is going back to AAA and Rajai Davis is coming up . My initial thoughts: Cota still has options left? How is that possible? Blah. Who cares. And that was it. Charlie is fond of saying that Davis is like a worse version of Chris Duffy (and Nyjer Morgan is a worse version of Rajai Davis so...) and he's right. I know the goal of this move is to help the bench, but, umm, how does having a bench of Davis, McLouth, Kelly (at least I think he's still on the team), Castillo, and the nightly loser of the Doumit/Nady/Paulino sweepstakes qualify as better than anything? This is the 2,000th post in WHYGAVS history. I was going to do a special post about that in itself, but then I decided that Humberto Cota being demoted for Rajai Davis was a microcosm for the 2+ years I've been writing this blog and that it would be fitting if that's what post #2,000 was about.

From our last conversation, it seems like a Friday/Saturday game is going to be the best. If I'm wrong in this assumption, lemme know in the comments. The fact is, if a lot of people want to do this, it's going to be impossible to accommodate everyone. The goal is going to be to find the night that the most people can get to the park. The Friday/Saturday games between now and August 1st are: June 15 and 16 against the White Sox June 29 and 30 against the Nationals July 6 and 7 against the Cubs- I can't go this weekend due to a wedding. July 20 and 21 against the Astros Once we pick a date, we have to decide how to do tickets. The easiest route to go may be to just pick up random tickets at the park and have everyone hang out on the rotunda. Other suggestions are welcome.

What a bad game. It went from the pain of seeing a no-hitter coming to the even worse pain of having opportunities and not cashing in on them. I'm not sure which one is worse (yes I am, it's the second one). This could've been avoided a number of ways. Paul Maholm ran out of gas but was left in an inning too long. Josh Sharpless was brought into a close game. Then again so was Tony Armas, but we avoided further disaster there. Jason Bay could've done something other than hit a broken bat grounder in the ninth. Jack Wilson could've not jumped on Broxton's pitch, no matter where it was (who am I kidding, no he couldn't). We could've tried getting a hit in the first six innings. We didn't need to do all of these things to win tonight, just a couple. And so the homestand concludes. That was a really shitty homestand. All of the five losses sucked. By my count, four of them could've been avoided. I know it's to wish that the Pirates went 6-1 over ...

I suppose we can technically still earn a split in this series against the Dodgers, but it really feels like this series is already lost to me. Yesterday's loss really sucked, it would take quite an impressive win to bounce back from that one, I think. The Paul Maholm/Derek Lowe pitching match-up tonight is not an encouraging one. Lowe's got very good career numbers against us and I'm never very encouraged to see Paul Maholm on the mound. Still, Maholm has looked better in his last couple of starts and we did actually hit Brad Penny pretty well yesterday, so maybe I've got this one misjudged. Nah.

This was actually in yesterday's paper and I saw it in there, but I missed posting about it, so let's take it now. The Pirates signed pitcher Dewon Brazelton to a minor league contract yesterday. I saw that and thought I remembered Brazelton being a pretty good prospect in the D'Rays organization once. Looking at his Baseball Cube page , I could have only been thinking about 2002. That's a long time ago. Not much else to make of this signing. He's a huuge reclamation project and I can't see much coming of this signing. Instead, let's use this post to catch up on some of the other minor league pitcher's we picked up in the off-season. Yoslan Herrera- 6.47 ERA, 1.66 WHIP, 27 Ks, 16 BBs, 6 homers allowed in 48 and 2/3 innings in Altoona. Clearly the two-year layoff was not his friend. Alay Soler- 4.26 ERA, 1.55 WHIP, 19 Ks, 15 BBs in 31 and 2/3 innings in Altoona. It's pretty obvious why the Mets didn't want him. This guy looks worthless. Serguey L...

That's right. The first ever WHYGAVS Podcast is finally here. It's more of a test run than anything, so I'm looking for feedback. You can listen to it here , or grab it on iTunes here (if you do subscribe on iTunes there will be some ads from my host, Switchpod, that come along with the podcast). I have an option to embed it, but I can't do that without having it automatically play whenever the site opens. If I can turn that off, I may embed it later. A quick list of topics Why I'm podcasting and what I expect. Week in review The bullpen Torres Capps Everone else Can the Pirates win the Central? Who will? The week ahead The Yankees It's only about 13 minutes long, so give it a shot if you've got some time today.