Game 62: Yankees 9 Pirates 3

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 and have it stay that way. John Grabow and Tony Armas played the role of letting the Yankees distance themselves from us
over the course of the rest of the game, turning a manageable 4-3 deficit with two guys on into a 9-3 loss.

The only other thing worth mentioning is the crappy play of Jack Wilson today. Holy hell, it looks like he'd rather be anywhere but on the field playing for the Pirates. If you watched the game, you know exactly what I mean. He just doesn't seem to be trying for balls not hit right at him any more. Screw this, let's get Bixler up here. I've got no time for Wilson at this anymore. He's in the lineup for his glove and his glove isn't even that good.

Blah.