An early gamethread!

Look at this, I'm actually going to get a gamethread posted (way) before a game starts! The Pirates go to Milwaukee and with the way things have been going for each team of late, the Pirates might be able to crush the Brewers hopes of going to the playoffs this weekend, which would be kind of sad (as you can imagine, writing about the Central for FanHouse has resulted in me learning a lot about the other teams in this division and I of like the Brewers). Tonight Yovani Gallardo (who's an exciting young pitcher that you should check out if you have nothing else to do on a Friday night) and Tony Armas go at it. With the way the Brewers' rotation has pitched and the Pirates' offense has hit lately, the Bucs might actually be able to score enough runs for Armas in this one. Maybe.

Jack Wilson not traded ... yet

Jack Wilson fully expects that when the clock strikes midnight tonight, he's still going to be a Pirate. But he thinks that it might not last much longer:

"With all the speculation that happened and Cesar Izturis here, I don't see myself coming back. I really don't. There are four or five teams that could use a shortstop, so I still expect a trade will happen."

I love how everyone that talks about this situation just assumes that Cesar Izturis is this
great backup waiting to take over and lead the Pirates into greatness. Sadly, Izturis is one of the few shortstops in the league worse at the plate than Wilson. But doesn't Jack just sound giddy when he talks about getting traded? It's like he's been waiting for this day for years. Oh, wait. He probably has been.

Game 133: Reds 5 Pirates 4

Whew. Just as soon as all that crazy, "The Pirates have a chance" talk started blossoming, it's over. I was starting to get worried. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the Pirates winning the division. I'm against false hope and Dave Littlefield (and maybe in that order, false hope is pretty much the worse thing in the world, with Dave Littlefield you know what you got).

Anyways, it's kind of, umm, poetic is not the word, I'll go with ... ironic that after the Pirates flew through most of August on the strength of their offense and bullpen playing way over their heads, they're coming up on the end of the month with a thud after one loss where their offense deserted them, then one where their pen did. The second one came tonight (or, last night, I guess), when Damaso Marte, Shawn Chacon, and Matt Capps combined to give up a run in the eight and a run in the ninth and help a 4-3 lead (built after gritty veteran Matt Morris gutted his way through 5 and 2/3 innings!) into a 5-4 loss.

With this loss, the Bucs fall back into the cellar. I'd kinda like to thank the Astros for keeping it warm for us. It feels like we never left.

Reds finale

Bucs and Reds go at it starting right now with Matt Moris and Matt Belisle on the mound. Now that's what I call a pitcher's duel.

Let's talk CEO

OK, so let's do some CEO talk here. I want to talk about some of the comments in this post and I want to talk about Perrotto's article about Tony La Cava.

Let's start with La Cava. Beyond the big time names (Duquette, Jocketty, etc.), I don't know a lot about many of these names that come up in the CEO hunt. That includes La Cava. What I do know is that Perrotto's article reads like a fluffy piece of Paul Meyer crap to me, and I don't find that terribly encouraging for La Cava's case. Let's look at some of the words used to describe La Cava and break this down, FJM style:

LaCava might not have a highfaluting title like some others in this era when seemingly anyone who works for a major-league club is a vice president, but he is one of the sharpest and most well-respected executives in baseball.
Hear that dumb Pittsburgh readers, this guys just like you! Now let me back that statement up with a random claim that I will later provide nebulous backing for.

LaCava is the No. 2 man in the Blue Jays' front office to GM J.P. Ricciardi and has an extensive background in scouting and player development.
In 2001 you could've replaced "LaCava" with "Littlefield," "Blue Jays" with "Marlins," and "JP Ricciardi" with "Dave Dombrowski" and I would've been much more impressed. And wait, isn't JP Ricciardi a pretty crappy GM? I know that division's rough, but it's not like we're talking about a recommendation from Branch Rickey here. Wayne Krivsky worked for Terry Ryan.

His masterstroke was suggesting that Indians GM Mark Shapiro trade Bartolo Colon to the Expos in 2002 for a package of youngsters that included Grady Sizemore, now emerging as a superstar.
I can't believe that he was the only person in the organization that thought that trading fat Bartolo Colon for Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee, and Brandon Phillips was a good idea. I think it's dubious to claim he's the one whose idea it was (or even the one who suggested getting Sizemore included). I freely admit I could be wrong there.

Shapiro swears by LaCava, so does legendary Braves GM John Schuerholz, Ricciardi and Seattle GM Billy Bavasi, who held the same job with the Angels when LaCava scouted for them.
Jim Leyland swears by Lloyd McClendon. And sweet Jesus, does that say Bill Bavasi? RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!

LaCava also has experience running family businesses and majored in business administration at Pitt before leaving school to become an infielder in the Pirates' farm system.

Furthermore, he is a local guy who is passionate about the Pirates as he not only played in their organization but graduate from Pittsburgh Central Catholic and lives in Oakmont. And local boys always play well to this region's provincial instincts.
Wait, what does any of that really have to do with being the Pirates CEO? I know a lot of business majors and people that have helped run family businesses. They're from Western PA, too. Some of them even played high school baseball and liked the Pirates.

I feel badly picking so harshly on Perrotto because he's usually a good beat writer, but that whole thing reads like Tony La Cava is a personal friend of his. I don't understand why a guy that hasn't been more than a scouting director or a front office guy should become the CEO of the team. If we hire a new CEO and he fires DL, I'm all for giving La Cava an interview for that job, but this article definitely didn't sell me on him as a CEO.

As for the CEO hiring process, there was some sentiment in my post yesterday that nothing the Pirates do now will have any effect on DL's job. I'm sorry, but anyone that thinks that is giving Bob Nutting and the Pirates waaay too much credit. Do you know why I'm hopeful for the CEO hiring? Because there's absolutely nothing else to hope for when it comes to this team. The only way they can get things turned around before I have kids of my own that I have to desperately steer away from the Pirates is for Nutting to hire a good CEO. That doesn't mean that I think he will or that I have any faith it's going to happen. I have to hope he hires the right person because I have to hope for something. But Nutting doesn't know anything about baseball. If you think he's beyond hiring Tony La Cava, who will take the job no matter what because he's local, and telling him, "This was a good team in the second half and accordingly, your front office is already in place. This is your budget. Good luck," then you're sorely mistaken. Please don't let the Pirates lull you into a false sense of security. I'm only saying this for your own good.

Game 132: Reds 8 Pirates 0

Aaron Harang dominated, Ian Snell got in a rut early and couldn't get out of it, and we got crushed tonight. After my rant last night you're probably expecting me to gloat over this loss, but here's the crappy thing about being a Pirate fan: I'm tortured when they win at this time of year, but I hate it when they lose like they do tonight. Perhaps I'm just a tortured person. I suppose this is a possible explanation. I think it probably just comes with the territory of being a Pirate fan.

Late gamethread again

Sorry I'm late on the gamethread again, I've got this damn open ended ethics class this week only that keeps lasting longer and longer and I keep getting home later and later. Anyways, the Pirates and Reds play with fourth place in the NL Central on the line tonight. I was hoping it would be a great pitching duel with Aaron Harang and Ian Snell going at it, but Snell gave up a three run homer to Griffey in the first, so we're going to have some battling back to do. We've had a little more success against Harang recently than the rest of the league, so I suppose anything is possible at this point. At least until the offense turns into a pumpkin.

Games 130 and 131: Pirates 6 Reds 4, Pirates 3 Reds 2

This is legitimately approaching disastrous for the Pirates. There are only two conceivably acceptable outcomes for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2007:

1. Finish the season well below .500, overhaul the front office, start over in 2008.
   
2. Win the whole f*#$ing thing.
   

Seriously, there's no in between. Instead of a recap tonight, let's just fast-forward to October 1st with the way things are going right now:

Pittsburgh, PA- It was almost the freak show all over again. The Pittsburgh Pirates made a furious dash to the finish line in 2007, but as they did 1997, they fell just short. After falling to 50-70 on August 12th, the Pirates finished with a torrid 29-12 streak that left them just three games behind the division champion Cubs.

Mostly the fans and the players are left asking, "What if...?" What if Jason Bay hadn't slumped so badly through the bulk of the season? What if Adam LaRoche hadn't started so poorly. What if the bullpen hadn't blown (insert number here) leads after the seventh inning? What if the rotation had come together before August?

One man isn't asking, "What if...?" That man is Dave Littlefield. "You know, it's always disappointing to come so close to the playoffs and fall short, but 2007 was never the year that we had in our sights," Littlefield said after Sunday's season closing 3-2 win over the Cardinals, "We're aiming for 2008, 2009, and beyond and we've got an exciting core of young players here and an even more exciting core coming up behind them and we think this team is ready to compete for the long-haul."

He's not the only one that's optimistic. "I'm real proud of these guys," manager Jim Tracy said. "They've played their butts off here over the past two months and it showed. I think you're finally getting to see what these guys are capable of out on a baseball field. Heck, with this group we've got on the field right now, I reckon the whole National League is happy we missed the playoffs."

Tracy and Littlefield's bright outlook has worn off on owner Bob Nutting, "I said at the All-Star break that Jim and Dave's future would be determined by the play of the team in the second half and I think that the play of the team has spoken for itself. They're as much a part of the Pirates' future as the players are."

I know what some of you are thinking: "Hey, that doesn't sound too bad. These guys look really good right now. Maybe we were too hard on them before." Dave Littlefield has had since 2001 to build a winning organization and the minors are still mostly bereft of talent. In order to go on this run, the Pirates have been the best offensive team in baseball in August. Look at the players on this team. This is not the best offensive team in baseball. In order to go on this run, the bullpen has been nigh unhittable for like a month. Look at the guys in that bullpen. They are not the best bullpen in the league. The Pirates are simply progressing towards the mean right now. This is no different than 37-32 in the second half last year. Chris Duffy fooled you in the past; don't be fooled by Nate McLouth. LaRoche and Sanchez are killing the ball right now, putting their numbers right about where they should be for the season. They're not having breakthroughs.

Please don't misunderstand me. I love the Pirates. I wouldn't be doing any of this if I didn't. But if the Pirates keep up their recent hot streak, I think it's going to be the worst thing possible for the future of this franchise.

Ack, a double header!

I completely spaced on today's double-header or I would've had a post up before my ethics workshop this afternoon. Anyways, the false hope derby really gets up to speed at PNC this afternoon with the Bucs and Reds playing a double dip.

Anyways, Gorzo and Elizardo Ramirez are off to the races already with the Pirates holding a 6-2 lead in the sixth. Paul Maholm and everyone's favorite pretty boy, Bronson Arroyo, will go at it in the nightcap. If the Pirates win both they'll be just a half game behind the Reds in the standings. If they win both and the Cubs lose, they'll be just 7.5 out of first place, which is ludicrous and will spawn all types of ridiculousness tomorrow, I'm sure.

Links

Phil Garner and Tim Purpura, fired. apk nails it in the comments:

Can you imagine it? A team makes the World Series, then two seasons later, amidst lethargic efforts and poor returns, the owner says, "It's time for a change" and heads roll.

Is that the "accountability" that Smizik's always talking about? Sounds awesome.

Yes, yes it does.

Whatever Jennifer Langosch is smoking, I want some. Thanks to Dr. B in the comments for the link.

Frequent commenter matskralc has a new Pirates blog and a fun post up about Pirate nicknames. I'm still trying to sell the world on Matt Katata Fish.

Not really a link, but as Charlie mentions on his blog he was in Chapel Hill over the weekend and we had a chance to have some lunch and bash the Pirates. General theme: never give the Pirates the benefit of the doubt. Ever.

ETA: We competed the Morris deal for some minor leaguer named Steve MacFarland. I know nothing about him other than the fact that he appears to have no control whatsoever. I thought the player was supposed to be on the 40-man roster. I was kinda hoping it would be the Gas Can.

Should I be talking about this Moskos thing?

As I'm sure all of you know by now, Danny Moskos has been shelved to work on his mechanics. There are a number of things that I immediately thought about that.

1. Bullshit. He's hurt and the Pirates are afraid to tell us that because someone might literally get lynched.
   
2. Not surprised. Everyone said that his mechanics were "maximum effort" when we picked him, which is never a really good thing. Which is why it was stupid we drafted him.
   
3. It's not fair to lump a bunch of expectations on him after he pitched a full college season and threw more innings than he ever has in his life, so maybe we should give him a break (Dejan wrote something similar in his chat today).
   
4. Eff that, that's what I said to justify Brad Lincoln's struggles after we drafted him and we know how that went.
5. Wait, didn't we pick this guy so he'd move through the minors quickly?
   
6. I hate the Pirates.
   

Did anyone catch the part about Wilson Alvarez helping him with his delivery? The same Wilson Alvarez that missed more than two years with arm problems? Yeesh.

Game 129: Astros 5 Pirates 4

You know, there are a million things I could talk about from this game. Armas not sucking, LaRoche, McLouth, and Phelps continuing to kill the ball, about how bad Shawn Chacon has been of late, about how the Pirates would've inexplicably been only eight games out of first with a win today, or any number of other things that happened today and this weekend. And instead, all I can think of after this one is one thing.

Ty Wigginton? Really?

Another sweep in Houston?

We're looking to sew our second sweep of the year in Minute Maid Park today, but we'll have to overcome Tony Armas to pull that off and let's face it, that's not terribly likely. Of course we will be matching up with Wandy Rodriguez today, so I guess anything is possible. According to Steeltown Mike in the comments below, we're already the only team in the league that's swept a series in Houston this year (how is THAT possible?) and we've got a shot at doing it for a second time today. The thing to expect in this one is about a million runs to cross the plate with Armas and Wandy on the mound in this one, so I think we're probably looking at a 2-1 pitcher's duel. The Pittsburgh Pirates, where up is down.

Game 128: Pirates 4 Astros 1

I swear that some inter-dimensional rift has appeared and switched our Pittsburgh Pirates with someone else. Less than a month ago, Troy Patton would've dominated us in his major league debut. Last night Jose Bautista took him deep twice, Matt Morris turned in a solid start, Josh Phelps added a pinch-hit homer, and the Pirates beat the Astros 4-1 for their fourth win in a row. Accordingly, the Pirates are now only 9 games out of first place in the ridiculous NL Central. That means we're only about two wins away from hearing something like this out of our esteemed manager, "I don't care how many games below .500 we are. If we just mind our own business and keep winning, I think we're right in the thick of this thing. We're playing some good baseball right now and just like last year, this is a second half team."

Whoa, an early start

I logged on to write this gamethread and I see the game is already in the second inning. I guess I wrongly figured that because the game is in the central time zone that it would start at eight. Oops. Old, boring, and expensive Matt Morris is pitching against the young, cheap, and exciting Troy Patton, the 'Stros prospect who's making his debut against us tonight.

Romulo!

Romulo Sanchez has been called up for Salomon Torres, who's going on the DL. This is apparently for real. I don't know what to say about calling a AA reliever up to the big league club with no AAA experience. He was kind of a joke last off-season when he made it to the 40-man roster for no particular reason. He throws hard and is big and is one of DLs first Latin American signings if I recall correctly. He's actually been very good at AA this year (52 Ks against only 17 walks in 57 and 2/3 with a sub-3.00 ERA and held opponents to a .204 average. But yeah, the no AAA thing kind of worries me. You can read Wilbur Miller's writeup of him here.

Game 127: Pirates 8 Astros 3

There must be something the Pirates and Astros find comforting about seeing each other on the field. Last May, they played an 18 inning game. Then in September they played a fifteen inning game, this year in April they went sixteen, and last night they went fifteen (of course, I've had the pleasure of being at the one game in this survivor series that they've lost).

Xavier Nady will haunt Brad Lidge's nightmares in a special place behind Albert Pujols, I think. Adam LaRoche? On fire (everyone else? not so much, that wasn't a very talented list of pitchers the Astros kept us mostly silent over 15 innings with). Snell seems to be finding his stride a bit again, which is nice to see. Oh, and the Pirates are now just tied for last place, which is exactly what we did last year, suck a lot, pull out of last place in August/September, and let the terrible jackasses that run this team to keep their jobs.

And now, the Astros

You know, the Pirates have been playing really well against pretty good teams lately. I get this sinking feeling that now that we're playing a crappy team, we're going to start playing crappily against them. Anyways, Snell and Albers tonight, which makes me a bit nervous with all the homers Snell's been giving up lately since we're going to Houston and all. Houston seems like the one place we always kill the ball and here we are, killing the ball. This all just feels too good to keep going like this.

The Josh Phelps problem

There's a nice article in the PG today about Josh Phelps' hot streak since he joined the Pirates. Yeah, he's killed the ball and that's a nice thing for us, but where is he supposed to play? This is one of Dave Littlefield's biggest problems. He recognizes one singular weakness, then assaults it with as many players as he can find while ignoring the rest of the team. Last year, he did this with the bullpen (that worked out so swimmingly). This year, he's done it with corner outfielder/first basemen. My dad likes to compare it to a Rubik's cube. Instead of working all of the sides at the same time, Littlefield solves the red side, then works on the blue side, then gets pissed off when the red side got messed up in the process.

Game 126: Pirates 5 Rockies 1

Holy cow, I went to switch the game on for the night and put up a gamethread before I even realized that they played today. Living far away and having other things on your mind suck. Apparently Paul Maholm went out and pitched well again while Josh Phelps had another huge (as in 4-for-5) day at the plate. How 'bout that.

Clayton Hamilton's mysterious injury

Just posted this over at FanHouse, but apparently the Pirates misdiagnosed Clayton Hamilton's broken rib as a strained oblique for over a year. I can't even put into words how stupid I think this is. Seriously, we can't do anything right.

On the bright side, it let me get in both a House and a Scrubs reference over at FanHouse today, which means that it's probably a good day.

I swear if you're getting my hopes up...

Paul Meyer wrote a big article in the PG today about Bob Nutting and the search for a new CEO. I'd say read the whole article, but here's the key passage (emphasis mine):

"It is a critically important hire," Nutting said as the Pirates careen toward a 15th consecutive losing season. "It's one I really believe we need to get right. Not only do we have to have somebody who understands the situation in Pittsburgh -- understand what the team needs -- but I also have to have confidence that they have sufficient vision and capability to be able to step in and really have an impact where we need to see improvement and change.

"I think what I've learned and decided is, we want to have a single person who will be an overall team president with full responsibility for the club. My sense is that [with] our business-side operations we have a very solid group of executives running those operations right now. I have an awful lot of faith in them. They've done a fantastic job this year.

"So the area where I'm frustrated, the fans are frustrated, everybody's frustrated, the organization's frustrated has been specifically in the on-field performance, and I would think that obviously -- clearly -- is going to be where anyone needs to focus their efforts."

Vision is the Pirates' problem right now. Dave Littlefield and the people currently running the team have no vision. This is why I hate it when people say that Littlefield is a good GM, then cite one or two trades here or there as proof of it. Littlefield's moves aren't bad individually, but none of them were made with any purpose. The Xavier Nady trade is a great example. Yeah, Nady's been a good player for us. But we already had Jason Bay at his position, the decision was pretty much made to switch Ryan Doumit at that point, and within five and a half months, the Pirates traded for Adam LaRoche, a guy that's probably a better hitter and definitely better suited to the park. Trading for Nady makes no sense in that context because he's not head and shoulders above any of those guys.

All this being said, I'm sticking with what I've been saying about Bob Nutting since he took over, that he can talk the talk all he wants, but it's time for him to start walking the walk. I'll admit he hasn't done a terrible job of that (McClatchy is gone for whatever reason, we're going to open a Dominican Academy), but that all rests on this hire. This is the chance to reshape the team, to clean out the front office, and to get the ship moving in the right direction. If he screws this up, there's not going to be any reason to have any hope for the Pirates for a long time.

I can't believe this

Craig Monroe signs with the Cubs?!?! That can't be right. They must mean Pirates.

Did everyone see the Post-Gazette's new website (or should I say, The Post-Gazette NOW)? I could be wrong, but doesn't it look a bit ... bloggy?

Here's a big surprise, an injured Pirate and the word "setback" in the same article (Ryan Doumit, if you're too lazy to click). On the bright side, Zach Duke is throwing again (I guess that's a bright side).

Game 125: Pirates 11 Rockies 2

The Pirates scored eleven runs tonight and won by nine. To get to that point, they hit six home runs, two by Nate McLouth and one apiece by Freddy, Bay, Nady, and Wilson. But that's not impressive. Because tonight the Rangers hit six home runs in a game, too. And they pushed thirty (30!) runs across the plate. And they won by twenty-seven. All those feats make 11 runs and a nine run win look pretty weak, if you ask me. What exactly where the Pirates doing over nine innings tonight that they couldn't find an extra nineteen runs?

Seriously though, the best part (for me) about the Pirates recent offensive tear is that they've actually been hitting mediocre pitching. Where Josh Fogg would've hung a bunch of donuts on the scoreboard three weeks ago, the Pirates piled up eight runs and 11 hits on Foggy on his three innings of work, scoring in all three innings. They then put some more insurance up against Ramon Ortiz before being shut down by Matt Herges and Brian Fuentes. Gorzelanny wasn't great tonight (3 walks to go with his 5 K's, 111 pitches in only six innings), but you don't need to be great when the offense hits like the Pirates did tonight.

The Fogg!

Tom Gorzelanny and the immortal Josh Fogg go at it tonight at Coors. Fogg is proof that it's actually possible to be the same pitcher for half of a decade without ever improving or getting worse. He's pretty much the same as he was when we traded for him before the 2002 season. Gorzelanny will be looking to bounce back from the rough start against the Phillies that followed his two best starts of the season against the Giants and D'Backs. I'm pretty sure this will be his first experience with Coors Field, so that's something to look out for because it's a place that isn't easy to get used to, humidor or not (it's still got a very hitter friendly park factor this year).

Links

Thanks to J in the comments for passing along this Andy Van Slyke story, which I wrote up for FanHouse here because I couldn't resist the opportunity to mention the 1991 highlight video tape to a wider audience.

ESPN is running a "face of the franchise" thingy on their website and they've asked bloggers to contribute. Charlie is giving his Pirate pick that should be up already but isn't. I'll post the link now anyways because I'm sure it'll be up soon and I won't get to post until much later today.

Duke Welker, breakout star of the 2007 draft is done for the year. Brian Graham claims the Pirates are just being cautious. Like anyone believes anything Brian Graham says.

Dan Duquette? Ugh. Maybe I'm just programmed to hate everything the Pirates do no matter what, but none of the CEO "candidates" thus far have seemed inspiring to me.

Game 124: Rockies 9 Pirates 2

I don't know why the Pirates felt like keeping Tony Armas in the rotation was a good idea. It probably had something to do with the fact that he's right-handed and Dave Littlefield has always seemed to hate the idea of a predominantly left-handed rotation, which is what we'd have with Youman in the rotation with Gorzo and Maholm. Still, Armas sucks. After he got into trouble in the third and gave up the grand slam, Walkie (at least I think it was Bob Walk on the radio) fed the listeners some bullcrap line about how in Colorado you have to keep the starters in so the pen doesn't wear down. Armas gave up seven runs tonight because of that line of thinking. The Rockies? They pulled Dessens at the first sign of trouble in the fifth and stopped the bleeding and cruised to a win. They're 2.5 games out of the wild card, we get excited about 3 game winning streaks in August that get us to within 17 games of .500.

Can the streak continue?

The Pirates will look to continue to ruin everyone's hopes that Dave Littlefield and Jim Tracy will be fired by playing well, as now they've won four in a row against decent teams and people all over the place are saying that they're going to be spoilers in the season's last month. The pitching match-up tonight may lead to an old school Coors Field mash-off with Tony Armas and Elmer Dessens facing off tonight. Armas has the edge with a 6.58 ERA, but he didn't make it out of the third inning in his last start and the Dr. Jeckyll version of him doesn't show up nearly as often as Mr. Hyde.

The Pirates should trade Freddy Sanchez

It's been far too long since I've tried to drum up some spirited conversation around here, so that's what I'm going to do here.

We always talk about how Dave Littlefield is inept at diagnosing which players he should hold on to and which he should sell high on. Some players reach a certain peak that they're unlikely to reproduce, at which point a team like the Pirates should trade them. I think Freddy Sanchez is that peak. "Blasphemy!" you're yelling. "Freddy is one of the only good things on this team!" you implore. But let's look a little closer at things.

Freddy was very good last year, there's no doubting that. But he really wasn't great. A .344 average is fantastic, but his OBP was only 34 points higher at .378 and his slugging percentage wasn't bad at .473, but Freddy's not going to hit .344 or hit 53 doubles every year, both numbers that helped his slugging percentage. I am by no means trying to be a stick in the mud here, just putting the numbers into a little more perspective beyond the batting title, which really means very little. His OPS+ for the year (his OPS adjusted for park factor against the league average) was 117, which roughly means he was 17% better than the average batter in 2006. Good, not great.

This year, even with his huge recent hot streak, his OPS+ is 102, meaning he's been almost an exactly average hitter over the course of the year. You can point to the recent hot streak as evidence he was hurt at the beginning of the year, but he's not an .878 OPS player (as he's been since July 1st), nor is he the type of guy that will slug .514 on a season (again, as he has since July 1st). You could point to Jack Wilson's appendicitis, asthma, and hamstring injuries as evidence that he's not a .270/.320/.375 hitter, but eventually, all you have to go on is what actually happened. Similarly, Freddy has a bit of an injury history, missing a big chunk of time in 2003 and 2004 while battling foot and ankle problems. What he's done this year is what he's done, counting on him to be healthy over a full season is not a sure bet.

On top of everything, Freddy is not a young guy in baseball terms. He's 29 this year and playing a sport in which players usually peak around 28 or 29. Given his injury history, it's entirely possible that he won't be a guy that will get better past his peak age and in fact, he may be a guy that will break down early.

Please don't get me wrong, I like Freddy Sanchez. He's a good baseball player. He's an inspirational person. He's a good guy. I wish the Pirates had more players like him. But I'm making a very specific point here. While he is a good baseball player, he's not as good of a baseball player as a lot of people think. He is the exact type of player that GMs overvalue; he's a two-time All-Star, a batting champion, a career .300 hitter, and he has the ability to play a couple positions, but who doesn't get on base a ton and might not age well. He will probably be at his peak value after this season, because if he hits .310 this year a lot of people will view that as validation that he's not a fluke, which some people thought after that .344 year last year.

As much as I would hate to see Freddy go, we have to remember that the Pirates are a rebuilding team. I watched Indianapolis the other night. It's not pretty. Freddy Sanchez is a good player that might bring a great player's return. That's exactly how you rebuild.

Game 123: Pirates 4 Rockies 2

You know what's terrifying about the Pirates' recent stretch of good play? How much of it is due to Matt Kata and Josh Phelps. They've both been killing the ball for over a week now. Tonight Kata and Phelps provided enough offense to get the game into the tenth inning. From there, Freddy delivered his second RBI single of the night and Bay reached on a run-scoring error and the Pirates took home their third win in a row, only their second winning streak of such length since the all-star break (and the first that is non-Giant related).

The big story in this one was Matt Morris actually turning in a solid start for the Buccos, holding the Rockies to just two runs over his 6 and 2/3 innings. From there Grabow, Chacon, Torres, and Capps shut the door on Colorado, keeping them scoreless through the 11th, which was more than enough for the Pirates to win. Maybe we could've seen this coming, Morris pitched well against the Rockies in his other start against them this year. Whatever the reason, it's just nice to see him not look completely lost out there against another baseball team.

Out in Colorado

The Bucs move their offensive show to the thin air of Colorado tonight. I am a bit saddened to see that the juggling of the rotation for the double-header will make Snell miss this series, as I wanted to see his crazy ass throwing at people and starting brawls after last month's "sign-stealing" incident. Matt Morris and someone named Ubaldo Jimenez will be charged with keeping that bad blood alive and keeping me amused tonight. I kind of want to see a brawl. The Pirates haven't been in a real good once since some forgotten 90s Pirate pitcher nailed Larry Walker in his Expo days and Don Slaught tackled him from behind before he could get to the mound. Since then it's been mostly standing around while McClendon and La Russa jaw at each other or the obligatory "Carlos Zambrano has beaned us like seventeen times today so I am required by baseball law to stand out here and look goofy."

Game 122: Pirates 8 Phillies 4

The Pirates are certainly feeling dramatic lately. After spending seven innings making everyone think that another decent Ian Snell effort would be wasted, the offense erupted for seven runs in the bottom of the seventh and threw one more on top in the eighth and had themselves a fairly easy-looking four-run win this afternoon. The seven run explosion was keyed by three straight doubles from Matt Kata, Nate McLouth, and Freddy Sanchez. Kata's double was a pinch hit coming with the bases loaded and the Phillies still up 4-0, so it was pretty much the key hit of the game.

Snell is still having homer troubles, but other than that he was good today. He struck out ten in seven innings and didn't give up any runs besides Rollins' leadoff solo homer in the first and Russ Branyan's three run job in the sixth. Still, it looked like he was headed for another loss before the run bonanza took place. Maybe he didn't pitch his best game of the year today, but he's suffered so many hard-luck losses, it doesn't hurt for him to sneak one out today.

Rainy Sunday

Snell at Kyle Lohse at whenever the weather allows this one to be played. Since the Phillies are in a pennant race, I have to assume this one will happen eventually. Lohse is one of the charter members of the exclusive franchise of sucky pitchers that make us we make look good.

Game 121: Pirates 11 Phillies 6

It occurs to me that my recent "recap numbering" has been off by a game. Hmm. I wonder how long it's been like that. Oh well, it's fixed now. They were more like guidelines anyways.

Paul Maholm did a great job tonight showing us why wins are such a flawed stat. He gave up six runs before he had two outs recorded in the second inning, but then was filled with competency and actually managed to work through seven innings tonight and hold the Phillies at six runs. I credit this entirely to the veteranosity of Matt Morris, who pulled a similar stunt earlier this week. Thank goodness he's around.

All kidding aside, we really piled on poor old Jamie Moyer tonight. Sanchez, Bay, and LaRoche all continued to rake the crap out of the ball and Xavier Nady finally came back and hit the ball as well. With those four inhabiting the 2-5 slots in the lineup tonight, they went 10-for-17 with five doubles and a homer. Nady and LaRoche also drew three walks. Just for fun, that's a .588/.650/1.059 line (by my calculations, at least, I could be off). Talk about a nightmarish stretch of lineup. Too bad that's not really a sustainable pace, but it is fun to see for a night here and there.

One final aside, because the Steelers were on TV tonight and the Pirates weren't, the Phillies feed was the MLB.tv feed tonight. Their play-by-play guy is Harry Kalas, whom I'm sure many of you know. Those of you that don't know Kalas, just take your Super Bowl XL highlight DVD and pop it in. Kalas is also the voice of NFL Films. Really, just a legendary sports voice. And every single time I heard him refer to Jimmy Rollins as "J-Roll" I think a little part of me died. Damn you, Alex Rodriguez. You have ruined nicknames for everyone.

Young vs. Old

Tonight is a fun pitching matchup from a "storyline" type perspective as a young soft-tossing lefty, Paul Maholm, goes up against a very old one, Jamie Moyer. They're actually having pretty similar statistical seasons this year, which is kind of neat. Maholm has actually been a little better than Moyer, but Moyer's team has scored in the neighborhood of 140 runs more than Maholm's team, thus Moyer is 11-8 and Maholm is 8-14. Fun fact of the night: Maholm was four years old when Moyer made his debut!

Things that might be vaguely interesting

Tony Armas is staying in the rotation. We will ... never admit when we make a mistake.

In the same notebook, it's mentioned that Craig Monroe was DFA'd by the Tigers. He's very similar to Xavier Nady, Craig Wilson, Ryan Doumit, etc. except with even less patience at the plate. He's got "Pittsburgh Pirate" written aaaaaaaall over him.

Brandon Webb is awesome.

The Cubs are in first place.

Oh, yeah, we lost 11-8 last night. I couldn't find the energy to recap after watching the Indy Indians play.

Indy/Durham short version

In case you don't feel like slogging through the liveblog below, here are my thoughts from watching Indianapolis play tonight:

Steve Pearce- Dude can hit. He didn't have a hit tonight, but he hit the ball hard every time up. He's not a very big guy, he's listed at 5'11" and 200 lbs, but I'd guess he's smaller on both counts. That was really surprising to me.

Neil Walker- Looked pretty overmatched by the AAAA Jae Seo tonight. He worked him away with breaking stuff and came back in on him a couple times. He made a really nice play at third coming across the infield and bare-handing the ball, but then he almost booted an easy one (he recovered and made the play).

Andrew McCutchen- Seeing him on TV really reinforces just how young he is. He looks like a boy among men out on the field. I know the comparison everyone likes to make is to a young Bonds, but he's actually smaller than that. He does do a nice job in center field and had a hit tonight, which is a good start for a guy his age in AAA.

John Van Benschoten- Same as he ever was.

Dave Davidson- Looked pretty good in his inning and a third, getting a bunch of K's making pretty quick work of Durham.

Brian Bixler- Wholly unremarkable. The only things he did the whole night that stands out in my mind were his two really bad bunt attempts.

Walker and McCutchen LIVEBLOG!!!

The cable guy finally made his way to my apartment this afternoon. This is fantastic news for a couple reasons. First off, I no longer have to rely on X-Files DVD as my prime source of entertainment (I've been on a meandering fifteen month quest to watch the entire series but man, Season 7 is a drag). Secondly, the Durham Bulls are actually on TV for about half of their games this year. And included in that half is tonight's game against an Indianapolis lineup featuring Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Steven Pearce (and Don Kelly and Brad Eldred!!). I would like to tell you I'm not too bored to liveblog this game, but I am. At the very least I'll focus on the at-bats of the players that matter and make fun of the players that don't.

Pregame- Don Kelly is batting leadoff for Indy!!! Who let Jim Tracy into the Indians clubhouse?!? Kelly is playing short while Bixler is playing second. I'm already pissed and the first pitch hasn't even been thrown yet. Pearce is in the outfield tonight in favor of Eldred. This should be interesting.

Top 1- Jae Seo is pitching for Durham tonight. Nice to see he's still alive. Kelly leads off with a single, then gets picked off after Bixler whiffs on a bunt attempt (I know, I'm surprised, too). Bixler pops up to center. Mike Ryan strikes out looking. I don't like Katatafish that much, but am not heart-broken that Ryan isn't in Pittsburgh.

Bottom 1- No commercials, instead we got to watch mascots dance around for three minutes. That was fun. Looking at Durham's lineup, I definitely wish I was here last year when Dukes and Young and co. were in town. Evan Longoria is the only terribly interesting name on their team (that I recognize, I could certainly be more familiar with the D-Rays system). John Van Benschoten is on the mound tonight. I can't escape him. No gun on him so it's hard to say how he's throwing. He gives up a single, but looks far from he disaster that we're used to seeing.

Top 2- Pearce leads off. He is not a big guy. He actually looks pretty skinny. He rips a ball into left field that is hit right at the left fielder, who promptly drops the ball (which hits him in the glove). Pearce hit the ball hard, but it's still an error. Walker is up next and he's much bigger than Pearce. He's got a nice swing on the left side of the plate. Unfortunately, he also strikes out looking. McCutchen follows Walker. He looks like a Little Leaguer. Seo works him almost exclusively low and away (in the Jason Bay strikeout zone) and he grounds into a double play. Trip one through prospect alley tonight is a dud.

Bottom 2- Van Benschoten gets the highly touted but unfortunately named Evan Longoria to ground out on one pitch. He gets the next two guys out, but they're Raul Casanova and Wes Bankston, so I don't care.

Top 3- Brad Eldred is up first here in the third. He hits a monstrous flyball that is caught by the left-fielder. At least that's what I'm told because the minor league camera crew completely loses the ball. Luis Ordaz singles on the first pitch and I'm wracking my brain to decide if I've ever even heard of him before. David Parrish flies out while the announces try to decide if he's Lance Parrish's son or not. He is. Donny Kelly weakly grounds out to first. This is as boring as it sounds.

Bottom 3- Among the three outs recorded by JVB, one is a flyout to McCutchen which he easily handles and another is a little chopper between the mound, short, and third which Walker bare hands and makes a really nice play on. I know he's made a lot of errors there, but it's easy to see why people think he could play third. There is also a pop-up that Don Kelly tries and fails to catch with a hilarious flailing dive in center.

Top 4- Brian Bixler is thrown out on a nubber in front of the plate. Mike Ryan swings at the first pitch and grounds out. Pearce pops up to the first baseman.

Bottom 4- McCutchen makes a nice play on a liner to center. JVB also gets a pop-up and walks Longoria, and Casanova hits a ball into the right center gap that neither McCutchen nor Pearce get to terribly quickly. They don't show Pearce's throw to Kelly for the relay, but it couldn't have been very good because Longoria scores on a hit that he definitely shouldn't have scored on. Van Benschoten then walks another hitter before ending the inning with a long at-bat against a guy that had no concept of how to hit against him, eventually culminating in a strikeout. He took 40some pitches to get out of an inning in which he only gave up one run. I am having terrible, terrible flashbacks.

Top 5- Walker falls behind, but manages to stay alive and get hit by the pitch. McCutchen does a nice job of going with the pitch and blooping a single to right field, I think. Again the camera man loses the ball. Eldred hits a home run in an elevator shaft that barely lands over second base for the first out. Luis Ordaz singles through the infield. Neil Walker is stupidly sent home and thrown out, despite an awful throw from left. David Parrish strikes out and the threat is averted.

Bottom 5- Van Benschoten is running out of gas. After a lead-off strikeout he gives up a well-hit single and double, but bears down and gets out of the inning with no damage. In a major pet peeve of mine, Pearce catches a pop-up in foul territory for the third out, then fires a throw to the plate, clearly forgetting how many outs there are.

Top 6- Jae Seo starts off Don Kelly with an eephus pitch. If this play didn't involve Jae Seo and Don Kelly, I would love it. Kelly singles. Bixler bunts straight to Seo, who throws Kelly out at second. Bixler is a bad bunter. Jim Tracy wouldn't like him very much. Mike Ryan swings at the first pitch (again) and flies out. Walker Pearce hits a grounder into the hole but Longoria makes a great play and robs him of a hit. Still no runs for Indy.

Bottom 6- JVB gets a K, then gives up back to back homers. Willingly watching him pitch is kind of like stepping into a bed of nails. It's going to end badly. He's done for the night and Dave Davidson is brought in to pitch for him. Fun fact, he's Canadian! He looks pretty good getting the necessary two outs quickly. He does give up a single, but it's a weak grounder up the middle, so no big deal there.

Top 7- Walker strikes out looking. Jae Seo seems to have his number tonight. I know this is only his AAA debut, but that is a depressing sentence. McCutchen flies out to center on a pretty sharply hit ball. Eldred ends the inning with his third monstrous pop-up of the night.

Bottom 7- Davidson looks pretty good. He struck out the side here (admittedly on a bunch of pitches). He also let a runner on base. I kind of forget how. This game is not holding my attention terribly well.

Top 8- Ordaz, Parrish, and Kelly go down in order. What an inspiring stretch of AAA line-up. I guess the bright spot is that Seo is done for the night, as he comes out between Parrish and Kelly to get Jay Witasick some rehab time.

Bottom 8- Ugh, Jonah Bayliss is in the game. First JVB, now this. This is like a bad recurring nightmare. To my surprise, he puts Durham down 1-2-3. Walker nearly boots a ball at third, but quickly recovers and makes the play at first.

Top 9- Bixler strikes out looking. He has been wholly unremarkable tonight. Ryan and Pearce ground out. Game over, Indy loses 3-0.

Bring on the Phillies

Ahh, the Pirates run into the offense that's been baseball's buzzsaw the past couple months. It's amusing to me that the Cardinals, Cubs, and Brewers fight in the NL Central for a playoff spot while the Braves, Phillies, and Mets fight for the NL East spot and there's the potential that only one team from each division will make the playoffs. The talent level between each grouping of three teams isn't really comparable. Of course I would've said that last year too, and the Cards won the World Series. Anyways, JD Durbin and Tom Gorzelanny go at it tonight, which is certainly the most favorable pitching matchup the Pirates will get in the series. If they're going to win one this weekend, I think this one will be it.

Walker, McCutchen called up to AAA

For the last two weeks of the season, the Indianapolis Indians will finally be relevant to the Pittsburgh Pirates, as Neil Walker and Andrew McCutchen will join Steven Pearce and the rest of the crew there to give the Indians three potentially relevant future baseball players (sorry, Dave Davidson, I'm having a hard time getting worked up about you being there, too). Assuming they're with the team tonight, they'll be making their debut in Durham. Of course, this is the one night of the week I can't leave my apartment as I am a slave to the cable company's schedule tonight. Living in a new town with very few acquaintances and no cable TV is not a very easy thing to do. I don't think I'd last another week. After a week with no TV I'm starting to have original thoughts and things like that. We've got to put an end to this.

Dave Littlefield's job is not safe

Dejan uses the Pirate Notebook in the PG to again remind that Bob Nutting will be making a decision on Dave Littlefield's future this off-season and also to remind us why it's a bad idea that he's waited so long.

First we've got the part about Littlefield:

Principal owner Bob Nutting stated in a July 6 interview, "That's something that would be addressed after the season." And indications are strong, according to multiple sources, that his position is the same despite the team going 10-21 since the All-Star break.

And next, the reason he should've been fired already:

Shortstop Jack Wilson has cleared waivers, a bold sign that the Pirates' trade talks with Detroit are not dormant. All players on a 40-man roster must clear waivers to be dealt after the July 31 deadline.

[...]

The chance of [Jair] Jurrjens, 21, still being part of a deal seems remote, as he is now on the Tigers' 40-man roster and is unlikely to clear waivers.

This is why waiting until the end of the season to fire him is a bad idea. Because every single day he remains on the job, it's a day that someone else could be running the team and cleaning up his mess. Every day he remains employed, he's there not trading Jack Wilson for Jair Jurrjens because he wants Curtis Granderson, too and doors get closed while stupid things like that happen.

Game 118: Pirates 10 Mets 7

Another baffling win from the Pirates. You know how all year long we've been saying, "If we could just get Bay and LaRoche hot together at the same time we might score some runs," despite the seeming impossibility of that scenario? Well, we finally pulled it off tonight. After Tony Armas staked the Mets out to a 5-0 lead the two of them combined for six hits and five RBIs (though I think LaRoche lost one or two to questionable scoring, I'd have to double check), including LaRoche's big homer that got the scoring started and two hits apiece in the key rallies in the seventh and eighth innings that put the Bucs ahead. After Franquellis Osoria got out of the game (he gave up two more runs), Torres, Marte, and Capps managed to stem the Mets' tide at seven.

I guess after so many bad losses, even a team like the Pirates gets a good, fun win like this one tonight. It was nice of them to put on the show for the big Skyblast crowd (who, according to the TV guys seemed to be showing up late, clearly interested more in fireworks than Pirates). I also enjoyed Freddy Sanchez's three run night, despite the fact that he didn't have a hit. I don't know how often it happens, but I think it's gotta be pretty rare.

The Mets have the brooms ready

Remember when we traded for Matt Morris and the goal was to keep Tony Armas and John Van Benschoten out of the rotation? Armas is still starting, and sadly I think I have more confidence in him at the moment than I do in Morris. He's made a couple decent starts in his last two outings and has managed to keep the Pirates in the games that he's pitched, which I had no idea he was even remotely capable of. He'll face off against Brian Lawrence who, if I remember correctly, the Pirates nearly signed instead of Armas. He's spent most of the year in AAA rehabbing his myriad arm problems, but he's back with the Mets now and facing off against the Pirates, so I bet he's got a good feeling his career is about to get back on the right track.

Game 117: Mets 10 Pirates 7

You know, before I could even turn this one on my computer, we were losing 5-0. Matt Morris had again started earning his money and put us in a Van Benschoten depth hole. So I didn't turn the game on right away. Sure, I'm living in a town where I don't really know anyone and I don't have cable, but I still couldn't bear to watch the Pirates. I kept an eye on the gamecast though, and I saw we started to creep back. With nothing better to do, and against my better judgment, I clicked the game on and started watching. Grabow kept us close for two innings and I thought to myself that it was kind of nice to see the pen keep us in a close game for once.

And as soon as I thought that, Shawn Chacon trotted into the game. Pretty quickly, Lastings Milledge ended up on third base with only one out. Luis Castillo hit a grounder back up the middle that Chacon made a great play on. He looked Milledge back to third. Then disaster struck. Instead of throwing the ball to first, he faked it over. It was a good fake and Milledge bit. So did Jose Castillo, who missed the bad but not awful throw from Chacon, allowing the sixth run to score. You can say what you want about the play, but there were an number of ways of recording that out without letting the run score and we accomplished none of them and before we could right ourselves, it was 10-4, more than enough runs to render the Pirates' three run rally in the ninth irrelevant. Just plain inspiring baseball.

More Matt Morris

Don't you just get psyched for these Matt Morris starts? I know I do. I can feel the veteranosity he exudes all the way down here in North Carolina. It's downright impressive, actually. Now if only someone knew how to turn veteranosity into a win. If we could do that, this team would be sweet.

Sarcasm aside, Morris starts against John Maine tonight. Maine has started against us one time already this year and, surprise!, he pitched well. Imagine that. I'd much rather have him on the mound tonight than Matt Morris. In fact, I'd much rather have anyone on the mound tonight than Matt Morris.

Goodbye, Masumi, and other roster moves

I think the Pirates are the only team in baseball that has fans that actively dread roster moves. One would assume that DFAing Masumi Kuwata would have to be a positive move, no matter who we bring up, right? Wrong. Kuwata's out after a month of pitching batting practice to opposing teams, Ryan Doumit is going on the DL with a sprained wrist (and he's lucky that's all he's got, that injury looked ugly the way the wrist bent underneath him), and worthless placeholders Carlos Maldanado and Matt Kata are back up.

There's a lot of noise being made over the Katatafish getting the recall instead of Mike Ryan, but the fact that Mike Ryan is an acceptable option to so many Pirate fans only goes to illustrate the problem with the Pirates' organization further. Charlie puts it the best:

The Pirates' reliance on players like Kata, Maldonado, Don Kelly and John Wasdin is actually one of the more interesting stories of their season. They repeatedly call up terrible players regardless of their performance at Class AAA and despite the fact that absolutely no one wants them. They designate these players for assignment and it doesn't matter because they get through waivers, and then they're mediocre or outright bad at Class AAA and the Pirates recall them anyway. I don't have any data on how often other teams rely on players like this, but my sense is that this is really pretty unusual, and not in a good way. Some of these moves are unnecessary, but some of them are just the result of a sad lack of capable reinforcements.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Game 116: Mets 5 Pirates 4

I think the Pirates decided to take all of the things that madden me and lump them all into one baseball game, just to see what it would do to my mental health. Let's count:

• El Duque struggled like mad with the strike zone, walking five batters in six innings. Still, we struck out eight times and only scored three runs off of him, one of which came on a solo homer. Way to make him pay. I would venture a guess that if Jason Bay faced El Duque a million times, he would strike out at least 9,999,990 times, with about ten weak grounders to third.
  
• Ian Snell, 7 IP, 7 Ks, 0 BB, 8 H, 3 R. And the result? A no-decision.
  
• I know that Marte has been good this year and Chacon has been decent. But damn I love that 1-2-3 eighth inning punch of Torres, Marte, and Chacon. Talk about three guys I have confidence in.
  
• Mike DeFelice recorded only his second RBI since 2004 tonight. This technically isn't a pet peeve of mine, but I think it should be. His "slide" into third base tonight was amazing.
  
• Let's see, did we outpitch the other team? Yep. Did they do anything masterful or inspiring to suggest they should've beaten us? Nope. Did we still find a way to lose? Of course.
  

Did I miss anything?

The Mets

I don't know why we always seem to run into the Mets late in the season when we're playing well, but it probably has something to do with me having a short memory. I just remember that last year the Mets came into PNC needed one win in three games to close out the NL East and we refused to give it to them and broke the brooms out and tortured the crap out of Mets' fans, much to everyone's amusement. I guess this year, we're not really playing them that late in the season (I mean, it's only mid-August) and it's hard to say we're playing well because the Giants just looked really, really awful in the five games we played against them.

Anyways, tonight Snell will take the mound against El Duque. Hernandez is about 110 years old now (approximately), but he's having a really good year for a guy his age with an 85 mph fastball. Somehow the Mets end up with El Duque and we get freakin' Masumi Kuwata. Anyways, he pitched against us three times last year and his slow goofy crap absolutely baffled the crap out of us (he struck out nine, seven, and seven in his three seven inning starts). Snell has started to get things turned around since his ugly return from the all-star break, but he's definitely not all the way back yet. Maybe he can take a page out of Gorzo's book and get the ship righted, but I suppose the Mets, a team in the heat of a pennant race, aren't the team I'd want to be doing that against.

Phelps' future

Whenever Jim Tracy starts talking this glowingly about a player, I get nervous. That's probably not a terribly good sign for our skipper: "One of the intriguing things about him we considered back [in June] was that he had caught in the past," Tracy said.

"One of the intriguing things about him we considered back [in June] was that he had caught in the past," Tracy said. "You want resources and options."

[...]

"He looks terrific receiving the ball," Tracy said.

Right. So Phelps, with little to no catching experience is a valuable asset because da-yum he looks good "receiving the ball." But that Doumit guy who was a minor league catcher? BUM! Send him to AAA! Wait, he can hit? Oh, well. I guess we'll find a spot for him, eventually.

Games 114 and 115: Pirates 3 Giants 1, Giants 10 Pirates 3

For a long time this afternoon, it seemed like today was just an extension of yesterday. Sure, the Pirates and Giants had traveled all the way across the country and changed halves of the scoreboard. That didn't seem to matter as Paul Maholm picked up where Tom Gorzelanny had left off by dominating the Giants over nine easy innings (three hits, no walks, four K's, one run, 91 pitches) to lead the Pirates to quick (as in less than 2 hours) 3-1 win over the Giants. I think Kip Wells once threw more pitches in an inning than Gorzo and Maholm did combined in their back-to-back CGs. Cain was almost as good (especially after the second inning), but Dan Ortmeier's lead glove at first base had already doomed him to a loss.

Shane Youman started off the nightcap just as easily. He zipped through five innings only allowing one hit and it seemed like maybe the Giants had just given up on life and would be hopping off the Clemente Bridge rather than finishing the game. Then the wheels fell off, Ryan Klesko hit a grand slam, Masumi Kuwata did his thing (I know some commenters lobbied to call Jonah Bayliss "The Gas Can", but Kuwata gives up five runs faster than anyone in the history of baseball), and the five game sweep was avoided.

I will close this recap by saying that three days and four games of the Giants announcers on MLB.tv have given me a new appreciation for Lanny, Greg, Bob, Steve, and the Rock. They can be homers, they might talk about anything but baseball, but they generally aren't stupid. The Giants announcers constantly referred to Jason Bay as having one of the best arms in the National League, at one point saying, "it's one of the best I've seen." Now listen here, man who's name I didn't bother to remember, you can quote the assist numbers and I can feel bad for you for being stupid, but lying is different. They then repeatedly talked about how beloved Barry Bonds was in Pittsburgh, even claiming that lots of Pirate fans just pulled up the stakes and became Giant fans when Barry left. Because, you know, Pittsburgh loves anyone that calls them racists. And then finally, after Rajai Davis's diving catch (which was pretty fantastic, admittedly), they gushed on and on about Davis's brilliant play in centerfield, completely ignoring that he had allowed two Ryan Doumit triples and a Josh Phelps triple over the three days this weekend. I've never wanted to hear Steve Blass tell a fishing story so much in my life.

Twice the, umm, fun?

The double-header that was rained out in April when it might've mattered kicks off today at 5:05 with the second game following shortly after it. The Pirates are looking for the classic five-game, two-city sweep of the Giants, who have proven themselves to be one of the few teams in the league that is at least as bad as the Pirates are. The Giants will toss Matt Cain and Noah Lowry at us (in that order) and we will counter with the all-lefty duo of Paul Maholm and Shane Youman. Barry Bonds isn't expected to play in either game (UPDATE: Looks like he's playing in the first one, after all), which makes the Pirates' planned tribute of him seem even dumber.

Anyways, Cain and Lowry have both been very good this year, so don't be fooled by Cain's 4-12 record. Cain's been especially impressive in his last three starts, where he's hit the stride that Giants' fans have been expecting him to hit for quite some time. You know all about Maholm and Youman. If the Giants play defense like they did this weekend, the two of them should be enough to keep the Pirates in both games.

Pre-DH links

Salomon Torres will not sue the Pirates and instead will leave the final judgment up to God, who will hopefully punish Dave Littlefield (FanHouse link, as well). This entire situation suddenly has me thinking Dead Milkmen:

- Pretty good Jim Morrison impersonation there. I hope those guys have a
good sense a' humour and don't take us into court.
- Uh, what's the court?
- Never mind that, the important thing here...
- You mean the People's Court.
- The... Now, that's another story. The important thing here is that we get
to the part where you ask me how I'm gonna get down to the shore.

Ahh, the Milkmen.

Bayliss or Sharpless could be the player to be named in the Morris deal. We can only hope. There's a "less is more" joke in there somewhere.

I'm quite late on this, but the Pirates signed Victor Zambrano last week. This brings things to an annoying full circle. When the Pirates traded Kris Benson to the Mets for Ty Wigginton, we all screamed because the Mets had just traded Scott Kazmir to the D-Rays for Zambrano, an inferior pitcher to Benson. Now we have Zambrano. But not the good one. And not Kazmir.

Not Pirate-related, but this story on Bugs and Cranks is awesome if you have the time to read the whole thing.

Game 113: Pirates 5 Giants 0

I guess two weeks off was exactly what Tom Gorzelanny needed. After striking out a career high nine in his first start back, he threw a complete game shutout today and it never looked like the Giants really had a chance. He held them to five hits and only gave up an intentional walk to Bonds over his nine innings to go with four strikeouts. His ERA on the season is down to 3.29 and he's 11-6, which is impressive given the team that he plays on.

The offense today was all Josh Phelps as he had his second big game since joining the club as Adam LaRoche got the day off against the lefty Zito. He hit a two run homer and he hit the third Rajai Davis aided triple of the weekend (Ryan Doumit got the first two). I remember Davis being terrible in center, but he really redefined awfulness in center field over the last three days. Anyways, the Bucs didn't really get much offense besides two hits apiece from the Sunday subs, Phelps, Castillo, and Izturis. But they didn't need it today because Gorzo was so good.

If we win today, is it a sweep?

I think that's a fair question. If we win today, we'll have won three games in a row in San Francisco, then we'll be getting on a plane to fly to Pittsburgh to play two more against them. So does a win today finish the sweep? It's hard to call games that are played like 3,000 miles apart a "series" even if they involve the same two teams. Personally, I think these are two separate series and I'm calling "sweep" if we pull this one out today. And you should all be happy WHYGAVS exists ... to tackle hard hitting questions just like that one.

Anyways, the pitching matchup today is a pretty interesting one. Tom Gorzelanny takes the mound for his second start since having some time off and if he's as good as he was in his first start, the Giants are going to be in some trouble today. The Giants counter with Barry Zito, who's been pretty disappointing for them this year, especially given his massive contract. Question: what's the cure for what ails disappointing, underachieving pitchers? Answer: the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Game 113: Pirates 13 Giants 3

The Pirates' whole "confuse the living crap outta me" stunt continued into day 2 and I'm now becoming more certain that the Giants have a whole lot to do with it. From what I could tell, Lincecum was awesome through three innings, then hit the wall that sprightly little guys that throw really hard seem to be wont to hit, as anyone that watched a lot of Ian Snell last year can tell you. Freddy continued his insane second half power surge (before today's game he was slugging .526 since his last trip to San Francisco ... I'm talking about the one the team didn't make with him ... and he's now got five homers since the break which is only one less than he hit all of last year) and Adam LaRoche followed that up with the furthest homer hit by a Pirate this year, I think, in the form of a bomb into Bonds territory in the Bay. Then the Pirates piled on two more than inning, then had their third huge inning in two days with a six run ninth to provide the ten run margin of victory.

Tony Armas again made a competent looking start (six innings, six hits, three earned runs, only one walk) and I'll be honest, he's starting to make me nervous. I hate to actively root against any Pirate, but if Armas keeps pitching like this I'm very afraid the Pirates will think seriously about picking up his $5 million option for next year and no matter how good the guy has looked since the break, I do not want to see that happen. With another decent start, he might get his ERA down below six.

From what I could tell from Greg Brown's radio account, the Giants were again butchering almost every ball hit to them (Ryan Doumit has two triples in two games, Rajai Davis should play centerfield against us all the time) and their bullpen definitely leaves something to be desired, but I'm just happy to see a pulse in the Pirates again. Watching them play like they were playing is just plain depressing.

I wish I could watch TV

With the Pirates being as bad as they are, my chances to actually see them on television are going to be few and far between over the next couple years. When I found out the Pirates were one of the Fox games this afternoon, I was kind of excited. I didn't exactly expect them to be the local game here in Chapel Hill, but my cable was scheduled to be hooked up this morning and I figured some chance of the Pirates being on TV was better than no chance at all. So this morning the cable guys showed up and after a half hour of standing around my apartment looking confused, the two nice gentlemen told me that my cable line was bad, that I had to get permission for them to run a new one, and that I had to reschedule them to come back, and the earliest time they could come back was next Saturday. So much for that.

Anyways, today Tim Lincecum and Tony Armas face off in a game of polar opposites. Lincecum is young and exciting as hell. I love watching him pitch. Armas is not young and he sucks. I hate watching him pitch. With the Pirates lineup out there, I think there's a chance that we might see (figuratively speaking, of course) something special out of Lincecum today.

Rajai Davis?!?

When the Matt Morris trade went down, most Pirate blogger types hated the move for the specific reason that it involved us acquiring Matt Morris. Actually, we laughed at the ill-informed national media (Jayson Stark and the like) that bemoaned the fact that the Pirates were giving up a "real prospect" to acquire Morris. After all, if we Pirate fans know anything, it's that minor league numbers can be misleading.

And here we are, less than two weeks later, wondering who the Giants actually acquired from us in return for Morris. The guy that hit three doubles and one triple in rather limited duty with us over the past two years has hit three doubles and one triple in nine games with the Giants. Yeah, I'm confused about the whole thing, too. So where is this Rajai coming from? What's the explanation? I have come up with two viable theories.

Theory #1- Rajai Davis is in his Chris Duffy stage. We all know what it's like to be fooled by a speedy outfielder that hits for high average and shows surprising power late in the season. In fact, the very guy that I liked to compare Davis to, Chris Duffy, did that all the time. Every Pirate fan has been fooled by Duffy at least once and maybe twice, so why couldn't Giants fans (and, by extension, us) be fooled by Davis? We're looking at a sample size of 27 plate appearances here. If those PAs weren't taking place right in the Bonds spotlight and against us, we would barely even notice.

Theory #2- Rajai Davis is better than we thought. In his seven career minor league seasons, Davis has an OBP of .375. Sure, it's helped by his .305 average, but clearly there is some plate patience there. In the lower levels of the minors he actually drew a walk in less than every 10 plate appearances and while those numbers dropped in AA and AAA, they didn't drop precipitously. And the fact that he's fast as hell was never in doubt. Cory thinks that maybe the Pirates should've, you know, coached Davis a bit to try and get him to hit the ball on the ground more and use that speed to his advantage.

The bottom line on Davis is that he's old for a guy just getting started in the bigs (he turns 27 in October) and that he'll never hit for much power or be a very good fielder (one look at him in center last night confirms that). It's more than likely that his hot start with the Giants is little more than a flash in the pan, but it's possible that he might be more than the poor man's Chris Duffy that we all had him pegged for.

Game 112: Pirates 8 Giants 7

You know what? I do not understand the Pittsburgh Pirates. At all. I have followed this team since I was five years old and I have written a blog about them for well over two years. Actually, I've written over 1000 pages on this blog about them. You might say that I've tried harder to understand the Pirates than I have tried to understand anything else in my life, besides maybe (maybe) one of the projects I spent a summer researching. And yet despite all that, I never see nights like tonight coming.

Somehow, the Pirates decided that after being made to look stupid by Russ Ortiz (again!) and finding themselves in a 6-2 hole against one of the crappier teams in baseball, that maybe it was time to turn the gas on. And so they got six hits in the eighth inning and scored six runs and ended up winning a game that they most certainly should've lost. After a whole year of moribund baseball, especially in the past month, why now? Maybe it was more Giants than Pirates.

I have mostly negative things to say about this game. This is probably because I planned for seevn innings to write a loss recap. Matt Morris really sucks. He was brutal tonight, allowing 12 base runners in six innings. He fooled Barry Bonds badly on a 3-2 curveball, but Bonds still hit the pitch out of the park. Five years ago I would've said that was all Bonds. Now I'm not so sure. By contrast, Rajai Davis looks like a different baseball player in black and orange (well, at the plate anyways, his attempt to catch Ryan Doumit's "triple" was one of the funniest things I think I've ever seen). He also scored from third on a sac fly to Jason Bay that lead to the SF announcers (remember, I have to watch on MLB.tv now) going, "You have to be fast to beat Jason Bay home. He's got one of the best assist arms in the National League." LOL. Davis is probably just going through the "Chris Duffy in August" phase of his career, but I'd take that over five walks and no strikeouts in six innings. How is that better than Van Benschoten?

At least the offense clicked tonight with LaRoche, Doumit, McLouth, and Paulino all chipping in a couple hits. That rally in the eighth would've been downright inspiring if I wasn't so bitter and jaded and if it didn't come against the Giants. Oh well.

Matt Morris: the second start

So the *ahem* highly anticipated return of Matt Morris to San Francisco happens tonight at 10:15. I get to watch him pitch tonight if the shoddy free wireless internet in my new apartment complex complies and I am, umm, stoked about that. Or something. He'll face off against Russ Ortiz. Ortiz has made two good starts this year and one of them was against, you guessed it, the Pittsburgh Pirates. I'm just really happy that Bonds broke the record before tonight because if he plays, he's totally taking Morris deep at least once.

Ohh, Matt Morris

You know, I often think of how ludicrous being a sports fan can be. I have irrational hate for people that are probably nice guys and it's all because they had the unfortunate luck to be acquired by Dave Littlefield for reasons that I don't happen to agree with. Jeromy Burnitz, Daniel Moskos, and now Matt Morris. I kind of feel sorry for these guys. I won't lie.

So anyways, Matt Morris is kind of pissing me off right now and I'm pretty sure it has everything to do with me just wanting to be pissed off by Matt Morris. He's now afraid of retribution from the Giants because he said he was happy to go to Pittsburgh because of our awesome defense. From the PG:

Morris has been made aware of some Giants being unhappy with comments he made to the Pittsburgh media the day of the trade, in which he said he was looking forward to "getting some better defense" with the Pirates and playing with "some young guys who are looking to play hard."

He said he felt the matter was being exaggerated.

"There's been some controversy with me, apparently, and I never wanted that to happen," Morris said. "I don't even know what was said, and I think they really blew it up into something that it's not. Now, I've got guys over there mad at me."

This is the problem with defensive stats and sweeping generalizations. The Pirates have a great team fielding percentage and have made very few errors. This doesn't account for the fact that the catchers haven't thrown a runner out on the bases since the Fourth of July, the outfielders all have noodles for arms and most of them track down fly balls like a six year-old being chased by a bee, and no one in the infield has any range except Jack Wilson (when he wants to have it). Defensive stats suck. They will lie to you. Then there's the other problem. The Pirates are a young team, ergo, they must play hard. This isn't how things work in reality. In reality, they're a mostly mentally defeated group of players that have given up on baseball in 2007 and are really, really looking forward to October 1st.

So you see, if Matt Morris had done some thinking, rather than just relying on the norms, he wouldn't have his foot in his mouth right now. Somehow, I don't think Matt and I are going to get along very well.

Game 111: D'Backs 4 Pirates 2

Yet another game in which the Pirates jump out to an early lead and make you think maybe they're going to be interesting to watch, then do nothing at all for the remainder of the evening. The best we can say for this one is that at least Snell seemed to regain some of his mid-season form tonight by holding the D'Backs to two runs over six innings and striking out seven. He also kept the ball in the park, which was nice to see because that's what's been giving him fits recently. Of course, when you only score two runs, holding the other team to two isn't terribly useful. Shawn Chacon and Damaso Marte were unable to hold the game at the 2-2 tie that Snell left it in, and so we have another series loss to chalk up. This one is frustrating because the Diamondbacks played like crap for most of the series, and yet they walk away with two wins.

The West Coast throws me off

I will admit that I have no idea when to post when we play these West Coast games. I don't know when gamethreads go up, I forget to post during the day, it's like we're not even really playing baseball, it's more like dream baseball. Anyways, the Pirates and D'Backs are still playing tonight and Ian Snell will take the mound again and the PG says he's pissed. I suppose that's a good thing, because he usually pitches better when pissed, but lately he's just been serving meatballs up to whoever wants to bash them. Doug Davis is his mound opponent tonight. He's a familiar face, having spent a ton of time with the Brewers before being shipped off to Arizona. He's the type of pitcher that's been giving us trouble all year (he's got two arms, he's able to throw the ball, he's breathing...) and I wouldn't be surprised to see him throw up a good start against us tonight.

Game 110: D'Backs 10 Pirates 6

This was one of those games where it's the fourth inning and you look at the score and go, "Holy crap, we're winning, how the hell is that happening?" Then you take a step back and re-assess the situation. BK Kim started for the other team. It's only the fourth inning. And it dawns on you. We're going to lose. Then Paul Maholm explodes. The other team's pen is shutting us down. Suddenly The Salomon of Doubt is on the mound and the lead is getting bigger and bigger. Then Adam LaRoche is killing the ball and you think for a second maybe the Pirates will come back, but then you remember what the Pirates are and say, "Naaaaaaah." And then a new guy takes the mound and you have to look him up on the internet because you don't know who he is and you haven't quite been paying attention to the Pirates for the past week because you've been moving. And then it's 1:15 in the morning and you've stayed up watching the end of a baseball game in which the outcome was never in doubt and you don't even know why you did it because you have to be up at 7 AM. And then you realize you're a Pirate fan, so no matter what choice you make during the day, it's almost never going to be a worse choice than watching the Pirates later that night. Oddly, you are comforted by this feeling, and you go to bed content. Not happy mind you, but content.

More out west

Paul Maholm takes the mound tonight as the Pirates try to take two in a row from the D'Backs. He'll face off against Byung-Hyun Kim, the new/old Diamondback who I suppose is trying to bring the magic of 2001 back to Arizona. That magic was certainly missing last night as the team was dominated by Tom Gorzelanny and looked like a bunch of little leaguers in the field on their way to handing the Pirates the win last night. They can't afford to do that too many times with the NL West the way that it is. Maybe the arrival of Justin Upton, who certainly announced himself to America last night, will help them avoid that.

Pirates will pay tribute to Bonds

Why oh why must we pretend like we still matter? We're running a tribute video to Barry Bonds and his 756 home runs during Monday's double header. I can't imagine any Pirate fans will be very pleased by this. I posted a little more at FanHouse and you can find that here.

Difficult Dave

Shocking news in the PG's Pirate Notebook today: Dave Littlefield is hard to deal with! I know, I know, I was as shocked as you were to read that. The returns that he's allegedly been asking for Jack Wilson are ludicrous an insulting to the intelligence of Dave Dombrowski and JP Ricciardi, who are both more intelligent than DL. I don't even like reading stuff like that. It just makes me mad.

Freaking Barry Bonds

The reason the recap below came a bit late was because I was working on my FanHouse post about Bonds. For once, I've got very little to add about that post here. You guys can comment on Bonds and the record and my post and such in the thread here.

Game 109: Pirates 8 D'Backs 3

That was a nice win. Gorzo looked very good save the Justin Upton experience (speaking of Upton, WOW) with nine strikeouts and only one non-Upton hit given up in seven innings. His velocity looked good to me and he threw 100 pitches without showing too much fatigue. Hard to dislike anything about that performance from him tonight. In fact, I'm pretty encouraged given my worries before this game. He definitely looked healthy to me.

The play of the game in this one game in the top of the seventh with Upton on second base and Chris Snyder at the plate. Snyder ripped a shot into left field that Bay tracked to the wall and may have even brought back from the other side, then fired off a throw (shockingly, "fired off" is the correct term for this throw) to second to double Upton off. This all happened with a 4-2 lead and no outs in the seventh. It let Gorzo get out of the seventh, meaning the pen only had to traverse two innings instead of one. It was a game saving play, plain and simple.

Beyond that, did anyone else watch this game and wonder how the D'Backs are in first place? They looked awful tonight. They were completely bumfuzzled by a guy that hasn't pitched in a couple weeks and they spent most of the night acting like they had no idea how to field baseballs. They looked BAD tonight. This is the team that's been setting the world on fire? Really?

Out West

The Pirates make what seems like their millionth trip out west this year to get their yearly series out in Arizona against the D'Backs in. The Diamondbacks are 13 games above .500 and in first place in what might be the best division in the NL this year despite actually being outscored by about thirty runs this year. That is a very strange happening indeed. Our Buccos head into this series having not played a game since Saturday night because of Sunday's rainout. That's pushed Tom Gorzelanny back even further after being skipped once in the rotation. I'm pretty nervous about Gorzo's start tonight, I'll be honest. If he gets hurt in a meaningless game at the end of this worthless season, well, I'll be pissed. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

So what did I miss?

Sorry for the late post today. Again had trouble getting online in my new apartment (they provide a free wireless service which I fear may not be fast enough to handle MLB.tv, which is a terrifying thought to me), but I'm finally up and running this evening, which is nice even though there's no Pirate game tonight.

First off, thanks for all the nice comments on my Moving Day post (fittingly, there are 42 comments at the present). They really mean a lot to me and that's the exact reason that I'm not bailing on this blog, despite now being 471 miles from PNC Park.

So on to real baseball stuff. What did I miss since I left on Thursday afternoon? Two losses to the Reds. To the team managed by the man that I nicknamed Mac(k) for his similarities to his old boss, Lloyd McClendon. I didn't see Matt Morris, so I won't pass judgment on his start, but I will say that his line from that night was about what I expected, minus the home run. Instead, I want to talk about one guy right now, I want to talk about Ronny freaking Paulino.

Paulino drives me nuts for a couple reasons. I felt like he was elevated to a starting job last year for mostly artificial reasons and I feel like they're the reason he still plays (we can talk about game calling later, but do you ever get the impression that when a pitcher serves up a homer they blame the catcher for calling the pitch?) and that pisses me off. But this year he's pissed me off because he's been lazy. I know he's not a .310 hitter and I'm not even the kind of guy that thinks being a .310 hitter is good when your OBP is .360 and your SLG is .394. But I know that Ronny Paulino is better than the way he hit earlier in this year and the way he "caught." And recently, he's been on a tear. In fact, the very reason he's been on a tear is that he had a miserable game on Tuesday night in which he very well may have cost us a win. He was so bad that he was getting booed by everyone at PNC and he was getting Bronx cheers for doing things like catching relay throws from the outfield well after runners had crossed the plate. It was actually embarrassing for Ronny. And now he's killing the ball. Why did he have to be literally embarassed to get his fat ass in motion? Why wasn't his pathetic .237/.283/.348 line and sad play behind the plate enough to do that? Did he think we didn't notice? Or that we didn't care? Or did he just not care enough to even consider the fans might notice his substandard effort? It's great he's hitting now, but why the wait?

The Reds go for the sweep

Bronson Arroyo, who we always seem to light up, vs. Tom Gorzelanny, who is making his first start since his arm problems. I hope his arm doesn't explode today. That would be a downer.

Game 108: Reds 9 Pirates 8

I guess when you go like a month without winning, your closer is going to be rusty. Didn't see this one, but Morris' line was about what I expected (minus the homer). We hit five homers and lost. That sucks.

Brace yourself for Matt Morris

That's right, Morris makes his **ahem** anticipated debut in black and gold tonight against the Reds. He'll face off against Bobby Livingston and the Reds tonight. My hopes are not up for Morris tonight, he's been getting rocked with the Giants of late and I somehow don't see us, the Pirates, getting luckier.

I won't have regular internet access until Monday at the earliest, so my posting is going to be quite limited. I have access in my parents hotel room, but it's pretty spotty here.

Game 107: Reds 13 Pirates 4

Is this what happens when I don't have time to write a gamethread? 13 runs with the Reds hitting four homers and Snell giving up six runs in five innings? I'm now officially worried about his health. I don't think there's much else to say now about the game last night. I didn't see it and I don't see the point in trying to learn about it.

Moving Day

So I'm in West Virginia on my way to Chapel Hill for grad school. If you're a regular reader, you knew this was coming. If you've been worried, this does not mean an end to WHYGAVS, at least not in the immediate future. Writing this blog is one of my favorite things to do and I'm going to keep doing it for as long as I can (or until Dave Littlefield trades Ian Snell for some peanut butter crackers). Anyways, realizing that it may be a year before I get back to PNC Park and that my yearly consumption of games in person will drop from 15-20 to 1-2, I want to do a bit of a retrospective. It's mostly for my own sake, but I'm going to drop my personal embargo on writing about my personal life and posting it here because I think you guys will enjoy it, too.

A little over four years ago, I was facing a choice. It was a choice that millions of 18 year olds make; I had to pick a college. My choices were pretty slim, Duquesne or Penn State. I only applied to three schools and only got into two. I had a nice scholarship to Duquesne that made money not an issue in my choice. Both my parents went to Penn State and bleed blue and white. They have the whole happy story, met as RAs, started dating, got married, etc. From a very young age we made lots of trips to Penn State to visit family or just see the town. Penn State and JoePa always rule Saturday afternoons at my house and it's been that way for as long as I could remember. Clearly, PSU was a natural choice for me. Still, it was a bit farther from home for me (about three hours compared to Pittsburgh's one) and mind bogglingly huge for a kid that had graduated from high school with 77 other kids. And on top of that, Duquesne had something else that not even the call of Penn State football could overcome, the lure of PNC Park a mere 15 minute walk away. That's right, I picked my college based on the Pirates. And all-in-all, I couldn't have made a better choice (though the Pirates ended up having very little to do with that).

Some people love to count the games they go to and keep a running tab. I've never been a fan of that. I have no idea how many games I've seen at PNC Park. I know that since the park opened in 2001, my dad has had 2 seats right on the wall in right field for about 8 games a year and I go to most of those games with him. I also know that since I went to Duquesne in 2003 and lived there for two summers, I've seen more baseball games than I could count. The actual number is neither here nor there. Sitting in right at PNC last night, I couldn't help but think of all of the great memories I'll always have of the park, no matter how bad the Pirates are. Here's what I could think of, just off the top of my head.

I remember the breathtaking beauty of the park the first time I set foot inside of it. "How could a bad team ever play here?" I wondered. Most of my memories of Three Rivers are faded. I remember my first game ever, I remember a 19-2 thrashing of the Mets in late '92 (Lloyd McClendon hit a grand slam!), I remember Game 3 or 4 of the '92 NLCS (whichever one that Smoltz pitched and we lost), and I remember going to a ton of games with a friend whose family had a daylight games package. We would sit in the heat of Sunday afternoon and watch the Astros beat the bejesus out of the Pirates behind Shane Reynolds and Doug Drabek. But PNC, this place would be different.

I know it hasn't, but I've seen a ton of great games at PNC. I've seen lots and lots of bad games, but who remembers those? I remember the game after the trading deadline in 2003. We'd just made the awful Ramirez trade and Tike Redman was back up in Pittsburgh to fill Kenny Lofton's shoes. The Pirates were playing the Rockies and sucked all night long, going into the bottom of the 9th down 11-6. Before the inning started, my dad idly commented, "Well, if we get back to Kendall, we'll win." Kendall had just ended the inning before. Improbably, the Pirates made a charging comeback, spearheaded by Tike Redman's second triple of the night, and Kendall hit a walkoff single for the 12-11 win. Amazingly enough, two summers later I saw Tike spark another improbable comeback, this time down 5-1 with two outs in the ninth against the Mets.

I stood in the rain for two hours the night before my high school graduation with my dad hoping to see the Pirates play the Red Sox, but instead seeing a rainout. I was there a year later on the day Garrett Mackowiak was born and Rob Mackowiak had what I can only assume was the most amazing day of anyone's life, ever (a walk-off grand slam in one end of a double header, a game tying homer in the ninth inning of the second leg, and the birth of your healthy first son, what a day). And my dad called that one in the car on the way down, too. I saw Matt Stairs swing so hard I think a button came off his shirt as he rolled a homer into the river. I saw Randall Simon assault one of the Pepsi signs above the grandstand in right field, which was in foul territory (of course). I saw Jose Castillo hit a home run off of the third level of the rotunda. I've seen Oliver Perez strike out 14 batters (or maybe 12), but lose 1-0 on a Chipper Jones homer because we couldn't score on like 12 hits off of Russ Ortiz. I saw Josh Fogg out duel Randy Johnson.

I have a million bobbleheads and even though I don't want any of them, I'll never throw them out. I've frozen during home openers, I've melted during the summer, I sat through fifteen innings of the Pirates and Astros on a school night, and I've seen dozens of fireworks shows. Although I can't verify this, I'm almost certain I've seen Mike Williams, Jose Mesa, and Salomon Torres all blow saves. I've gone to games with parents, brothers, cousins, uncles, friends, girlfriends, and strangers. One time I was kind of drunk and screamed the answer to "Know Your Buccos" out at the top of my lungs only to realize that the guy heard me, answered the question right, and won home plate club tickets (the answer was Jose Bautista). It is quite possible that the best date I've ever been on took place at PNC Park, even though it happened on the freezing night that Torres blew a 2-0 in the ninth and the Pirates lost in 12 (that was this one, if you're wondering).

Finally, my love for the Pirates and my proximity to PNC Park lead me to start this blog. Much to my own surprise two and a half years later and I'm still writing. I never, ever though that would happen and I've never, ever done anything this long on my own volition. That's because through WHYGAVS, I've realized that there are countless other Pirate fans out there just like me. I don't know how you guys feel about it, but it's really a very comforting feeling to know that not every Pirate fan takes the words of Dave, Greg, Kevin, and Bob as gospel, even though the mailbag at Pirates.com and the callers to most of the radio and TV talk shows might seem to indicate otherwise. Thank you.

And so here we are, seventeen years after my first Pirate game, fifteen years since they've mattered, six and a half years after PNC Park opened, and four years after I started at Duquesne, and it's coming to an end. I'm going to miss a lot of people in Western PA (and you all know who you are), but as insane and improbable as it is, I'm going to miss PNC Park and the Pittsburgh Pirates.