Game 27: Pirates 13 Mets 1

Tell me if this line seems familiar:

1.2 IP, 2 H, 7 R, 2 ER, 5 BB, 2 K, 0 HR

That can only be generated by one Oliver Perez. He was his old, wild self today, helping to trigger a seven run inning that only saw the Pirates hit two singles. That sequence that lead to those runs is about as bizarre as innings go, with four walks, two errors, two singles, and a sacrifice fly. That was all the Pirates needed to do to get the Mets to check out of this one, as Tom Gorzelanny shut them down despite walking a batter an inning and only only throwing 46 of 84 pitches for strikes. He also apparently left the game with some back pain, though there's no real indication how serious that is yet.

To recap: Tom Gorzelanny is not fixed, Oliver Perez might never be fixed, and there's no other conclusions to take from this one. Take a win when it's handed to you and mosey on out of town.

Afternoon game

Crap, these things always sneak up on me. This one just started because of rain. Gorzo and Ollie are on the mound trying to conquer Ricky Vaughn disease.

Game 26: Mets 5 Pirates 4

To give you a stream of consciousness for the early part of this game, my brain went somewhere along these lines:

• McLouth! Homer! Sweet! Off of Santana!
  
• Chris Gomez? Are you kidding me?
  
• Jason Bay! Homer! Sweet! Man he crushed that thing.
• Two strikeouts and four walks for Snell ... this seems like trouble.
  
• Crap. It was trouble.
• Crap. It was lots of trouble.
  
• We've only got two hits? Man, this Penguins game is sweet.
  

I then proceeded to watch hockey, write up some FanHouse post drafts, and do lots of other things that were way better than getting invested in a Pirate comeback, only to have my hopes crushed by John Van Benschoten in the 11th.

I will say that the Snell/Santana pitchers' duel mostly fizzled with Snell not able to get out of the fifth and clearly without his best stuff for another start and Santana racking up a high pitch count striking out so many Pirates. That was bad news for the Mets because we really own Billy Wagner. Of course, it didn't matter because John Van Benschoten came in in the 11th and failed to get any one out that wasn't already trying to make one, wasting a solid outing by the pen to rescue Snell's bad start and a nice comeback from everyone else. Of course, it's not fair to completely blame JVB for this one. Dumatrait probably would've done the same thing.

Snell and Santana

Look, I know that the Penguins' Game 3 is a big game tonight and that most people are going to choose to watch that. I get it. But at the same time, Ian Snell vs. Johan Santana might be the best pitching matchup we see in a Pirates' game all year. I'm not exaggerating at all, either. If I know Ian Snell, he's going to bring his absolute A game to go against Santana at Shea tonight, and Santana is, well, Santana. You've got to try and make some time for this game tonight ... end of story. (UPDATE: And I've just heard that if you live in Pittsburgh, you can't see this one because FSP is broadcasting it, even though it's on Versus. Brilliant work, guys.

The Ian Snell insult of the game:
Dude, you play in the only city in America that cares more about hockey than baseball! It's April! They play on ice!

New Poll

Last week's poll may have been the closest in WHYGAVS history. The question of whether or not the Pirates will lose 100 games this year split you guys right down the middle with "Yes" getting 141 votes and "No"getting 142. That means that if you voted for "no", you made the difference. That's freaking democracy in action. I voted for no. I feel special. I also might change my vote in about two more turns of the rotation if we can't get our act together.

The new poll is the obvious one, who do you want to see in Matt Morris's place in the rotation? Vote in the sidebar, talk in the comments.

Blame it on the rain

You know what was gonna be cool tonight? Ian Snell vs. Johan Santana with no Penguins game on to divert my attention. And instead, it got rained out and the pitchers' duel won't take place until tomorrow night, in which case there will be nary a soul in Pittsburgh that will notice if Snell outduels the best lefty in the game. Are you listening Ian? No one's going to care if you kick ass tomorrow.

And yes, that is a Milli Vanilli reference. Over at FanHouse we've been re-living the '90s today ever since news broke about Roger Clemens possibly sleeping with an underage country singer and hanging out at parties with Monica Lewinsky and Michael Jordan. Oddly enough, Milli Vanilli was from the '80s. Maybe I just have bad taste in music ... but Roger Clemens ... what a dirtbag, huh?

The changes

In the wake of the Matt Morris release, the changes the Pirates made weren't exactly what everyone suspected. John Van Benschoten is being called up, but he's going to the pen and Phil Dumatrait is going into the rotation. There's some speculation that JVB is up to work out of the pen short term until Sean Burnett (who threw a lot over the weekend) is ready, but that's all speculation until then, so let's focus on what this move tells us.

It tells us that Neal Huntington does not think very highly of John Van Benschoten. Look at it this way: there was probably only three "viable" (I use that term loosely, none of these guys would be starting for other teams) replacements for Morris; Dumatrait, Van Benschoten, and Bullington. They're actually all pretty similar in that they're all former top prospects drafted around the same time (2000, 2001, and 2002, respectively) that had their careers derailed by injuries before making a semi-comeback last year. They've all had decent recent success in the minors that's clouded by some really shady peripherals, and they've all gotten pounded in the big leagues. Given his choice of the three of them to take Morris's spot in the rotation, Doogie's going with Dumatrait, who's been fairly bad out of the pen this year (ignore that 3.92 ERA and look at his 22 hits, 13 walks, and 13 strikeouts in 20 and 2/3 innings) and was awful in the Reds' rotation last year. He's making the conscious choice to add a Dumatrait to the rotation, even if it gives the Pirates three soft-tossing lefties (Dumatrait along with Maholm and Duke) and Gorzelanny, who can't muster a 90mph fastball right now, to compliment Ian Snell in the rotation. It's hard not to see this move and conclude that Huntington doesn't expect Van Benschoten to be a big league starter.

Game 25: Pirates 5 Phillies 1

Remember before the game where I wrote about needing the starters to keep us in the game? If you don't, it's literally right below this post. But after losing three games in a row in which our starters took us out of the game before things started, Paul Maholm threw a complete game, 2-hit, 99-pitch breeze of a game (time: 2 hours and 17 minutes), shutting down the Phillies impressive offense and avoiding a sweep.

Maholm wasn't quite as great as the first glance might indicate (2 strikeouts against 4 walks is a strange line for a 2-hitter), but the Phillies didn't hit many balls hard against him and as a result, the defense managed to keep their heads in the game and not royally screw anything up, leading to one of the more complete games played by the Pirates this year. We can also officially declare Nate McLouth's mini-slump over as he launched two homers today (the second one nearly landing in the seats my dad and uncle split with some other guys during the season, ahh, I miss those seats) to give him 3 homers in the last two games against the Phillies. Adam LaRoche (2 hits) and Jose Bautista (3) had nearly half of our 12 hits today, which is as good a sign as any that they're in the process of breaking out of their early season slumps. At least, I hope that's what it means. I'm sick of having both of our corner infield slots be offensive black holes. It's just bad baseball.

Help us Paul Maholm

Sadly, the Pirates really only enter game day with a chance to win if Paul Maholm or Ian Snell is on the mound right now. That is, of course, assuming that the defense backs them up and the offense decides to show up for the game. That's a long way removed from the hopes that we'd be in the thick of things in three out of every five games when the season started, but that's where we're at right now. Maholm on the mound today is our best shot at winning since Snell took the mound on Wednesday and Gorzelanny, Duke, and Morris didn't even give us a shot in the interim. He's up against Brett Myers, who definitely needs the "Pirates' bump" that we so kindly give to struggling, middling, veteran pitchers.

Happy trails, Matt

It's official, Morris is gone.

One of the things that writing this blog has made me uniquely aware of is how strange the player/fan relationship is. By the end of the 2006 season, I was starting to get some significant traffic and it dawned on me that it was entirely possible that the players would have found my blog. Mind you, I have no idea if this is true or not, but as it is true that this is one of the higher trafficked Pirate blogs on the internet, it's certainly possible. That kind of took me aback because I tend to be rather straightforward (read: harsh) in my writing here and it's not really a secret that I'm not the most positive person in the world, especially when it comes to the Pirates. Particularly, I actually felt bad for some of the things I'd said about Jeromy Burnitz. In every interview Burnitz gave during his one year with the Pirates he came off as a really cool, down to earth guy that was completely aware that he was having an awful year. As a person, he didn't really deserve the crap being heaped upon him, but as a player he was an overpaid and over the hill guy that did nothing but drag the Pirates down.

Looking at things from that perspective gave me a lot of respect for a player like Burnitz, and the same thing applies to Morris. As much as I've bitched about Morris since the trade of him to the Pirates, he's been nothing but a class act since he's gotten to Pittsburgh. He didn't ask for any of what's happened to him. He got traded from one baseball hell to another and he took it in stride. And he's gotten shelled since he's come to Pittsburgh, but he's never once made an excuse and he's never once gotten mad at people like me that have used him as the personification of everything that was wrong with the Dave Littlefield era. There's nothing in the world that's more frustrating than realizing you can't do something that you used to be good at and Morris has had to go through such an episode on the most public stage possible.

I'm not going to sit here and preach to you about how "he's a human too" the way Greg Brown and Steve Blass did during the broadcast of last night's game (though as pointed out in the comments, hearing Blass talk about how hard it must be for Morris was heart breaking). All I'm trying to say is what I've said above: that I have a lot of respect for Matt Morris. It's easy to take the Derek Bell route when you're an overpaid athlete on a bad team that's struggling, but Morris never did that. He stuck things out until the end on a terrible team even when he'd lost his stuff and he never complained or made excuses. He doesn't really deserve all of the crap we heaped on him as scapegoat for Dave Littlefield, but that's just how things work sometimes. Happy trails, Matt. It was always Dave Littlefield we hated, never really you.

Game 24: Phillies 8 Pirates 4

You know the script to this one: Matt Morris got pounded early and the team couldn't come back. He gave up 5 runs in the first inning and even though only two of them were earned, it was pretty obvious that he didn't have much going for him from the get-go tonight. Watching him pitch tonight was exactly what it's been all year: sad. I don't really have much else to say, except that all claims that Bixler was settling in (my own included, of course) appear to be quite premature. It appears that Morris's Pirate career is over and I've actually got a lot more to say about that, but I'm saving that for it's own post to go up either later tonight or sometime tomorrow.

Missed opportunity

This was the part where I was going to absolutely guarantee a home run from Ryan Howard, but I've been getting work done and failed to get a gamethread up before the first pitch, and now Howard's already homered. Ahh, the Matt Morris experiment. Some day we're going to look back on the Dave Littlefield years and laugh. Or cry. Whatever.

No wonder we lost last night

Not Zach Duke ... the evil red jerseys! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!
(Photo from the PG)

Game 23: Phillies 6 Pirates 5

On one had, at least Zach Duke didn't walk a million hitters. On the other hand, he never really does that and giving up 9 hits and 6 runs in 6 innings is no more a recipe for a win than anything Gorzo did on Thursday night. We managed to close things down from the six-run hole he put us in, but it was just too much.

Not much else worth noting from last night. Nate McLouth is 0 for his last 4 games after starting the year with a 19-game hitting streak. Jason Bay homered again. The bullpen was pretty good at keeping us in the game. Nady continued to reap the benefits of batting after Bay and Doumit and drove in three runs to give him 23 on the year. And the paid attendance was almost 24,000, which was more people than were at the Penguins game, though I suspect that the 24,000 in attendance at PNC cared more about the Pens' game than the Pirates' game.

Let's make this a long gameday post

I probably should've made this into a couple posts, but end of the semester stuff has me busy, plus I've started pulling double-duty at FanHouse by chipping in on the NHL side (in particular, Pens' fans would probably be interested in this and this, if you haven't been checking it out already), so we're just going to jam a link/opinion/gamethread together. Classes end next week and I'll do better, promise.

Anyways, this line jumped out at me from the PG recap of last night's fiasco:

"He threw a great game," Russell said. "If you command the inside part of the plate like he did, then work your breaking stuff to the outside, you're going to have success. He wasn't missing."

Certainly not with his first pitch: The Pirates took a called first strike 11 times.

This casts some doubt (in my mind) over the Pirates new found "plate discipline." I'm only saying this because Piniero's been very hittable this year and I can't think of any other reason we'd fall behind in so many counts, but taking pitches because a coach tells you to take a pitch until you get a strike isn't necessarily discipline; it's just doing as you're told. This is something to keep an eye on. If pitchers think the Bucs are just taking pitches because the coaches want them to, we're going to get pounded early in the counts and fall behind a lot.

Old news, but Walt Jocketty replaces Krivsky in Cincy. I'm mentioning it because I'm not sure Jocketty is the type of GM that Cincinnati needs to build on their young foundation (which is very, very good). He worked to build mostly an older core into a winner in St. Louis. We shall see, I suppose.

Mets fans: now tortured by Oliver Perez. I'm still caling a big breakout for him this year, though I'm less confident of it now than I was a month ago.

Let's move on to the Phillies. To be frank, this series scares the bejus out of me. I think it's because Ryan Howard has been incredibly cold this year, has never homered in PNC Park (see the sidebar in the top PG link), and will face Zach Duke tonight, Matt Morris tomorrow, and Paul Maholm on Sunday. I'll bet anyone that's coming to WHYGAVS Night a drink at the 222 that that streak ends this weekend (unless a lot of you show up ... I'm a poor grad student). Adam Eaton and Zach Duke is the kind of pitching matchup that you'd expect to produce an 11-9 game, except that one team involved got shut down by Joel Piniero last night. In that case, it's probably a matchup that will produce an 11-2 game.

Game 22: Cardinals 6 Pirates 2

Seven walks in five innings. SEVEN. Look, I don't presume to know anything more about baseball than most people and I certainly have no inside information about the Pittsburgh Pirates. But what I do know is that when a guy that walked 68 batters in over 200 innings last year has 22 walks in 22 and 1/3 this year, there's something wrong. Maybe he's not hurt, but honestly, that's almost worse because it means something has gone dreadfully wrong with his mechanics.

As for the rest of the game, well, Adam LaRoche hit a ball kind of far and Brian Bixler looked pretty good at shortstop. Both of those things are nice to see. Unfortunately, I feel like the emphasis on this one's gotta be on Gorzo. If this team is going to be anything less than incredibly maddening to watch this year, he's got to get himself righted somehow. Unfortunately he seems to be moving in the wrong direction.

Do you use little brooms for a 2-game sweep?

The best part about 2 game series is that sweeps are a lot easier. All eyes tonight will be on Gorzelanny, who I'm going to consider injured in some capacity until he pitches well enough to prove otherwise. Tonight's mound opponent is Joel Piniero and if the Pirates can't rock him for some runs, I've got some serious concerns about whether or not they can rock any starter for some runs. Of course, they're the Pirates, so I have lots of serious concerns about them.

Game 21: Pirates 7 Cardinals 4

Generally, giving up four runs in the first inning and getting a start from anyone that only involves one strikeout is a pretty solid recipe for disaster for our Pittsburgh Pirates. Strangely, it wasn't tonight. After Snell gave up his runs in the first, he managed to bear down and shut the Cards down over the next five, even after it became clear to everyone that he didn't have anything resembling his best stuff tonight. The offense, meanwhile, chipped away against Wellemeyer after being no-hit through three innings. Once the offense saw him a second time, everyone adjusted and started stringing hits together, scoring two runs in the fourth and two more on a big homer from Bay in the fifth. Even more surprisingly, Jose Bautista, Brian Bixler, and Doug Mientkiewicz strung three hits together with two outs in the eighth, scoring three runs and one hilarious tantrum at second (Dougie, after being thrown out at second stupidly trying to stretch his two-run single into a double), giving the Bucs an 8-4 lead and setting up an easy save for Matt Capps.

Honestly though, most impressive tonight was Snell. He certainly didn't look great, but getting Pujols to pop out to LaRoche with two out and two out in a tie game in the sixth was one of the biggest plays of the game. It's easy to pitch well when your fastball is hopping and your slider is biting, but it's much harder to do it without your best stuff. Snell managed to do that tonight against a team that usually kills him. Of course, I say that because I like Snell more than Bautista and Bixler, who also came up huge, and I hate to harp on every single time Bay gets a clutch hit because I don't even want to go down that road again. So really, it was a solid effort by everyone tonight. I feel like it was one of the more complete wins this year, mostly because we didn't do anything paralyzingly stupid and we actually took advantage when the Cards did (see: Adam Kennedy hits a single, La Genius pinch-hitting with a pitcher to bunt him over, only to be terribly foiled when Kennedy got caught stealing and Wainwright struck out ... God that was awesome). It's hard to believe this is the same team that lost 6 straight games by a score of 11 trillion to 3, but if they were consistent they wouldn't be the Pirates.

Bring on the Cards

Personally, I'm happy the losing streak is over so that I can get into one of my favorite in-season pastimes: hating the Cardinals. They're off to an unexpected hot start this season, mostly thanks to guys like the one we're seeing on the mound tonight. Todd Wellemeyer's been dominant in four starts, racking up two wins and blowing past everything in his path. That's just not something that's likely to last deep into the season. The Cards, as everyone knows, have mostly owned PNC since its opening in 2001, though the Pirates fared alright against them last year. Albert Pujols, who owns Ian Snell, is something like 4th on the all-time list of home run hitters at PNC, which is ludicrous and embarrassing. Accordingly, the Cardinals are probably my least favorite team in the league, which sets me up for all kind of uncalled for rage over the next two days during this series.

Ian Snell Insult of the Night:
Ian, Pujols has a 2.088 OPS against you in your careers. I'm embarrassed for you. Seriously dude, I thought about flying home and sitting in the bleachers in left for this one, just to get a ball.

What to do with McCutchen?

The more prospect savvy among you have certainly taken notice of Andrew McCutchen's early season line by now: .282/.378/.549 with 4 homers and 7 doubles in 82 plate appearances. That's certainly a great start for a 21-year old in AAA and within no time at all, that line is going to start popping up all over the place in the Pittsburgh sports media (if it hasn't already, admittedly my distance disconnects me more than I'd like from time to time), which means that by this time next week (if not sooner), people are going to be clamoring for McCutchen to get a call to Pittsburgh and start over everyone's favorite whipping boy, Jason Bay. All I can really say to that is, "please not yet."

It's awesome that Cutch is off to such an good start in AAA. I had some serious concerns about him after he skipped past A+ and straight to AA, where he struggled for most of the year last year. The fact that he's hitting this quickly in AAA is a great sign that he's still the prospect we all hope he is. Still, he's got to stay in AAA for now. He's got to get more at-bats against pitching at this level. He's got to face pitchers that have had a chance to adjust to his hot start. If it gets to be July and Bay and Nady are traded and McCutchen's still killing the ball, I'll be singing a different song. But until then, there's just no reason to rush him to the bigs.

Game 20: Pirates 3 Marlins 2

OH DAMMIT NATE DIDN'T GET A HIT NOW WHAT DO WE HAVE TO ROOT FOR?!?

Looks around.

Double checks.

Holy hell, we won? Like seriously? Like scored more runs than the other team won, not "moral victory" won? Sweet!

Tonight was marked by the first good non-Snell start in what seems like ages. Maholm really seemed to be on tonight, going six strong and holding the Marlins to four hits, one walk, and one run with his six strikeouts. Of course, he also pitched well against the Marlins earlier that month and it didn't really portend much, but I'll take what I can get at this point. Ricky Nolasco and someone named Renyel Pinto were pretty solid for the Marlins, but the Bucs got all the runs they needed in the sixth, then held on for dear life as the World's Most Terrifying Bullpen managed to actually hold the lead, despite Tyler Yates serving up a bomb to Jorge Cantu.

Isn't it amazing what a load gets taken off with a losing-streak snapping win? Honestly, now all I care about is bringing the Cardinals back to earth.

Please just make it stop

Tonight's stab at ending the losing streak falls to Paul Maholm and his gimpy back. He'll face off against Ricky Nolasco, who's had some arm troubles in the past and probably hasn't totally recovered from them, judging by his early season struggles this year. We can probably pencil the Marlins in for ten runs tonight. The question is whether or not the Pirates can match.

Matt Morris is not going anywhere

From today's PG:

"As long as we feel there's still an ability in there to get people out, we're going to continue to let Matt be a starting pitcher for us," general manager Neal Huntington said last night. "If we get to the point where we just don't think he can compete, then we obviously have to make a move at that point."

Are they getting close?

"At this point, we're not all that close, which I know the fans don't want to hear. We're not close to deciding that Matt is done, because that's essentially what you'd be deciding. Maybe he could go somewhere else and click. We want to make sure we exhaust all opportunities right here."

I think it's got to be clear that the Pirates don't have much faith in Morris getting people out, but it's also true that there's not really much else for the Pirates to do other than let him pitch. This is being discussed in the comments below, but it's worth a mention. The Pirates have no option right now other than to eat Matt Morris's contract. They're paying it and that's the end of the story. That leaves them with the following crappy choices:

1. Cut Morris loose. In this case, they'll be paying him to either pitch for someone else or to not pitch at all while John Van Benschoten or Brian Bullington take his spot. The problem is that neither Bullington nor Van Benschoten is an appreciable upgrade over Morris (which is hard to believe, I know). Neither is a prospect any more and neither is a major leaguer starter, which essentially make them younger Matt Morrises.
   
2. Send Morris to the pen. Yeah, so we're paying him $10 million to do Evan Meek's job while Bullington or JVB start.
   
3. Let Morris pitch. The only way Morris is getting traded is if he somehow pitches well. We'll still be forced to eat the salary, but at the very least we'll have a warm body in return that might turn into something.
   

Of course, it's highly unlikely that Morris will pitch himself into shape, and thus a trade, but why not take a shot at it? What other choices do we have?

Reactionary WHYGAVS poll

New poll, being taken at this point try and measure just how badly this streak has people bummed out. The question: will the Pirates lose 100 games this year?

Results of the early season surprise poll:

• Nate McLouth, 48%
• Doumit starting, 26%
• Yates bringing the heat, 11%
• Rivas sucking, 6%
• Gorzo's bad start, 4%
• Bay's semi-bounceback, 3%

As usual, vote in the sidebar, talk in the comments.

Game 19: Marlins 10 Pirates 4

I know the following things for sure right now:

• It is way to early in the season to be on a six-game losing streak.
  
• Matt Morris is completely tapped out.
  
• Nate McLouth is really pretty awesome.
  

I'm not really sure what happened tonight, but Russell seemed like he was on cruise control tonight. Morris was getting pounded and he just kind of sat there, not calling the pen, not going out to the mound to talk to him, nothing. In the end, Morris gave up 8 runs and 9 hits, seven of which went for extra bases. This was seriously one of the worst outings I've seen by a starter in some time. After he was done, it was time for the almost as awful Osoria (who Bob Walk calls "Osorio" as he clearly enters his "I don't give a rats-ass about this team, I'm not learning these guys names," mode), who gave up two runs and another bomb in his two innings. This team is almost certainly not as bad as they're playing right now, but damn, they are playing badly.

The Battle of Who Could Care Less

Can you think of a less interesting baseball game than Mark Hendrickson vs. Matt Morris representing the Marlins and Pirates? I don't know if I can, though I suppose it would be possible if maybe if the Giants were involved. I think this series marks the third consecutive year in which the Pirates have played the Marlins in the middle of an ugly slide, leading me to think, "You know, people gave the Marlins shit all winter about their low payroll, but I'd swap franchises with them in a second."

Seriously, though, Jack Wilson's return isn't going to be tonight, which means that John Russell decided to try and kick start the guy that doesn't belong in the majors (Bixler), by tossing him in the two slot. We're probably going to get smoked by the Marlins tonight. If that does happen, just flick your TV to PBS at 9 and check out their documentary on Roberto (h/t to Charlie on that one).

Being a Pirate fan is hard

Coming into 2008, there was absolutely no reason to think that the Pirates would win more than somewhere around 70 games during the season. I certainly knew this and while some of you disagreed with me, I feel pretty sure that most of you knew it as well as I did. This is the true bitch of what Dave Littlefield did to this franchise: he left it in such disrepair that even the most experienced general manager could start turning this team around without Major League on-field results for two or three years. That's what happens when you leave both the major and minor leagues mainly bereft of talent. As I said over the winter, guys like John Russell can preach "changing the culture" all they want, but actually doing it in the face of loss after mind-numbing loss is a horse of a different color.

Still, knowing full well what I was getting myself into this season, watching games like yesterday are incredibly frustrating. I suppose that's just the nature of the human condition. As Rowdy is fond of pointing out, it shouldn't be incredibly hard to get a baseball team to finish .500. I suppose there's a part of me (and everyone) that thinks every year that maybe things will click this year, just for one year, and we won't be awful. This isn't how things work in real life, and that's a crashing realization that we all have to make every single year.

I fully understand how ugly Adam LaRoche looks, but no one should be surprised or angry about the way he's starting the season. The guy has a huge, looping swing that takes at least a month to get into gear every single year of his career. That's just the way he works. Luis Rivas and Doug Mientkiewicz are probably on the team because of a pre-existing relationship with John Russell, but that's how every team fills their roster out. Zach Duke sucks, but we knew that already. Tom Gorzelanny is pitching like a guy who's hurt, but everyone with an opinion about Gorzo had a feeling he was going to get hurt after Tracy abused the crap out of him last year. The bullpen is terrible, but that's what happens when you only carry over three relievers from one year to another. Simply put, these is a bad, fundamentally poor team, but we knew that that's not something that anyone should be surprised by.

Some of you might disagree, but I can't see where Huntington and company have made any huge missteps (except maybe extending Freddy, pending his health and keeping Pearce in AAA, which may not be a huge mistake, but I still think was the wrong move). The choice that the new front office faced this winter was to either tear the team apart limb from limb to the highest bidder and make a bunch of trades like Andy MacPhail made for Miguel Tejada (that is, "here, take our best players and give us the pu pu platter, which we'll then toss up against the wall and hope that something sticks") or hope that some of the guys on the team increased their value by playing during the season. Bay might do that, Nady isn't hurting his case, Marte will still be a left-handed reliever with a strong history against lefties at the deadline, and the only way anyone was going to take Matt Morris was if he pitches during the year and pitches well. He hasn't so far, but there's no high-upside solution in the organization, so why not at least give him the chance to pitch his way out of here?

As I said above, this is the true crime of the Littlefield era. He left this team so ravaged that Brian Bixler was considered a prospect under his front office. Even if every goes perfectly with the players we have now, do you really think that Walker, Pearce, and McCutchen are enough to turn this team from a 68-win team into a 90-win team in 2009? They're not. After 2009, Littlefield's ill-conceived "window" is closed and a huge chunk of the core of this team will be gone, for better or worse. Maybe Huntington can wheel and deal his way into supporting Walker, Pearce, McCutchen, Snell, Gorzelanny, and maybe McLouth and Doulino (we even need two players to make up one of our strongest positions) sooner rather than later, but that's a mightily daunting task. What does that leave for us? Rooting for Nate McLouth's breakout to stick, hoping that Ryan Doumit can stay healthy enough to provide some thump behind the plate, praying that Jason Bay hits so that he can be traded, and holding vigils for Tom Gorzelanny's ulnar collateral ligament. Such is life as a Pirate fan, I suppose.

Game 18: Cubs 13 Pirates 6

When I talk about soul-sucking losses by the Pirates, this game is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about. The Cubs ran out to a 5-0 lead early in this one, but the Pirates managed to load the bases with one out in the top of the fifth and seemed poised to make it seem like they were going to do something in the game. Doug Mientkiewicz hit a one-run single and Nate McLouth drew a walk off of a clearly faltering Ryan Dempster, leaving the bases still loaded, two runs already in, and the heart of the order due up. Freddy Sanchez bounced into a run-scoring ground-out, Jason Bay walked, and Adam LaRoche did his best impression of a person that's never seen an off-speed pitch before and the Cubs managed to avoid a huge inning. Still. 5-3 is certainly a manageable deficit.

Then the bottom of the fifth happened. After two hits to start the inning, Mike Fontenot hit a grounder right at Adam LaRoche, who whiffed and watched the ball roll into the outfield. Then Reed Johnson hit a hooking liner down the third base line that Jose Bautista leaped wildly at trying to spear. He dropped the ball (that was almost certainly hooking foul anyways) for a "that's an error but not an error "single. Next up, Ryan Theriot laid down a bunt that Osoria just kind of fell over in front of, drawing Ryan Doumit and Adam LaRoche in to field the ball. That left home plate wide open with Fontenot streaking for home. For some reason, he turned back towards third and Doumit was able to throw him out. THEN (because Lord knows, we're not done), Derrek Lee hit an inning ending double play to Bautista, but Freddy's gimpy shoulder sent a ball into the dirt and LaRoche failed to scoop it. After two errors and two kind of errors, everyone in the universe knew what was coming next: a three-run bomb from Aramis Ramirez. Suddenly a 5-3 game was 10-3 and over. Ugh.

Time flies

Less than a week ago, we were wondering just what kind of cosmic forces were in play that had moved the Pirates to four unlikely wins in a row and a 7-6 record. Today Zach Duke takes the mound to try and keep the Pirates from making a full turn of the rotation without a win. This losing streak has been ugly, coming at a combined 35-6 score with the Pirates only playing competitively in one game of the four. Another loss or two along those lines, and this streak will be getting up there with the most frustrating in the history of this blog.

Game 17: Cubs 13 Pirates 1

Again, forgive me for the lack of writing this weekend, but my parents are in town and spending the weekend with my nose buried in my computer isn't exactly courteous. They'll be leaving this afternoon, at which point I can finally get caught up with everything.

Is there anyone out there that doesn't think Gorzo is hurt right now? He got shelled again yesterday, throwing 47 of 80 pitches for strikes in 2 and 2/3 innings, walking four hitters in that span and giving up 7 earned runs. That set the tone for Tyler Yates to show us why he was the trading block this spring, as his command suddenly deserted him and he walked four batters in less than an inning. That set the stage for the ubiquitous Evan Meek appearance. As suggested in the comments by Tommy, Meek is quickly becoming White Flag part deux. He's appeared in six games this year and we've lost all six of them, five of them in games that he only got to play in because we were getting absolutely killed.

The offense was just as bad as the pitching yesterday, though that's not really surprising. But Jason Marquis went 6 innings, struck out 7, and only walked one, and that's a pretty pathetic statement on the Pirates' offense, I think. Nate McLouth managed to keep his hitting streak alive, but it seems silly to be celebrating that with the team getting the crap kicked out of it on a nightly basis. It is something though.

I'm back online!

OK, I'm back in business with the internet after two long days without it. The Pirates lost yesterday and that gives them their second 3-game losing streak of the early season. I think that might be some kind of record, but then I doubt "number of three-game losing streaks
before May 1st" is something that people really keep track of. Tom Gorzelanny takes the mound today, trying to break out of his early season funk against Jason Marquis, who hasn't been very good this year or ever and is pretty mediocre career-wise against the Pirates. Those numbers don't account for this year's Cubs early dominance against the Pirates, which has to be working in his favor. This game is on in Pittsburgh and Chicago, but not anywhere else because Major League Baseball is a jerk about their Saturday blackout rules.

Snell!

My apartment complex decided to end free wireless internet for everyone a full two weeks before they told us they were cutting us off, so I'm probably going to be off the grid until some time tomorrow afternoon. By a stroke of fate, my parents are in town this weekend and so I have time to use their hotel internet to get an insult up. This one's courtesy of Brian, who left it in the comments a couple days back (click to enlarge for full effect).

Ian! The Pirates still have a team? Talk about insignificant!

Matt Morris doesn't know why he sucks

From the Trib:

"It's not puzzling. It doesn't matter what pitch you throw, it's just location and how sharp it is," Morris said. "The second time around and the third time around, my location has been off, so that's where the trouble has been."

Honestly, I don't have the capacity to be as mean as this article requires today. Fact is, it sucks watching guys that used to be good decline in their careers. It's frustrating for them and it's frustrating for us. Dave Littlefield had a knack for putting us in this awkward position, and hopefully it's something that Neal Huntington can avoid.

Game 15: Dodgers 8 Pirates 1

Bright spots:

• Nate McLouth got a hit. Fifteen games is nearing the threshold that people have to start paying attention to hitting streaks. I believe the official line is eighteen. Something about an eighteen game hitting streak just seems so much more impressive than a seventeen gamer. I can't explain it.
  
• Marte had an awesome inning out of the pen with three strikeouts. His ERA is now below 10.00
• The Pens won. Technically not applicable to the Pirates, but pretty awesome anyways.

Not-so-bright spots:

• Maholm got roughed up pretty good. The four runs he gave up in the first were partially due to bad bounces and bad defense, but after that the Dodgers really hit him pretty hard the rest of the night.
  
• After all of the focus on plate patience, we drew 2 walks.
  
• Jose Bautista looks lost in all aspects of baseball at the moment.
  
• What is charming for one night of Vin Scully is pretty grating after three.
• Below .500 again. Will we ever see it again? Magic Eight Ball's sources say no. I'm always a little loathe to believe a guy that won't name his sources, but I think Eight Ball might be on to something here.
  

One more late night game

Personally, I kind of like these ten o'clock games. They give me something to do while I'm working on homework, schoolwork, etc. The Dodgers have Brad Penny on the mound tonight, who completely kills us. We'll counter with Maholm, who hasn't been all that impressive in his two outings this year, save his high strikeout total in his first start. I'd love to see one of the starters start to come around besides Snell, but if the Dodgers kick the crap out of us tonight all it'll really do is just fire Snell up tomorrow night, which is always a fun thing.

Can you teach plate patience?

I've always thought no, but the Pirates are doing their best to prove me wrong. It's still early, but the first returns are mildly encouraging. I'd like to see a lot more than 14 games worth of evidence on this kind of thing, but at the same time seeing them actually take pitches for 14 games is more encouraging than seeing them NOT do it for 14 games.

Game 14: Dodgers 11 Pirates 2

Things started off promising enough, tonight, when Hong-Chih Kuo, a pitcher we've had some success against in the past, threw ten straight balls in the first inning en route to walking Jason Bay, Xavier Nady, and Ronnie Paulino, with the Paulino walk bringing a run across the plate. Kuo then settled down and things worked their way into typical Pirate baseball: Matt Morris ran out of gas after three innings, but John Russell let him start the fifth after an ugly fourth. Phil Dumatrait then showed up to throw gas onto the cackling fire, and then Evan Meek pitched. The resulting 11-2 beatdown was entirely expected, but expecting something ugly doesn't make it any less ugly.

I think that the problem is that the question is too broadly based ...

"Forty two?!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?"

"I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

I get that everyone's wearing #42 in tribute to Jackie Robinson tonight, but honestly, all it ever makes me think of is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Unfortunately, all I can think of now is that Matt Morris really seems like the type of guy that can never find his towel. You sass that hoopy Nate McLouth? Now THERE'S frood who really knows where his towel is.

If you didn't understand any of that, don't be alarmed. It just means you're not as much of a nerd as you could be.

Everyone's wearing #42

If you haven't heard, both the Pirates and Dodgers will all wear #42 tonight in honor of Jackie Robinson's debut. I thought this was a fantastic gesture last year to celebrate the 60th anniversary, but I'm kind of torn on whether the league should continue it. Part of me feels like it's an easy gimmick to cover up the awful job the league has done reaching out to African Americans of late and part of me feels like any reason to educate young baseball fans about Jackie Robinson (imagine a six-year old asking his dad why everyone is wearing the same number tonight, that kind of thing) is a great thing to do. Thoughts?

Game 13: Pirates 6 Dodgers 4

Holy crap.

First things first, getting the Vin Scully broadcast on Extra Innings tonight was an absolute pleasure. I don't think I can possibly overstate how much I enjoyed listening to him. If you got the regular Brownie/Walkie broadcast, here's some of what you missed:

• Repeated incredulity at Zach Duke's lack of strikeouts, once quipping, "You know it's hard to pitch in the big leagues, but especially so when you don't strike anybody out." When you do something that surprises Vin Scully, who's seen about a bajillion baseball games, that's really saying something. And not in a good way for Duke tonight.
  
• A long story about how the first born male in each branch of the Nady family is always named Xavier, meaning that X is really "Xavier Nady the sixth." I am 90% certain this is not true.
  
• Explaining Tyler Yates' fastball with his Hawaiian upbringing and fondness for surfing: "All that paddling really builds up the arm and shoulder strength."
• When Luis Rivas played in Minnesota, he used to talk to himself at second base. His teammates decided that he was talking to someone named "Gazoo." Rivas promptly stopped this behavior and someone asked him where Gazoo went. Rivas responded, "He got busted for drugs."
• Something about a first baseman named Doug Mint-Cabbage.
  
• After Ryan Doumit dropped a pop-up behind the plate: "So, they came in here with a three game winning streak and you started to wonder, 'Hey, maybe it's a different Pirate club,' but it really doesn't look that way. Not tonight."

To that point, Vin was dead on. Duke didn't look particularly great (no strikeouts in six innings), there was a lot of sloppy play in the field (a balk and a mix-up between Doumit and Duke lead to a run, Doumit's dropped pop-up, bad at-bats, etc. etc. etc ... you know the story by heart at this point), and the Pirates seemed to be cruising towards a 4-3 loss with the perfect Takashi Saito on the mound, two-outs, and a flu-stricken April-addled Adam LaRoche at the plate. Somehow, LaRoche singled, moving pinch-runner Brian Bixler into scoring position. Of course, scoring position was moot because Nate McLouth took it upon himself to extend his season-long hitting streak with a three run bomb into right-center field. Now I'm inexplicably writing the recap to another Pirate win as the team pulls above .500 for the first time since 2-1. I mean, it's only 13 games, but I feel like this team could be 2-11 just as easily as they're 7-6. What the hell is going on?

What's up with the Dodgers?

Surely, 99% of Dodger fans would've gladly switched Grady Little for Joe Torre at the end of last season. I'm not so sure they feel the same way right now. Torre has seriously screwed with Chad Billingsly's rest schedule and he's repeatedly benched Matt Kemp for the almost worthless Juan Pierre. What he's thinking ... I'm not so sure. What I do know is that the Dodgers a pretty bad 5-7 start and the Pirates are giving them their first out of division test tonight at 10 (or for all you in Pittsburgh, after the Pens' game). Zach Duke and Hideki Kuroda are facing off on the mound tonight, so the question for Pirate fans tonight is whether or not all those hits Duke's been giving up (despite his 2.13 ERA, his WHIP is 1.58 due to his 18 hits in 12 and 2/3 innings) are going to start falling in, or if Duke can maybe get his act together and stop getting hit so freaking hard. I mean, I want to believe that his nice little start is for real, but those peripherals just keep screaming "Mirage! Miraaaaaage!!!" at me.

A new poll!!!

Remember when I used to make have a poll every week? Yeah, it's been like a month, but I'm bringing it back today. Today's question deals with the biggest surprises through 12 games for the 2008 Pittsburgh Pirates. Vote in the sidebar and defend your point in the comments.

Game 12: Pirates 9 Reds 1

There was lots of good stuff that happened in this game, beyond the fact that the Pirates managed to win a game with Luis Rivas batting second. I thought the Bucs did a nice job against Johnny Cueto, who'd been mostly dominant before today, with Ryan Doumit picking up the first hit of the year by a lefty against Cueto by launching a ball into the right-center stands, Nate McLouth drawing the first walk of the year against him, and Xavier Nady burying the dagger with a three-run jack to make a 2-1 game a 5-1 game. Later on, after the Reds flubbed what should've been an easy inning-ending double play, Jason Bay ripped a three-run homer right when you were probably thinking, "I hope someone makes the Reds' pay for that screw up." So, yeah, 9 runs and an easy win are all good things.

The game wasn't all good, though. Gorzelanny looked not awful. He's still not getting his fastball much over 86 mph, which I think is a huge problem, but Bob Walk repeatedly assured viewers that "he just hasn't found his fastball yet." I have no idea how a pitcher "loses" a fastball, but he did keep the Reds from hitting him hard through most of the game, which is how he stayed effective. Still, 4 walks and 1 K is not going to get the job done against most people. More bad news came in the form of Luis Rivas, mostly because it was hinted that we're going to see a whole lot of him this year. When talking about Freddy getting the day off to rest his shoulder, one of the two guys in the booth relayed a comment from Freddy that was along the lines of, "I can't go on like this all year." That sounds ominous to me.

It was nice to see the Pirates bounce back from their ugly sweep at the hands of the Cubs and win some baseball games against a team that's not terribly good this weekend. They're facing the possibility of being completely ignored by everyone but the most die-hard fans until the Penguins' playoff run ends, but at least they're not throwing in the towel. And hey, let's be honest with ourselves, every game they win with Luis Rivas in the starting lineup is some kind of minor miracle.

Gorzo and Cueto

Interesting pitching match-up today as Tom Gorzelanny takes the mound against 2008's early season phenom, Johnny Cueto. Cueto is exactly the kind of pitcher that kills the Pirates (seriously, don't I just say that about everyone?). He's a hard thrower that strikes out a ton of hitters and he's been dominant and borderline dominant in his two starts this year. Gorzo, on the other hand, is pitching like a guy that's hurt. His velocity seems to be down and he's definitely struggling with control. I'll take any sign today that he's starting to turn things around. I mean, I'd like to see the Pirates sweep the series and get back to .500 and all, but really , I'd just be stoked if Gorzo didn't make the bullpen throw six more innings today.

UPDATE: It's raining, but both pitchers are throwing in the pen and the big tarp isn't out, so it probably won't be a long delay.

Game 11: Pirates 4 Reds 3

I only saw the very beginning of this one, but in the small part that I saw I actually uttered the words, "thank God for Brian Bixler" when he snared a line drive with runners on first and third in the first, then witnessed Ronny Paulino hang on to a throw from the outfield to tag a runner out. Certain the apocalypse was nigh at this point, I headed out for the evening feeling confident that the Pirates couldn't lose a game in which two unlikely things had already happened. Somehow, that incredibly flawed logic managed to apply, even in a game in which Doug Mientkiewicz and Chris Gomez split time at third base as the Pirates chipped away to score runs in the second, fifth, and sixth, and pick up Snell his second win of the year. In fact, we can probably say that the 'pen ws forced to nail things down over the final 2 and 2/3 out of pure fear of Snell.

Snell and the Reds

I won't lie, I like this matchup for the Pirates tonight. We've beaten the crap out of Arroyo in the past couple years and Ian Snell is undoubtedly fired up about something tonight because it's early in the year and the team looks like crap. This means that I'll ignore Snell's mostly spotty history against the Reds (they have lots of left-handed power ... the kind that kills Snell) and guess that maybe the actual presence of a home crowd (a Saturday night with no Pens game might get the Pirates their first real, non-opener home crowd of the season) will work in Snells favor tonight. Unless, of course, it rains. Then all bets for everything are off.

Time for today's insult: Sure, Ian, I've seen people like you before ... but I had to pay admission!

Ooo. Burn.

Just throw the ball

If anyone has ever pitched before, they've probably also struggled on the mound. It happens to everyone whether it's in Little League or high school or college or whatever (except Jake Peavy, probably). Inevitably, struggling on the mound leads to one piece of advice from the pitching coach. Stop thinking and just throw. Apparently, that's what helped Evan Meek out on Thursday:

"Definitely a positive," Meek said. "It was fun. It was the first time I had a good time."

It was the first time he cut loose with his fastball, too. In his first three games, Meek's fastball floated at 84 to 86 mph. Thursday night, he zipped his fastball about 10 mph faster. He struck out Derrek Lee with a 97-mph fastball.

"That's kind of what we're hoping to see," manager John Russell said.

I don't know what happened, but I hope Jeff Andrews took Meek aside and said, "Kid, you've got a 97 mph fastball, what the hell are you afraid to throw it for? Cut that thing loose, man! A little bit of wildness'll just put the fear of god into 'em when you unleash that thing." Seriously, with more 97 mph fastballs and less fear and maybe I'll think this front office wasn't so far off with thinking Meek had the stuff to make it.

Game 10: Pirates 1 Reds 0

1-0? Really? Seems like that never happens any more, and when it does it's rarely in the favor of the Pirates. Still, that's what happened last night as the Pirates and Reds snuck a game in around the rain, managing to combine for 12 hits and 1 run between the two teams. The in-game delay probably came at the perfect time for the Pirates, as it seemed like Paul Maholm was about to hit the wall and the Reds were threatening with two runners on and one out in the sixth. When things came back from the delay, John Grabow put out the fire, Jason Bay hit a deeeeep bomb to left field (don't look now, but Bay's up to .281/.452/.500 after his ugly start), and then nothing happened the rest of the way out in terms of scoring and the Pirates managed to stop their losing streak at 3.

Other various notes from this one: I wasn't terribly impressed with Edinson Volquez in this one. We didn't hit much off of him, but he wasn't really putting much past us. Maybe it was the rain, or the fact that I spent most of the time watching the Pens' game. Marte came in and did a nice job shutting down the Reds over 1 and 1/3 and lowering his ERA to 10.80. He's going to feel that opening week disaster for a looong time. And finally, Nyjer Morgan is dangerous in center field. I don't know how many people saw the last out, but it was a shot by Griffey into right center that Morgan and McLouth (who played right in the stead of Xavier Nady last night) were both tracking with McLouth clearly calling the ball loudly. I don't know if Morgan called him off, but he went ahead and made a clumsy looking leaping catch that almost took him right into McLouth. He also got thrown out on a steal attempt at second in which he beat the throw from a pitchout to the bag, but overslid second and was tagged out. I still haven't figured out what he's offering the team beyond blinding speed that he doesn't know how to take advantage of. And oh yeah, Luis Rivas made an error and went 0-for-3. Hurry back, Jack.

Here we go again

It's Paul Maholm vs. Edinson Volquez tonight as the Reds roll into PNC. If there's one type of pitching that gives the Pirates as much trouble as the journeyman, it's the young firethrower. Volquez is young and while I don't technically know what kind of stuff he has, he's got big minor league strikeout totals and that doesn't bode well, as far as I'm considered? Too early for a soul sucking losing streak? Never for the Pirates!

Now that's what I call logic

You've probably noticed that the Pirates have run into a TON of outs on the base paths so far this season. I know I certainly have. Luckily for us, Doug Mientkiewicz is ready to explain:

"If you play the game to win, you have to take chances," he said before the game last night. "If you play the game safely, you're not going anywhere. I think the safe way around here hasn't worked. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not here to lose."

OK, that makes sense. I get that. I'd rather watch a team and lose and play hard than lose and not play hard. Unfortunately Dougie keeps taking:

"In my case, was I out by 10 feet? Yeah. But it took a perfect throw. And the odds of a team getting three hits in a row in extra innings are pretty slim off a good bullpen. Hey, I'd rather go down swinging than being passive."

Somehow "out by ten feet" and "took a perfect throw" don't totally sync in my book. And having to no faith in the lineup isn't great either. But that's nothing compared to this:

"When word starts getting around the league that we're taking chances, those throws won't be on line for long," Mientkiewicz said. "You'll see outfielders picking up their heads a little faster to see what we're doing. I played on a team in Minnesota where we ran the bases like wild men. And we ran ourselves out of a lot of innings. And games. But we also created a lot of winning streaks in the long haul because we started to get other teams to throw the ball around. Nobody wanted to play us."

So, uh, if I understand correctly, running into outs on the basepaths will lead to other teams being afraid of the Pirates' prodigious base running skills, leading them to not throw the Pirates out as often? That's ... I don't know what that is. That's a guy that's frustrated at having been thrown out on the bases, I think.

Game 9: Cubs 7 Pirates 3

There is, as I'm sure many of you are aware, a Law of Cartoon Physics. It applies to any suspending of the laws of physics in favor of humor in cartoons. Certainly, the best known of these laws is that gravity is always suspended until the character notices that he's run off of the edge of a cliff, at which point, the character falls to their doom. Tonight, Matt Morris was quietly cruising along with a decent start until the sixth inning. At that point, I noticed he was having a decent little start and things quickly came crashing down as Geovany Soto, Reed Johnson, and Mark Fontenot (you know, the, erm, heart of the Cubs' order) began teeing off on Morris and things quickly got ugly.

About the only bright spots I can find in this game are that Morris and Evan Meek gave the bullpen the night off, Evan Meek wasn't embarrassingly awful, and Nate McLouth continues to hit like his bleach blonde hair is on fire. Beyond that? Well, we're nine games into the season and the Pirates are 3-6. Kind of a familiar feeling, isn't it?

This game will take at least four hours

Interesting subplot to the game tonight; the Cubs were going to scratch Rich Hill for Jason Marquis because of the way we've been hitting lefties lately or something like that. Then Jason Marquis felt sick, so they're going to start Hill anyways. Don't they know we're the Pirates?

This is a legitimately terrifying situation for the Pirates tonight. Their bullpen has been run into the ground during this first week of the season, but MATT MORRIS is on the mound for us tonight. If he doesn't get through at least six, we're probably completely screwed in this one. Relying that much on Matt Morris is not a recipe for success, unless he's starting against the Pirates. But hey, at least people will show up to the park tonight. Maybe.

Game 8: Cubs 6 Pirates 4

You know, it's kind of sad that no one beyond the 9,000 season ticket holders who bought tickets for this one (honestly, if more than 7,000 showed up, I'd be shocked) and ex-yinzers with Extra Innings or MLB.tv got to see this one, because it was an all around fairly solid game for the Pirates tonight. Well, except that they lost, but hey, we can't hope for too much in one game, right?

First things first, Zach Duke probably made his best start since he shut out the Cubs in early '06. He was actually making hitters look silly (namely Fukudome) when I switched over a couple times early on and the Cubs' announcers were commenting that they hadn't seen his fastball zip the way it did tonight in quite some time. Since the only time he's been successful in his career has been when he was mixing a lively two-seamer in with all of his other pitches, I'd say that's an encouraging sign. Throw in SIX strikeouts in seven innings while holding the Cubs to 8 hits but only one walk, and I'd say we had just about the best we can hope for from Duke.

Of course, John Russell had to throw a wrench into it by letting Duke throw more than 115 pitches for the second straight start. WTF, dude? Duke had elbow problems last year and he's still trying to find his stride after two down years and throwing a ton of pitches in April is not going to be the way to do that. I get that the bullpen's taxed by these early season games, but man, drop Rivas and call up Burnett. Do something that doesn't risk a player's health. Please.

Beyond that, the Pirates got two huge hits from the guys that they're supposed to be getting huge hits from. In a 2-1 game in the bottom of the 9th, Jason Bay lasered a home run to dead center off of closer Kerry Wood (how funny does that sound?) to tie things up. For all of the moaning that's been done about him, he had three hits tonight and every time I see him play, he looks a little better than the night before. Remember: all of April is a small sample size. After Phil Dumatrait gave up a bomb to Aramis Ramirez in the 14th, Adam LaRoche inexplicably responded with a home run on a rope to right field to tie things up again. I think my favorite part of it was how he dropped his bat and sprinted down the line like a 12-year old that just hit his first bomb because he was so excited to make contact. Of course, even that wasn't enough because Dumatrait continued to get rocked in the 15th (mostly because he's just not very good), leading to the 6-4 loss.

Of course, that is the problem with this game: we still lost. We lost mostly because Ryan Dempster dominated us for seven innings, holding us to only a single by Bay and striking out five over that span. How does that happen? How does this team have such a knack for making awful pitchers look good? We've really got to stop doing that.

Will anyone watch this game?

Expect PNC Park to be about as empty as you've ever seen it tonight, because the thrilling Zach Duke/Ryan Dempster pitching match up is going head to head with the first game of the Penguins/Senators series just down the banks of the Allegheny.

I'm not sure what it is with the NL Central and middling closers being converted to even more middling starters, but Ryan Dempster is joining Braden Looper in that club this year. Of course there was also a time when Dempster was a starter with a high upside, but that didn't pan out. Maybe it will this time around, but I'm not so sure. Regardless, I seem to recall the Pirates crushing Dempster when he was a starter with the Marlins and the Reds in the earlier part of this decade. That's really not applicable here, but it does provide a nice feeling of comfort. Zach Duke is looking to build on a so-so first start and luckily for him, Brian Bixler will probably be starting his first game at short instead of Luis Rivas. Since Duke isn't likely to strike a ton of people out, having Rivas the Butcher out of the field will be nice.

And yes, I'll allow Penguin talk in the gamethread, though Pirate talk is, as always, encouraged.

Some quick links

Charlie's got a good look at the Rule 5 draft today. With the Evan Meek situation, it's a particularly relevant topic for discussion right now. To throw in my own two cents (because you know I can't resist), the draft has become more of a fishing operation than it was originally intended to be, I think. It was initially intended to be a tool to punish actions like the Dodgers stowing Roberto Clemente in AAA or to give a guy like Josh Hamilton another chance and some of that still happens today, but more and more often it's become a tool for a team like the Pirates to try and snag a useful player out of the blue, even if he's not ready for the bigs it hurts his development.

Along the same lines, this story about the Pirates' new value on power arms is interesting. It's got a telling quote from Ian Snell:

"Are you kidding?" said Ian Snell, the Pirates' lone power starter. "Did you see Atlanta's bullpen? Every one of those guys came out throwing flames against us. And you know what? You look around at other teams' bullpens, and you see a lot of that now. Hopefully, Neal and the new people he's brought in will do a better job of finding guys like that for us."

It must be incredibly frustrating to play for a team run by Dave Littlefield.

It's Donnie Iris n'at

Thanks to Anthony for coming through with the pic from yesterday.


Is it just me, or is Donnie Iris like 4 feet shorter than Lou Piniella? All I know is this: if he was singing God Bless America as well as the National Anthem, we definitely would've won in 9 innings yesterday.

Thor Returns!

Pirates sign Craig Wilson to a minor league deal

The play

Seeing everyone hang Brian Bixler out to dry for the failed bunt play in the ninth inning yesterday is driving me insane. According to the recap in the PG, the team seems to be breaking the play down thusly:

1. The Pirates have practiced safety squeezes all spring.
2. Bautista just pulled one off last week.
3. No one from the dugout gave Bautista a signal to bunt, meaning he did it on his own.
   
4. Bixler failed to score, and that's his and only his fault.
   

I have not seen the play and will accept the fact that had Bixler broken properly, he would've scored. It still drives me completely insane to see him made a scapegoat for this play.

A safety squeeze is a rather difficult play to pull off properly in any context. If you're unsure of what it is, basically, the hitter lays down the bunt and the runner is supposed to run once he sees the bunt is laid down. In theory, this prevents the runner from barreling into a catcher who's holding on to a missed bunt. Instead, it often results in hesitation and runners being thrown out at the plate, or runners not running at all. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but if I had to guess I'd say that the number of people that score on safety squeezes in which everyone is working in concert would surprisingly small (if you can prove me wrong on that claim, I invite you do so because as I said, I'm just guessing here). Had Russell called for the squeeze from the dugout and Bixler had been thrown out, I would've been fairly upset but at least seen some kind of defensible logic in the play, especially since it worked last week in Atlanta.

The problem is that he didn't call for the bunt from the dugout. Bautista took it upon himself to lay the bunt down with the assumption being that Bixler would know what to do. The problem is that properly executing the safety squeeze is a split second reaction that a runner has to be ready for. When Bautista squared around, Bixler's first thought likely wasn't, "Safety squeeze! Going on contact!" It was much more probably, "Holy f*$k! Did I miss a sign?!?" You can call that bad baseball instincts if you want, but Jose Bautista is not a bunter. I understand that he made the same play work last week, but it only happened with a sign coming from the dugout and everyone on the same page. Unless Tony Beasley reminded him about the team's "Bunt whenever you want, even if it isn't prudent" situation, there's no reason Bixler should've been thinking about a bunt if one hadn't been signaled. He's not on third thinking about going on contact, he's on third thinking about what kind of ground balls he should be running on. The split second that it takes to rewire your brain for something entirely unexpected is a split second too long.

There are two things that drive me insane about this play. If Russell wants to have a "bunt whenever policy," then there absolutely should be a signal from the batter to the runner, especially if the runner is on third base. If it's simply and constantly changing, no one will ever be the wiser. The runner is already worrying about a million things on third and to expect him to be able to keep up with the whims of the batter as well is crazy. Generally, standing on third goes like this in a close game:

"Watchbackfootbackfootstepintoleadwhere'sthefielderbackfootbackfoot
tagonflyhowdeepisdeepenoughholycrapwhatdoidoonagrounderintheinfield?"

The other thing that drives me nuts is Jose Bautista's lack of faith in himself. To me, laying that bunt down was Bautista screaming, "I DON'T THINK I CAN GET A HIT OR EVEN A FLY BALL! PLEASE GOD DON'T LET ME STRIKE OUT OR HIT INTO A DOUBLE PLAY! BASEBALL IS HAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRD!" He's not a bunter and he shouldn't possibly feel more comfortable about laying down a successful safety squeeze than hitting a sac fly or a single. Yes, a ground ball could lead to a double play, but so could a bad bunt! In fact, in that situation it's going to take an absolutely perfect bunt to score a run, but it wouldn't take a perfect hit. Maybe Bautista saw something in the field that the coaches didn't, but it's still going to take luck for a play like that to work if the runner isn't clued in. A hitter that's worried about a possible bad outcome is a hitter that has no chance in this league.

So if you're keeping track at home, I think that it was stupid of Bautista to think that Bixler would know what to do if he squared around to bunt. I think it was probably cowardly of Bautista to defer to a bunt in that situation. I think it's inexcusable that Russell hasn't instituted a signal between the batter and the runner for situations like this, and I think it's terrifying that Russell has created an environment in which he's defending Bautista for dropping down a bunt in a situation that he had no reasonable reason to do so. In all honesty, I think it was one of the stupidest baseball plays I have ever seen. You can disagree with me on this, but short of someone saying, "Bixler missed the sign," there's nothing you can say that's changing my mind.

Game 7: Cubs 10 Pirates 8

If there's anything in the world that I hate, it's stupid baseball. Stupid baseball drives me insane. The Pirates pretty much define stupid baseball in every way you can. Today's game was full of stupid plays and moves, including one of the stupidest plays I have ever seen on a baseball field.

If you missed today's game, the play in question happened in the 9th inning with the score tied 8-8. With one out and runners on the corners, Jose Bautista laid down a bunt. Brian Bixler, standing on third base, didn't budge. Derrek Lee fielded the ball and tagged Bautista while Doug Mientkiewicz advanced to second. Of course, that meant nothing at all except that the sacrifice fly was now out of play and the inning ended without the Pirates scoring, leading the 11-inning loss. There are only so many things that could've happened on that play:

1. Brian Bixler missed a squeeze sign.
   
2. Jose Bautista misread a sign.
3. John Russell is the biggest moron to ever put on a baseball cap.
4. Jose Bautista is the biggest moron to ever put on a baseball cap.
   

I'm being told that after the game, Russell said that Bautista bunted on his own volition and he was, "just trying to make something happen." If that's honestly true, Bautista should be cut right now because there's just not room on the baseball field for people that stupid. With a runner on third and one out in a tie game, there's NO WAY IN HELL that he scores on a bunt that he doesn't know is happening. It's literally not possible unless someone makes an error, which was taken out of the equation when Bautista bunted the ball to first base. Honestly, I don't know how or why Bautista thought this was a good idea. He's not a good bunter and all things considered, I would probably classify him as a fly ball hitter. I think even a squeeze in that situation is mildly crazy, but to bunt on his own is the most insane thing I've literally ever heard.

This is what I was talking about when I said that the "culture of losing" was impossible to change without changing the players. Maybe Bautista bunted because of all the emphasis put on doing the little things right by Russell this spring. Maybe he missed a sign and Russell didn't want to hang his rookie out in public this early in the year. Maybe he's a wuss that was afraid of striking out in the most clutch of situations. Maybe Russell didn't know the situation and gave the bunt sign, then was embarrassed to own up to it after the game. Maybe Bautista is quite literally the stupidest person on the face of the planet. I'm really doubting that Bixler missed the sign as everyone that's seen the play has told me that there was no angry reaction directed towards him from Tony Beasley and Dejan recounts that Bixler was "livid" when the play happened. That means that there's literally no excuse for the play. Confusing a fly ball in the outfield is bad, but not knowing the situation is a thousand times more unforgivable. Bautista should be embarrassed and Russell should be LIVID.

UPDATE: The PG updated the article between when I wrote that and when I posted. The team's official position now seems to be to blame Bixler, even though I can still find no indication that the play was called for from the dugout. That's what I call misplaced blame. In fact, this will get its own post later tonight.

The thing is, that play was just one stupid play in a game full of them. In the seventh inning, Nyjer Morgan got caught trying to steal second with two outs and Nate McLouth was at the plate, taking the bat out of the team's hottest hitters' hand. Since I'm assuming Morgan always has the green light, this could be his fault or it could be Russell's fault. Regardless, it's still a stupid play. To even risk taking the bat out of McLouth and maybe Sanchez's hands is just a foolish play in a tie game. Of course, Morgan was in the game because Russell chose the sixth inning of a game he was losing as a good time to put McLouth in left and Morgan in center. It's likely that Russell will claim it was a defensive move, but that's a dubious claim at best because I'm not sure that McLouth/Morgan is that much of a better tandem than Bay/McLouth. More than likely, it's because Russell is sending a "message" to Bay for his slow start because the fans have completely turned on the guy and Russell's spring stump speech was all about accountability. I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. Bay is, by leaps and bounds, the team's most talented player. Yes, he's struggling. Still, he's been a slow starter the past couple years and he's certainly not struggling for lack of effort because every time I've seen him (with the exception of that pop-up in the opener that was equally McLouth's fault), he's moving in the field like he hasn't in two years. Bay playing well is integral to whatever it is the Pirates want to do this year. Maybe he won't do that, but there's no way to tell at this point in the season.

Amazingly, the course of this game made me almost forget about how awful Gorzelanny was to start this game. In less than three innings, he only got 36 of 70 pitches across the plate and of those 36, six went for hits. That's two straight starts that he's struggled with control and according to MLB.com's Gameday, most of his fastballs were sub-90 mph. Since I harped on his health all spring you can probably guess what I'm going to say next: I think Gorzo's hurt and that's a terrifying thing for this team. I can also add that I think the Evan Meek experiment is probably going to be a short one, but you already knew that and there's no use harping on that. This game was lost long before he got into the game.

We're seven games in and I don't see any reason to think that this team isn't the same old Pirates.

The home opener

Today is probably one of the saddest days since I've moved to Chapel Hill. Except for the odd year here or there, I've been to just about every home opener since I think 1995, which was the year of the famous inside the park bunt home run for the Expos that resulted in the field being pelted with miniature flags. This year I'll be in lab following along on GameCast. Boo.

Today the Cubbies roll into town against Tom Gorzelanny. I'm interested to see who starts at catcher, as lefty Ted Lily is on the mound for the Cubbies. Ryan Doumit is killing the ball and managers often like treat the home opener as the "true" opening day, since it's the first game in front of the home fans. If Doumit's starting tomorrow, this team is pretty serious about making Doumit the #1 catcher this year.

I can tell from the comments that lots of WHYGAVS readers will be at the game, but if you're stuck at work like me, feel free to talk it up in the thread here. I know I probably will be.

Pirates/Cubs, Gorzo/Lily, Russell/Sweet Lou. Donnie Iris. 1:35. This video will rock your world.

Jack Wilson goes on the DL

The Pirates' middle infield situation is quickly becoming ugly. After six games, Chris Gomez and Luis Rivas have almost as many ABs as Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson. The Pirates may be 3-3, but that's not a recipe for great baseball. Accordingly, Wilson's going to go on the DL to nurse his hamstring injury so that Brian Bixler can come up and play full-time while he and Freddy recoup. Even if Wilson's injury isn't serious, he's not a terribly great player while he's hurt, so it makes a lot of sense to give him ample time to recover. I'm not really sold on Bixler from the small amount I've seen him play and his minor league stats, but I'd certainly rather see him every day than Rivas or Gomez.

While I was gone ...

Interestingly, the Pirates decided to go ahead and play their entire series with Marlins even though I couldn't watch or write about it. Here's what happened (as if you don't already know):

Friday: Matt Morris made his lackluster season debut (5 innings, 4 runs (3 earned), 8 hits, 2 walks, three strikeouts). Somehow, a lineup with Luis Rivas and Chris Gomez scored enough runs to keep the game tied going into the bottom of the 9th, which is when Mike Jacobs hit a walkoff grand slam. I am glad that I didn't watch this game.

Saturday: Jacobs strikes again with a grand slam off of Paul Maholm and the Pirates lose 7-3.
Beyond that, Maholm's line looks pretty impressive to me with 9 Ks in five innings and only 5 hits and a walk allowed. The again, two of those hits were homers and that's not really a good thing.

Sunday: Ian Snell did a nice job today as stopper, striking out ten and holding the Marlins to one earned run (2 total) in his six innings today. The Pirates rolled out a lineup today that probably wouldn't beat some AAA clubs (Morgan, Gomez, and Rivas all started), but the Marlins are basically a glorified AAA club, so it worked out nicely for us.

Some thoughts: I wouldn't read a whole lot into Bay and LaRoche not playing today. The team has said Bay's going to sit some here and there and with a day game today followed by a day game tomorrow creating some tight travel schedules and putting extra stress on the players, I believe Russell when he says that today was a day he had Bay scheduled to be off. Same goes for LaRoche, who's I think has also been bothered by something. If they're on the bench tomorrow, THEN you can start drawing conclusions.

Meanwhile, Nate McLouth, Xavier Nady, and Ryan Doumit are all killing the ball. Before Snell pitched today, the rotation had been mostly lackluster. I'm even hesitant to get really psyched about Snell's outing today since Maholm, who's not a strikeout pitcher, whiffed 9 in 5 yesterday. I still do not trust anyone in the bullpen. Chris Gomez had a surprisingly solid weekend.

The first day game

Ian Snell and Rick Vanden Hurk. Considering that I am writing this on Thursday night, I have no idea what to say about this game. I know that Ian Snell is way better than Rick Vanden Hurk, though.

Anyways, I'll be back later tonight to recap what I missed and get ready for the home opener.

Maholm's back

Paul Maholm and Mark Hendrickson in this one. Hendrickson is Florida's opening day starter, but only because someone has to start the first game of the year. The key to this one is Maholm's back, which has bothered him on and off for quite some time now. I don't buy all the "Maholm is the swing guy in the rotation" stuff, but I do know that if he's hurt, someone that is much, much worse than him will take his place in the rotation. Thus his back, and accordingly, John Russell's willingness to hang a giant pitch count on him like he did to Zach Duke on Thursday, are things to keep an eye on.

The Money Line

Everyone talks about A-Rod making more money than the Marlins as the big story, but really, I think it's a whole lot more hilarious that Matt Morris probably makes more than their entire starting lineup. A whole lot of my sanity this spring is going to depend on Matt Morris. If he sucks, I may literally go insane.

Out for the weekend

I've got a couple of pieces of site news. I'm going to be without internet access from today until Sunday night, which is why I've published the massive end to the Flash Foward below. Awesomely, Blogger is testing out a beta function that allows you to future date your posts for whenever you please. That means that despite the fact that I'm out of town, gamethreads will publish for tonight's game, Saturday night's game, and Sunday's game so you all will have a place to talk about the game, if you so please. I've set them to appear an hour before each night's games.

The second piece of news really isn't news. I'm just curious if anyone going to the game on Monday is going to be sitting close enough to the plate to get a solid picture of Donnie Iris and if you are, whether or not you'd send it to me for blog-related purposes (let's just say that WHYGAVS might be getting its first mascot). You don't have to make me any promises or anything, but if you do get one and want to share, the e-mail address is on the right so hit me up.

I almost typed "See y'all Sunday" here. Holy crap, I've been in the south for too long. See yinz Sunday.

Here's how it would happen: August and September 2008

I honestly think the Pirates have no chance to contend or even finish .500 this year, but the truth is that there must be some sequence of events, no matter how improbable, that can take place that would bring home an NL Central pennant for the Bucs in 2008. It's probably just because I've watched too much LOST lately, but I'm going to write a series of flash-forwards dealing with the one alternate dimension in a million in which the Pirates win the NL Central in 2008. Someone hit the gas on the infinite improbability drive ...

I had hoped to finish this before the season, but let's knock the rest of it out of the park tonight. We're only taking this to the end of the regular season. You can use your imagination from there if you like. Anyways, the Bucs finished up July at 59-48, tied with the Brewers and two games ahead of the Cubs. If you've missed the earlier editions and are just starting now, check out April, May, June and July.

August 3rd- The Pirates lose to the Cubs 3-1, losing the early August series to the Cubbies 2 games to 1. That puts the Brewers in first place, one game ahead of the Pirates (now 60-50), and two ahead of the Cubs.
WHYGAVS: Buckle, up. If the Pirates are somehow winning this thing it's gonna be one helluva ride from here on out. This division is a three team race and it's going to be that way for the long haul. Really, we should just be excited that it's a three team race because we are definitely the third wheel here. But hey, this is no race compared to superbike racing, am I right?

August 8th- Jason Bay hits his 25th homer as the Pirates (62-52) beat the Phillies 5-3 and pull back even with the D'Backs. Ian Snell gets his 13th win of the year.
WHYGAVS: It's really uncanny. Every single time I think that the Pirates might be getting ready to drop out of this thing, they come roaring back with a huge performance from someone and get a big win.

August 16th- In what is probably the game of the year at PNC Park, Tom Gorzelanny and Oliver Perez lock horns and trade strikeouts and zeros for eight innings in a battle of first place teams. Through eight, Perez strikes out 14 and Gorzo strikes out a career high 10. Carlos Beltran homers off of Gorzo in the top of the ninth, but the Pirates tie it in the bottom half of the inning when Nyjer Morgan hits a pinch-hit double for Gorzelanny, then scores from second on a fly out hit by Nate McLouth to Moises Alou, who takes his time getting the ball back into the infield after tracking the ball down in the gap. The game ends in the 13th when Jack Wilson draws a bases loaded walk from Jorge Sosa. The Pirates move to 66-55.
WHYGAVS: Some nights you can sit down and watch a baseball game and know right away that it's going to be special. Tonight was one of those nights. Gorzo and Ollie combined to throw 17 pitches to set down their respective opponents in order in the first inning with a combined four strikeouts. They cruised unlike any duo I've seen at PNC since maybe the first time Ollie emerged. In the fall when the Steelers win a close game, I always like to say that "That's the type of game that a good team finds a way to win." I'm still surprised I'm saying this, but this game tonight was a game that a good team finds a way to win, and the Pirates pulled this one out.

August 20- The Cardinals destroy a listless Pirates team 10-2, dropping them to 67-58 and out of first place for the first time since the 3rd of the month.
WHYGAVS: It's weird how often the mood of the team can mirror the mood of the fans. We all know that the Pirates are ending this month with 9 games against the Brewers and Cubs and the team certainly played like they know it, as well. Dropping out of first sucks, but they'll certainly get their chance to fight their way back.

August 24th- Pirates (68-60) lose to the Brewers 2-0, dropping the series and falling 2 games behind the division pace.
WHYGAVS: Sometimes you run into a buzzsaw, and that's what Ben Sheets was tonight. I always say at FanHouse that the key to the Brewers winning the division is a healthy Sheets and it's easy to see why. He's been healthy this year and the Brewers are in first place. Sometimes things really are that simple.

August 27th- In front of a capacity crowd at PNC, Aramis Ramirez boots a ground ball
with the go ahead run on third and the Pirates win 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth to take two from the Cubs.
WHYGAVS: There are moments in life that I feel certain that karma must exist. Jack Wilson scorching a ground ball through Aramis Ramirez's legs is one of them.

August 31st- Nate McLouth hits his 18th home run of the season to give the Pirates a 6-5 lead over the Brewers in the bottom of the eight. Matt Capps nails down the save to close out the sweep of the Brewers and put the Pirates one game ahead of the Brewers (and 3 ahead of the Cubs) for the division, closing August out at 73-61.
WHYGAVS: What a huge win for the Pirates. I mean, really, this team just keeps taking things to another level every time the situation demands it. There's one month left to go and the Pirates are in first place? Is this a dream? If it is, please don't spoil my day, I'm miles away, and after all, I'm only sleeping.

September: (sorry, we're gonna do some skipping ahead, if I don't finish this tonight, real baseball will warp my perception of this team way too much to do this and these things take me forever to write) Through most of the month, the Pirates, Brewers, and Cubs play fairly even baseball and trade places at the top of the division. A late season cold streak brings the Pirates into the final day of the season tied with the Brewers, one game behind the Cubs. The Pirates play in San Diego while the Brewers and Cubs face off in Milwaukee. In the first inning of the Pirates game, Prince Fielder hits a walk-off home run in Milwaukee to defeat the Cubs. Adam LaRoche sees the scoreboard change while in the on-deck circle and promptly hits a grand slam. The Pirates beat the Padres 9-1, creating a three way tie for the divisional lead. A series of coin-tosses creates the three-way playoff system: the Pirates and Brewers play in Milwaukee on Monday, September 29th, the winner then plays the Cubs at home on Tuesday the 30th.

September 29th: Ian Snell dominates the Brewers with a 2-hit shutout, striking out 12 and picking up his 20th win. The Pirates only scrape one run off of Yovani Gallardo when Nate McLouth walks, steals both second and third on Jason Kendall, then scores on Jason Bay's sac fly. In the top of the ninth with a 1-0 lead, Rickie Weeks on first, two outs, and Prince Fielder at the plate, John Russell comes out of the dugout. Snell stares a hole in him as he approaches the mound with Damaso Marte ready in the pen to face the left-handed Fielder. Firm, but not angry words are exchanged, and Snell remains on the mound. He strikes out Fielder with three pitches to clinch the win.
WHYGAVS: Ian Snell might be the ballsiest pitcher in the major leagues. Tonight's game demanded no less than his best tonight, and Snell rewarded us with the single best performance of his short career. He hit 95 on the gun with the last pitch that he blew past the probable NL-MVP Fielder. For two years, we've all admired Snell for his brash nature, but tonight he backed up every word he's said. This is a game that will be remember forever in Pittsburgh Pirate history. Honestly, I want to keep typing, but words don't do this justice. Somehow, we've got to pull ourselves together and do this again tomorrow. I can't wait.

September 30th: It's evident from the get-go that neither Tom Gorzelanny nor Carlos Zambrano have their A-games. The Cubs hang a 3-spot on the Bucs in the first and the Pirates respond with a lead-off homer by McLouth and back-to-back doubles by Bay and LaRoche. Both starters are chased in the third inning as the runs pile up. Going into the bottom of the ninth, the Pirates trail 10-8. Ryan Doumit and Jose Bautista strike out, bringing Jack Wilson to the plate to face Kerry Wood. Jack doubles, pinch-hitter Doug Mientkiewicz draws a walk, and Nate McLouth singles Wilson home and Mientkiewicz to third. With the season on the line, Freddy Sanchez walks into the batters' box. Freddy takes two balls, then a strike. In working the count full from there, he fouls seven pitches off. PNC Park is silent. Wood stares in and on the 13th pitch of the at bat, tries to jam Freddy hard on the hands with a 97 mph fastball. Freddy gets around on it and just drops it over Aramis' Ramirez's head, skipping down the line, bouncing off the abutting stands, and kicking in front of Alfonso Soriano, who has to race way in and comes up throwing. Mientkiewicz scores easily and McLouth flies in head-first under Geovany Soto's tag ... the Pirates beat the Cubs 11-10 and win the NL Central.
WHYGAVS: THE PIRATES WIN IT! THE PIRATES WIN IT! OH MY GOD, THE PIRATES WIN IT!!!

Jack Wilson's injury "not serious"

Good news on the injury front as Jack Wilson's injury, which looked scary when it happened, is being described as a calf strain and "not serious." When it happened he didn't even put any weight on his leg while running down the line, so I immediately feared for the worst. By the time the trainers got him off the field, though, he looked a lot better. The PG seems to think the injury stemmed from the dirty-but-not-illegal slide into his legs by Matt Diaz into second base. I'll buy that, especially if I get to blame Bobby Cox for managing a dirty team. Freaking Bobby Cox thinks he's so smart. Xavier Nady sure showed him.