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.