A return to the NL

I had wanted to put some mid-season review stuff up today after reading Dejan's piece, but I delayed my return to NC until today, which meant a full day in the car spent not blogging (or working, but you don't care about that). I'm back in time for tonight's game, though, which means I get to watch the Pirates triumphant return to National League baseball after two long, strange weeks playing the AL. The interleague trip wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been (final record on the two weeks: 5-9 with one game left), which probably speaks to something about this team after two terrible losses in Baltimore and a brutal sweep at the hands of the White Sox.

Tonight the Bucs get to transition back to the NL against the Reds in Cincinnati. It's tempting to say this should be a cakewalk for the Pirates after their recent brutal stretch against the White Sox, Yankees, and Rays with only the Blue Jays as a breather, but the Reds and Pirates are pretty similar in a lot of ways. They're only separated by one game in the standings right now and just like the Pirates, are good at home and bad on the road. The Reds are 21-17 at Great American, while the Pirates are just 13-24 away from PNC. Paul Maholm gets to start tonight on semi-short rest, but it shouldn't matter since his last outing was cut after just two innings against the Yankees on Thursday. Hopefully he'll look a lot better tonight than he did when I was there last week, which saw the Yanks open the game up with four straight doubles. He'll face Aaron Harang, who's been pretty good this year and certainly much better than his 3-10 record indicates.

The final piece of intrigue in this one is John Russell's choice to bat Maholm eighth and Jack Wilson ninth. Batting a non-pitcher ninth is actually a technically sound move and it might work since Wilson's on base percentage is pretty high, though his .346 rate right now is an artifact of his high batting average (.311). He did manage to hit two doubles over the weekend, which almost doubled his season total for extra base hits (he had three going in) and he usually rakes at Great American, so maybe this is one of those situations where JR pushes a button that seems like a head scratcher, but it ends up working anyways.

The Rays series

Being mostly out of commission, internet-wise, the past few days means that I'm just going to do one large recap of the entire Tampa Bay series in order to save space and because I don't have a whole lot to say about it, being distracted through Friday's game, completely missing last night's thriller, and splitting time between today's game and the Euro final.

On Friday, Jimmy Barthmaier looked kind of what I expected him to look like. I think the guy's a decent prospect, but before Friday he only had a handful of starts beyond AA. He had some decent stuff, but he got lit up by the Rays, who are probably the second best team in the AL right now. The trouble with the rotation necessitated the start, but he's definitely not ready. The 7-0 hole he put us in just proved to be too big for the Pirates against Kazmir and the Rays pen, as Sean Burnett (who actually pitched OK for most of the night) and Grabow gave them three more runs. Of course, I was paying so much attention to this game that it took three innings to realize Chris Gomez was starting at first base and five innings to realize Carlos Pena was playing for the Rays.

Saturday's game was another marathon event ended on a Jason Bay walk-off home run. I always find it interesting when a guy goes 0/5 on the night, then launches the winning homer in his sixth at-bat. After spending all of his career prior to this year without recording a walk-off hit, Bay's now got three in the past couple months. Will it be his last hurrah in a Pirate uniform? I guess we'll see. The other thing to note was that Ty Taubenheim had a pretty solid Pirate debut and the bullpen turned in seven awesome innings, including two from TJ Beam and one from JVB, to set Bay up for the win. Funny how good pitching tends to equal wins, isn't it?

Today's game saw a rather disappointing loss, but it did see Tom Gorzelanny make his second straight solid start, striking out eight in six innings today. He might be turning a corner, but I don't want to get my hopes up. His start wasn't enough for the win today as Tyler Yates got knocked around for two runs, which were helped by Xavier Nady's ugly throwing error.

INTERLEAGUE PLAY IS (mostly) OVER! IT'S TIME TO CELEBRATE!!!

WHYGAVS Night Photo Essay

What happens when a bunch of people who only know each other through the internet go to a bar and watch a baseball game? Lots of things that aren't exactly watching a baseball game.
Putting faces with commenter names we've got (from the left) BW Zimmerman, Curtis, TJ, Emma, me, Brian, Gavin, and APK. As planned, we met up at Firewaters before the game for a couple drinks, then headed over to the ballpark. Once we got to the park things quickly went sour, as Evan Longoria bombed a three run homer off of Jimmy Barthmaier and allowed us to turn our focus to other things.
Meanwhile, my friends continued their tradition of wandering off to Bucaroos to order the cheapest food in the park. My friend Alex ordered literally one of everything on the menu there. This was the response he got.
Meanwhile, we were up in the stands, laughing about something. Or maybe one of us had a little too much to drink. Definitely possible. Also, Gavin's Willie Stargell jersey was sweet , and BW Zimmerman is one hardcore Pirate fan.
Soon the (younger) Brothers Lackey showed up. Sitting in the black polo shirt is my brother's friend Chip, who made the famous "Doug Mint Cabbage" comment during one of the Vin Scully games in early April.
Very quickly, we started rooting for a Kazmir no-hitter. Freddy Sanchez ended our hopes of that with his solo homer.
Shortly after that, the Pirates actually began to mount a comeback. We turned our attention to the game, but then the Pirates' bullpen got involved. Just look at those grimaces.
Around the fifth or sixth inning, my wonderful friends (who are still endlessly amused that people actually read a blog written by me ... if you knew me better you would probably understand this reaction) engaged the guys behind us in a conversation about WHYGAVS?. These gentlemen seemed rather impressed. They may be radio DJs. APK was more interested in the worst cheeseburger ever.

Ooo! Moving pictures!
Anyways, despite Barthmaier's rough outing (we'll talk more about that later in a big weekend recap post), we had a pretty awesome time not watching the Pirates get skunked by the Rays. Special thanks to the official WHYGAVS? Night photographer, my friend Jen.
There's more pictures on Facebook and while I can provide the link, you won't be able to see them until she makes her album public (which she may or may not do after I posted that picture). And of course, thanks to everyone for actually showing up. It's definitely something we're going to have to try and do again in the future.

A regular starter!

You know what's really hard to do? Write about a game taking place on Sunday at 1:35 PM when it's actually in the vicinity of 3 AM on Friday. What I know about this game is that Tom Gorzelanny and Andy Sonnastine will start. What I don't know is just about everything else.

Taubenheim!

For quite some time, Ty Taubenheim was a pretty good prospect in the Blue Jays organization. He's kind of tailed off in the past few years, but he's been pretty decent with Indianapolis this year despite his 4-9 record. He's a big guy (6'6") and only 25, so it's easy to see why Huntington was interested in him this winter. Like Barthmaier (I'm writing this in the wee hours of Friday morning, maybe Barthmaier throws a gem on Friday night, who knows?) I don't know if he's ready for this call-up, but I do think that he's a pitcher that's worth a look for the Pirates and so I'm interested to see what he does with this start (even though I'll be at a wedding reception and miss the whole thing).

The WHYGAVS Night Gamethread

With many of the regular commenters at the game and it being Friday night already, action in this thread will probably be light. Still, it's going up so that I can say that one day, I hope that the Pirates can emulate what they Rays have done. They tried this novel idea of taking top talent with high draft picks and suddenly, they've got a great young team. We've got one step in the right direction there. Maybe if we actually change the name of the team to the Bucs we can spur the process along.

Anyways, the big story tonight is Jimmy Barthmaier getting the start. He's pretty young (24) and seen a good bit of success in his five starts at AAA this year. That probably makes him our best pitching prospect in the upper level of the minors. I'm not sure he's ready for this assignment, but SOMEone has to start the game tonight and he's not John Van Benschoten or Brian Bullington, so I'm OK with it.

WHYGAVS Night

Tonight's the night. We're going to meet at Firewaters on Federal St. before the game around 6ish, then head into the park for the game and probaby hang around on the rotunda. Everyone that wants to stop by is welcome, whether you've previously indicated so or not, so long as you have a ticket (because I'm not providing those). If you're uncertain what to look for, keep an eye out for shirts that say WHYGAVS? on them or maybe this guy (me) with slightly shorter hair. Or just look the group of people carrying on like idiots. I don't know for sure this is going to happen, but I've got a hunch.

As a side programming note, posting is going to be light all weekend. I've got gamethreads set to go for every game, but I'm in Pittsburgh all day today, I've got a wedding to go to tomorrow, and then I've got to get myself back to North Carolina sometime between Sunday and Monday. I might get a post or two out there before then, but there's no guarantee.

I'm only happy when it Rain sucks

I've seen a lot of Pirate games in my life. Because of that, a lot of them tend to blend together. Going to PNC became more of a routine than anything during my years at Duquesne. You don't look forward to going to the bar, you go there because that's what you do. But then you spend a year away, and you look forward to going back, and then Paul Maholm gives up four straight doubles to open the game up, it rains, and you stand around for three hours until they cancel the game. What a f(*&ing drag.

In an humorless, evil twist of the universe I think the last time I was as excited for a Pirate game as I was tonight was back in 2004 when the Red Sox were in town and we had tickets for the 1903 throwback night. You know, the night that it rained and they canceled the game at 9:30 after two and a half hours of stalling. I kind of want to bitch and moan about how they got the squeegees out to clear the tarp off at 9:30 tonight to keep people in the park buying stuff, even though I don't think they had any intention of picking the game up tonight, but that's how every team does business and complaining about it would just be projecting my disappointment from missing the game onto things that have nothing to do with it.

To recap: I went to PNC Park, the Pirates looked pretty bad, and it rained. Glad to see everything's the same.

Return to PNC

After about 11 months away, I'm heading back to PNC Park tonight. The last time I was there, a message greeted us on the scoreboard that said, "Pirates trade OF Rajai Davis to the Giants for SP Matt Morris." Hopefully a similarly awful message does not await me tonight.

Anyways, Paul Maholm and Mike Mussina are going at it on the mound tonight, which is probably the closest thing that these two teams can muster to a pitcher's duel right now, especially given Maholm's nice run at PNC Park. It'd be nice to see the Pirates bounce back from last night's debacle and at least make things interesting, rather than slipping into the "OMGYankees!" stupor that they were in last year and for much of last night. My expectations aren't terribly high tonight, but sometimes it's just a great feeling to be able to go see a baseball game.

And if you're at the game and see an awesome looking dude in a shirt that says "WHYGAVS" taking pictures like a tourist ... it's definitely me.

The pitching shuffle

With two starters unavailable this weekend due to arm trouble and a newly acquired reliever that they have to fit into the staff somehow, the Pirates have some shuffling to do with their pitching staff. Today they announced that Jimmy Barthmaier will start Friday (hooray! no JVB on WHYGAVS Night!), John Van Benschoten will likely start Saturday, and the necessary reliever decision is still forthcoming. DK seems to think that Burnett, Osoria, and Beam are all candidates with Beam being likely to head down because he has options left and Burnett and Osoria likely to go away because they suck. Since the Pirates need to clear TWO roster spots, one for the newly acquired Denny Bautista and one for the Friday/Saturday starter, I'd be looking for Osoria to get his DFA and Beam to head back to Indy, then Barthmaier to go right back down after his start to make for Van Benschoten.

UPDATE (2 PM): Snell to DL. This complicates things interestingly. Until this morning they made it sound like he might pitch this weekend. Now, definitely not. As pointed out in the comments, they may not ditch a pitcher at all and send Morgan down to AAA to leave a bigger bullpen to deal with the unproven Barthmaier and the proven in the wrong was Van Benschoten.

Shawn Chacon choke slams Ed Wade

...

Yeah. It really happened. Looks like he's Latrell Sprewelled his career. I always thought he was a pretty laid back guy in Pittsburgh, so Wade must've pissed him off pretty bad. Oddly, this never happened to Dave Littlefield.

Game 78: Yankees 10 Pirates 0

There is a reason that the saying, "You're never as good as you seem on your best day and you're never as bad as you seem on your worst day," exists. Last night was an awesome night for the Pirates and us Pirate fans, but at the same time it really was just one game in the grand scheme of the seasons. Tonight's game was awful for the Pirates, but it's just one more game in the season. Every single one of us would've been ecstatic with a split and a chance to take the series tomorrow and that's what the Pirates have.

That said, tonight's game was pretty ugly. Joba Chamberlain dominated us from the get go and thanks to some ugly plays in the field and some brain-dead plays (with Jeter on third base, Jose Bautista shifted into the Giambi shift, leaving Duke to repeatedly run off the mound to chase Jeter back to third and not focus on getting Giambi out) we were behind from the get-go, which is never really the position you want to be in with the Yankees offense involved. They piled more runs on TJ Beam and things stayed ugly for the whole game.

Side note: the Pirates traded for reliever Denny Bautista before the game. They have to make room for him and my gut says that this might be the end of Wreck Specs.

More Yankees

Joba the Hutt and Zach the Duke, tonight at 7:05. I assume that PNC Park will be electric again tonight after last night's huge win. Hopefully I'll have myself in radio range for this game, so that I can beat my head off of my steering wheel when Greg Brown says stupid crap like, "Joey Bats, did he? YES HE DID!!!" I'm kind of worried that, "Did he? YES HE DID!!!" is his new home run call and it's downright awful. Anyways, you all know the Joba story. He's a great young prospect that's under a huge magnifying glass because he plays for the Yankees and dominated out of the bullpen this year. The starting rotation is a bit different and he's still on a pretty strict count, so if we can work him early we can get to the Yankees pen early and their pen isn't much different from our pen.

Driving

In the car today, heading back for PA and tomorrow night's game. I have a thread set to go for the game tonight and hopefully I'll be in radio range by the time the game starts. Meanwhile, as I'm cruising through Virginia and West Virginia (except in Summersville, no cruising there, just being paranoid, glancing over my shoulder, and praying I don't get a ticket for doin' 55 in a 54) listening to my George Carlin audiobooks or my iPod on shuffle going "I have THIS song?!? WHYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!" I'll be thinking about how happy it makes me that the third largest crowd in the history of PNC Park wasn't there for fireworks and wasn't there for bobbleheads, but instead they were there for baseball.

And while I was excited to come home and see some baseball before last night's game, now I'm freaking pumped for Thursday and Friday (Friday is WHYGAVS Night ... did you know? 6 PM, Firewaters, be there).

Game 77: Pirates 12 Yankees 5

There is a strong desire on my part to say something along the lines of, "Whatever, this is just another win for the Pirates. When the season ends a win tonight looks the same as a win on any other night of the year," for this recap. It is, after all, at least one version of the truth about tonight's win over the Yankees. Still, this win feels like something more. Not in the "this is a turning point to the season," just not in the "turning point of the season" kind of way.

There is a reason that this game means more to a lot of fans, myself include. The reason is history. When I was a kid that was first discovering baseball I devoured baseball history. I once read a giant baseball almanac-type book from cover to cover and according to family legend, I was able to put a World Series winner to any year that people cared to name (I'm not certain this is true and even if it is it's not really that hard, I mean if you guess Yankees you've got a 25% chance of nailing it). As a kid, I quite often challenged my local library's rule of taking out three or less books on one subect. One book that I devoured several times that still stands out in my mind was the biography of Lou Gehrig. Say what you want about the Yankees, but Lou Gehrig will always be one of my favorite all-time non-Pittsburgh athletes.

And that's the reason that this series matters to fans. The history. In some ways, there are a lot of people that couldn't care less what the Pirates record is in 2008 so long as they beat the Yankees. The 1960 World Series, capped off by Mazeroski's home run, is a series for the ages. That Pirate team beating that Yankee team is the reason they play the games. The 1927 World Series saw a mostly forgotten Pirate team get smoked by one of the best lineups of all-time. Every franchise is tied to the Yankees. Every baseball fan knows their history almost as much as they their own team's.

Tonight, as the Pirates cruised with a 12-3 lead in the ninth inning and Franquellis Osoria on the mound, mopping up the last three outs, the fans stood on their feet and chanted, "LET'S GO BUCS! LET'S GO BUCS!" And maybe this game was on the North Side of Pittsburgh with an awful reliever on the mound as a bad Pirate team closed out a win over a struggling Yankee team in mid-June, but for one night everyone in the stands might as well have been in Oakland at Forbes Field in October of 1960, watching Roy Face close out a surprising Game 1 win over the vaunted Yankees, and singing, "The Bucs are going all the way!" That's what baseball can do to you sometimes, and that's why sometimes stupid interleague games in June that have no real bearing on the standings can mean the world to a bunch of fans.

They're looking at the pinstripes

Sorry this is a bit late, but when I had meant to blog the gamethread at work I was actually talking to my boss about the 1960 World Series, which he remembers like it was yesterday, he says, and still can't believe the Pirates won. I have more thoughts about this series, but I'll save them for after the game. Gorzo (who just K'd A-Rod to end the first), Darrell Rasner, and a whole bunch of ghosts.

Random stuff

I totally missed this in Dejan's recap of Sunday's game but:

Osoria, again playing the role of gasoline for the fire, promptly gave up Alex Rios' single and, one out later, Lyle Overbay's two-run double and Scott Rolen's two-run home run to put the Blue Jays ahead, 8-4.

Dejan called Osoria the Gas Can! Now clearly, Osoria can't be the Gas Can because that's Jonah Bayliss. And he can't be the White Flag because that spot in my heart will always be reserved for Ryan Vogelsong. So what can we call Osoria? Kerosene? Nah. I'm voting for "The Accelerant." Or maybe "Wreck Specs." Oooh, I like that one.

This story about Jack Wilson made me feel kind of sad. It might just be because it was written by Ron Cook. Actually, that's probably it.

When we were discussing a giant tomahawk-chopping cow being placed in left field at Turner Field in the FanHouse Google Group, I immediately knew it was a Chick-Fil-A ad, before even being told. I fear I am slowly becoming a Southerner. On a related note, I haven't been to Pittsburgh since New Year's and tomorrow can't come soon enough.

Good news/Bad news

Good news: Neither Ian Snell nor Phil Dumatrait is seriously injured. Snell has "golfer's elbow" (inappropriate jokes withheld, even if I want to make one in memory of George Carlin) while Dumatrait has bursitis. There's no structural damage to Snell's elbow or Dumatrait's shoulder, which means that Snell will probably only miss one start and Dumatrait will be ready to go when his DL stint ends.

Bad news: Besides the obvious joke (they have to keep pitching!), if Snell is scratched from a start that means that Gorzo, Duke, and Maholm will start against the Yankees and the Pirates will be FORCED to call someone up to start on Friday, which is WHYGAVS Night, of course. It somehow seems fitting that on a night that we're meeting in honor of a blog (Warning: disjointed third-person reference ahead!) that once wrote, "It's stupid, it's senseless, it's Pirate baseball," we're probably going to see John Van Benschoten (or if we're lucky, Ty Taubenheim!) start for the Pirates against the most exciting young team in baseball.

Not many picks left to sign

From the bottom of today's PG Notebook comes this item:

The Pirates continue to have contract talks with their top two draft picks, third baseman Pedro Alvarez and starter Tanner Scheppers, but it is now looking possible that there will not be many other players signed beyond the 24 already in the fold.

If that's true, that means that a lot of the higher ceiling guys (6th rounder Grossman, 16th rounder Freeman, etc.) don't seem likely to sign.It's fair to note that along with Scheppers, fifth rounder Justin MillerWilson hasn't signed either, which might mean that we won't hear anything about either of them until Fresno State is done in the CWS. I've seen Miller pitch quite a bit in his two appearances against UNC and I haven't been all that impressed with him (he had a rough start last Tuesday and gave up what turned out to be the game winning homer in relief on Saturday), but it's only two games so it's hard to draw conclusions. Crap. Fresno has a Justin Miller and Justin Wilson, who I've apparently gotten confused. We drafted Justin Wilson, who started on Saturday against the Heels and is wild as hell (6 K, 6 BB in a 5 and 1/3 inning start on Saturday).

Snell's elbow to be examined

If you had "Ian Snell" in the "First Pirate pitcher to get injured this year" pool, you might be in luck. It appears that Snell suffered from some elbow pain in today's debacle and is going to have it looked at at AGH sometime tomorrow. The team seems to be indicating it's not serious, but I'll withhold judgment until we see some results from the test. The one thing we can say for sure is that reports of Snell lacking his trademark "fire" are probably a bit off base. To say he didn't respond well to the booing he received yesterday would be an understatement:

"You've got to show your team you want to be there," Snell said. "It doesn't matter if you're sore or not. I wanted to show my team that I wanted to be out there. Obviously, I didn't have it, and I was still trying to be out there."

He raised his voice slightly.

"I never give up. I don't care if people boo me, tell me I [stink], whatever. You're not going to take my manhood from me or my competitiveness from me. Nobody will ever do that! Ever! Until the day I die, then you take it from me."

Everyone clear on that?

Game 76: Blue Jays 8 Pirates 5

I can't think of a stronger indictment against a player than what I am about to say. With the Pirates and Blue Jays tied at four today, a runner on second, and one out in the sixth inning, John Russell decided to replace TJ Beam with Franquellis Osoria. As soon as Osoria trotted out of the bullpen, I changed the channel. I'm not exaggerating or kidding in the least bit. I switched the channel over to the Spain/Italy game, flipped back ten minutes later and saw the score was 8-4, and kept things on Gamecast the rest of the way out. Osoria is hopeless in terms of getting quality outs, and yet Russell has him out there in key situations twice a week. Let's put it this way, as a one inning type reliever, he's given up a run or more in eight of his last ten outings. In five of those eight, he's given up two or three runs. How is this the guy that JR is turning to with a runner on second and one out in a tie game? He hasn't fooled anyone in about a month.

Of course, Osoria is secondary to whatever's been going on with Ian Snell lately. He might as well be pitching with his eyes closed at this point. Things are so bad with him right now that Russell pinch hit for him in the bottom of the fourth with Freddy Sanchez, who was then asked to lay a bunt down. Russell is clearly fed up with Snell. On the broadcast, Lanny suggested that Snell needed to pitch with some more fire. Lanny is clearly fed up with Snell. I don't know what's wrong with Snell (beyond the obvious) and won't pretend to, but I'm personally sick of watching Pirate pitchers fail to live up to their talent in Pittsburgh. Snell joins the great tradition of Jason Schmidt, Kip Wells, Oliver Perez, and Tom Gorzelanny ... guys that I watch pitch and say, "Geeez, I feel bad saying this, but I really hope he's hurt." Ugh.

The other note from this one is that before the game started Phil Dumatrait went on the disabled list with a shoulder problem (with tomorrow off, everyone is simply getting pushed up a day in the rotation and a replacement will be picked on Saturday) and TJ Beam replaced him on the roster (with Chris Duffy moving to the 60-day to make room). Of all of the relievers that Huntington picked up this winter, Beam was the one that I had the highest hopes for given his pedigree and he pitched very well in Indianapolis today. He was alright out of the pen this afternoon, but he wasn't good enough to keep Russell from putting Osoria in, which means he wasn't good enough. Even with no word on who's going to replace Dumatrait, I'd be betting on someone other than Van Benschoten or Bullington, just because they're terrible and it seems like everyone knows it. Instead I'd be looking for Jimmy Barthmaier, Ty Taubenheim, or unnamed third option who isn't already in the organization to be taking that rotation spot.

An interleague sweep?

A lot of times when writing about baseball, I like to use the term, "Stranger things have happened." Baseball is an old, old sport that has seen a lot of things happen in the 100+ years that it's been played the way it's played now. So I'm sure that at some point in the history of baseball, something stranger than the Pirates sweeping an interleague series has happened before (hell, the Pirates have probably done it before at some point). It just doesn't seem like that to Pirate fans. Today Ian Snell tries once again to get himself in gear against Dustin McGowan and the rest of the Blue Jays, who are really not very good this year. Snell was awful last time out and seems to be turning into some nightmarish combination of Ricky Vaughn and Oliver Perez. I don't think I can handle that. I wish he would stop.

Game 75: Pirates 6 Blue Jays 3

It seems to me that a great way to win a baseball game is to leave nobody on base. Unless the opposing pitching is throwing a perfect game or your opponent is turning a bunch of double plays, it means you're scoring runs. From now on, I think we should just try to follow every base runner we get with a two-run homer. This strikes me as a fool-proof method that more teams should attempt.

All joking aside, it's nice to see the Pirates not bothered by all the "they can't win interleague games!" talk that people like myself are so fond of. Baseball games are baseball games and if the Pirates can be slightly below average against the National League, they shouldn't be miserable against the American League. That said, I do feel like it's late 2005 all over again when the Pirates had just called up Zach Duke and Paul Maholm and they were dealing and people were saying things like, "Duke and Maholm and three in the loss column." Some day the Pirates are going to figure out how to put together a whole rotation full of good pitchers and then ... watch out.

Two interleague wins in a row?

With a win last night, the Pirates have a shot at an improbably 2 game interleague win streak, which I think would be almost as good as a World Series for this floundering franchise. After last night's well played marathon game, Paul Maholm and Jesse Litsch will be taking the mound, attempting to spare the bullpens a bit. After a maddeningly inconsistent start to the year, Maholm's been pretty solid in his past few outings. Litsch, meanwhile, is off to a pretty nice start to 2008, helping Shaun Marcum and Roy Halladay anchor a pitching staff that's a big reason why the season hasn't been a bigger disaster for the Blue Jays. That's a bold statement considering Cito Gaston's managing again.

Game 74: Pirates 1 Blue Jays 0

While watching last night's game, all I could really think to myself was "Man, I love these extra inning pitchers' duels." I don't know many people that would be excited to be at a 0-0 game in the twelfth inning (in fact, I know some people that were at last night's game that were not excited to be there, judging by the volume of text messages I received.

Of course, in order to be in a 0-0 game in the 12th inning, you need some help. While we've spent all year wishing for Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny to pitch themselves into shape, I think Zach Duke might be the one that's actually doing it. After a start in which he had a decent ERA, but not really the peripherals to back it up (in terms of WHIP and strikeouts). Since the start of May, he's got a 3.27 ERA with a 1.301 WHIP, and while his strikeouts/9 in that span is still only 3.83, he struck out four last night and five two starts ago. He's certainly not ever going to be a world-beater or even an ace, but he's definitely been a pretty decent starting pitcher this year and he seems to be getting better as the year wears on, in a rare case of the peripherals catching up to the mainstream statistics, instead of things happening the other way around.

Last night Duke was greatly helped by Doug Mientkiewicz's D at third base and could've gotten the win if Tony Beasley didn't kill a rally by sending Dougie flying into an out at the plate on a shallow fly ball to Alex Rios. Well, that and Nyjer Morgan sending a line drive off of Roy Halladay's glove (or maybe head) with the bases loaded, only to see it ricochet right to Scott Rolen for the third out of the inning. Talk about improbable. Nyjer Morgan hits the ball on the screws in a tie game with the bases loaded, only to see it bounce off of the pitcher's dome and right into the third baseman's glove. But hey, at least we still won.

The Jays

All you need to know about the Jays in five bullets or less:

• Their GM was just in the news for making fun of Adam Dunn.
  
• They just fired their manager and hired Cito freaking Gaston, who hasn't managed in ten years. Because that always works out well.
  
• They just traded for Jonah Bayliss.
  

This is a team that's on cruise control in the wrong direction right now. If we can't beat them, we might as well mail the last six interleague games right on in.

Goodbye Gas Can

Yesterday the Pirates traded Jonah Bayliss to the Blue Jays for a player-to-be-named. Getting anything at all for Bayliss, who was terrible with the Pirates last year and earned his nickname because every time he took the mound the effect was similar to throwing gas on a fire, is more or less a magic act and proof that JP Ricciardi might be insane.

While we're hitting up news about crappy players in the Pirates' organization, it looks like Xavier Nady is going on the DL and Nyjer Morgan is coming back. Presumably in Nady's absence that makes Morgan and Michaels the platoon third starters in the outfield, with McLouth moving around accordingly. This means two things: 1.) Nady's trade value just plummeted and 2.) the organization doesn't think very highly of Steve Pearce at the moment. I was at the game Nady was injured it and it was a pretty ugly looking play. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the injury is much worse than the team initially let on.

UPDATE: It's Salas down, Morgan up. Does anyone smell a trade brewing?

Hit Bull Win Steak

It was my original intention to simply make the post title and put the picture up and leave it at that. But then something amazing happened tonight. I saw a name in the Norfolk Tides' dugout.


I quickly checked my program. Yep.


More randomness: the starting pitcher for the Tides was Randy Keisler, who started this game against us last year.

Game 73: White Sox 13 Pirates 8

Have you ever seen a six run lead completely evaporate quicker than Dumatrait gave six runs back to the White Sox today after getting six in the top of the second? When was the last time you've seen a pitcher give up 9 runs in a start? Why would it be a good idea to bring Grabow out for another inning? Is interleague play over yet? This game leaves me brimming with unpleasant questions, but quite frankly, I'd rather not talk about any of them.

Sidenote: if you're coming to WHYGAVS Night and would like a t-shirt, please e-mail me if you haven't done so already.

Afternoon game!

It's Thursday and you know what that means ... afternoon game! Phil Dumatrait tries to keep the Bucs from dropping to 1-5 in interleague play while Gavin Floyd looks to keep up his breakout season against the team that helps make breakout pitching seasons. This one kicks off at US Cell at 2:05, so dial up your radios and GameDay windows, because it's probably going to be a loooong afternoon.

Ian Snell's last start in graphical form

Today's PG talks about Ian Snell's inability to pitch in on batters. Being a curious and intrepid blogger, I pulled his "ultra-normalized" pitch location chart down from Dan Brooks' Pitch FX site. The graph treats every hitter like a right-handed hitter with a normalized height and strike zone. It should be read like a gamecast at-bat, meaning the hitter is on the right and the outside of the strikezone is on the left (at least, I'm pretty sure that's how it should be read). Snell's pitches are triangles (actually, all the Pirates are the triangles, so most of the triangles are Snell, you get the point) with strikes in red and balls in green. Looks like an undisputed case of Kip Wells disease to me.

Game 72: White Sox 8 Pirates 2

Is interleague play over yet? No? There's ten more games of it? And the only two games I'll see at PNC Park this year are interleague games? Crap. It's almost unfathomable how bad this team is against the American League.

Is it a recap if I don't mention the game? Gorzo bad, offense worse, Hawk Harrelson makes me want to jam sharp objects into my ear drums. That's all I got for this one.

Let's not do that again

After last night's Snell debacle, Gorzo takes the mound in his hometown against the team that I'm pretty sure that he cheered for growing up. If he's twice as good as Snell was last night, we're still going to get crushed in this one. Hopefully Bay (who missed last night with the flu) will be back on the field for this one, though Ryan "Elijah Price" Doumit is going to be out for two games with a concussion, which he suffered while getting whacked in the head repeatedly by foul balls last night. As if getting crushed 16-5 wasn't enough.

Huntington is pressing forward

Say what you will about the guy, he certainly has a knack for saying the right things (defined by me as, "things I want to hear him say"). From today's PG:

"The only time we hope to get to .500 is on our way past it," Huntington said. "It is not an end result. It is not a goal. If we have this club in place and we reach 82 wins en route to our higher destination, then so be it. But I will never be the general manager of a club that has a focus on winning 82 games."

[...]

"The only way we would hold this club together is if we felt bigger and better things were coming from it in the future," Huntington said. "But holding it together just to get to 82 wins ... that is not something our field staff has interest in doing. It is not something I have interest in doing."

He did pay some lip service to keeping the team together if they're in the Wild Card hunt, but being 7.5 games out with six teams in front of us is not "in the Wild Card hunt" right now, especially with the Yankees and Rays on the horizon (as well as two more games against the White Sox and the Blue Jays, who aren't very good but are in the American League).

But anyways, yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I wanted to hear from Huntington. I understand why the fans want to see the team finish .500, but give me a fully functional franchise over a freak-show any day of the week.

Game 71: White Sox 16 Pirates 5

Using the given clues, please answer the following question.

Clue #1
Ian Snell- 4.0 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 6 BB, 0 K, 1 HR

Clue #2-
Ian Snell- 3-7, 5.84 ERA, 1.87 WHIP, 1.38 K/BB

Choose the correct answer from the given choices:

Ian Snell is ___________
a.) injured.
b.) about to kick the crap out of a laundry cart.
c.) on a quest to get his mortal enemy, Jeff Andrews, fired.

Not the Cubs

The Pirates have had their trouble with the Cubs this year, even if the proclamation that "The Pirates would be .500 if you take the Cubs games out!" drives me insane. The Pirates are playing in Chicago tonight, but certainly not against the Cubs. The White Sox are in first place, but almost everything about them being there is surprising. That they've got a shot to win the AL Central has almost as much to do with the Tigers and Indians collapsing as the White Sox playing better this year.

Tonight Ian Snell and Javy Vazquez take the mound. Vazquez is the sort of pitcher I think we all hoped Snell would turn into. Instead, we've all seen him explode in front of us on the mound this year. He looked OK in his last start, but it was against the Nationals. That means it comes with a giant grain of salt. If he can pitch well tonight, I'll be a little more enthused.

Keep Jason Bay?

So I'm a little late to this conversation, but there's been a lot of talk lately about not trading Jason Bay. DK summarizes the points in this article, but to run through them quickly they go something like this: Bay is a good hitter that's not terribly old (29 this year) and will be expensive but affordable for the Pirates after 2009. None of those points are necessarily bad points, but they also don't tell the whole story.

Reason #1 to trade Jason Bay this year? Old player skills. I'm sure some of you are familiar with old player skills, but if you're not here's a good synopsis from USS Mariner (when discussing Richie Sexson):

Old player skills are walks and hitting for power. They stop being able to beat out infield hits as they slow, some of their well-hit doubles turn into long singles, while others go over fences. Think David Ortiz, or to some extent Raul Ibanez. The three true outcomes, where the defense isn’t involved at all: K, BB, or HR.

Now, players can be young and hit for power and walk, and old and hit for a high average and swing at everything. But generally speaking, as they get older, players swing at less and less and hit the balls they do swing at harder.

Now the balance between these two, when a player’s experience combines with ability to produce the greatest production, generally happens at about 27. It can happen a lot earlier, it can happen a lot later (and those spikes are more common than I think is usually recognized) but generally speaking, players get better until about 26-28, then start their decline.

That entire paragraph describes Bay's career to almost to a T. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Jason Bay fan. People that have been readers here for a long time know that I've more than gone out of my way to defend the guy when I felt like he was being unfairly targeted by fans. Still, we're talking about turning the Pirates into a winning franchise here, not who my favorite player on the Pirates is.

Say we sign Jason Bay to a Jason Kendall-like contract after 2009: 6 years/$60 million (Bay will probably make at least $10 million on the open market and he's going to want some long-term security). Bay's been productive this year and he probably will be next year, but signing him to any long-term deal for a significant chunk of cash when he's over the age of 30 is going to be a risk. The Pirates do have money and they can spend it, but they can't afford to throw it at whatever they want like the Yankees do. They just can't afford to lug Jason Bay around for three years at a cost like that.

All of the reasons that make Bay a candidate to stay also make him a great trade candidate this year. Because he's got a year left on his deal, he's not a rent-a-player for whoever gets him. Because he's an affable guy without a super-agent, whoever gets him will have a pretty decent shot at resigning him. Sure, Huntington could wait to the off-season to deal him. At that point, though, his hand is forced for two reasons, 1.) teams will know that he likely doesn't want to go to the deadline with Bay and make a DL-level mistake and 2.) teams like the Dodgers or Mets, who may be desperate for a piece to contend now won't be nearly as desperate.

I'm going to be sad if (when?) the Pirates trade Jason Bay, but it's a move that the team has to make.

The links

Xavier Nady had an MRI on his shoulder today after his ugly-looking collision with the right field wall at Camden on Saturday. The result showed a shoulder sprain. That doesn't sound bad, but at the same time the article reads like the Bucs are considering disabling him, so it's at least kind of serious. If it does turn out to be more serious, any thoughts of trading him are probably out the window.

This isn't strictly baseball-related, but Joe Posnanski has the best piece about Tiger Woods that you'll read today posted on his blog. I don't know why Joe's blog isn't in the sidebar. It will be.

Bill Bavasi: canned. 'Bout time. I wonder if Jim Hendry has a job for him too.

Mike Gonzalez is about to pitch again. And while I'm thinking about it, Brent Lillibridge has been pitiful this year.

Chris Duffy is doing baseball-type things. Yawn.

WHYGAVS Night- another update

WHYGAVS Night is only 11 short days away, which means that it's time for another update. First things first, I'd like a general idea of who's interested, so if you are just drop a line in the comments. Second, I'm going to make the basic plan to meet at Firewaters at 6 PM before the game for anyone that wants to engage in some pre-game activity. Don't let this stop you from coming if you aren't 21. Everyone's still going to be responsible for their own ticket because I don't think we have enough people to qualify for a group rate or group seating. If people have better ideas here, bring them up in the comments

Finally (and this is the best part), I'm going to have some t-shirts made. For right now, at least, they're only going to be available to the people coming to the game on the 27th as I'm having them made locally by a family friend. If the reception is good enough, we can talk about going to Cafe Press or something like that to get more people shirts. They're going to be fairly simple shirts, just black tees with gold or yellow writing; WHYGAVS on the front and the URL with the quote from the header on the back. If you want one you'll have to pay for it, though I'll sell them to whoever comes to WHYGAVS Night for whatever price they cost me. I won't know a price until I know how many shirts I'm ordering (they won't be expensive, probably $10-$15), so if you want a shirt at WHYGAVS Night, e-mail me with your name (so I can keep track of who's getting shirts) the number of shirts and shirt-size that you want by Thursday night, as I'm giving the order to the t-shirt guy this Friday in order to have the shirts by the 27th. If you'd like to make my life easy, make the subject of the e-mail, "WHYGAVS Night T-shirts." Please don't leave t-shirt requests in the comments because they're too hard for me to keep track of there.

Game 70: Pirates 5 Orioles 4

I held this recap back a bit because I wanted the giant photo essay from Saturday's game (which is still right below, if you missed it) to stay on top for a bit.

Anyways, I'm worried about Matt Capps. How hard can he be to figure out as a closer? He throws a 92 mph fastball ~75% of the time. He's got laser precision on that ball and he only works an inning at a time, but he's been pretty dominant the last two years and I just can't completely wrap my mind around that. It's not like he's mixing a deadly slider in with that fastball. I mean, he has a slider but it's certainly not his out pitch. The last two days, it seemed to me like the Orioles were just sitting on that fastball and whacking it over the fence. Everyone has cold streaks and I don't think it's really time to worry about Capps yet, but the last two days are a bit disconcerting. After we took the lead back in the tenth last night, he nailed the door shut in the bottom of the inning with two strikeouts, so maybe he's just in a mini-slump.

The big hit, for the second game in a row, came from Adam LaRoche in the tenth inning. I know he's maddening to watch when he's down and sometimes he really does look like the worst hitter in the world when he's in his slumps, but the Pirates have nothing to gain by benching LaRoche. Doug Mientkiewicz is only hitting a little better than LaRoche is right now, and it's only a matter of time before LaRoche's bat starts to come alive. Last year after our game on June 15th, LaRoche was hitting .214/.309/.376. Right now he's at .221/.303/.368. It sucks to wait until June for a guy to start hitting and it's clear that LaRoche is not the long-term answer at first base that Littlefield thought he was, but he's the best option we've got right now. Even if we're looking to trade him, we can't do that with him lugging a .220 average around on the bench. He's got to play and he's going to hit eventually.

Game 69: Orioles 8 Pirates 7

I got to Baltimore around 2 PM yesterday and while walking around town with my friends was immediately impressed by the amount of Pirate fans in the city. While crossing the street, some random scruffy looking gentleman screamed at me:

"When are LaRoche and Freddy going to start hitting?!?"

"Probably never," was my response, which was some great reverse foreshadowing. After some rain and a brief panic that I had driven 300 miles for a rainout, things cleared up and we hung out a bit on my friend's roof deck. When I say that he lives close to the ballpark, I'm not quite doing things justice:


As we were drinking beers and waiting for game time, we were actually able to heckle Oriole fans on the concourses from his roof with some "Let's Go Bucs!" chants. I also got a huge kick out of the three people sitting in the top row of the stadium, in their seats and ready to go at 6 PM for the 7:05 game:


Talk about diehards. We made our way over to the park around 6:30 and grabbed our tickets from my friend Scott's girlfriend. If, by some odd chance, you had simultaneously forgotten where you were and wondered if any team ever has had a worse slogan than "We Will," the tickets to Oriole games can answer both questions for you:


This is ... Birdland? What does that even mean?

Anyways we made it to our seats just as the tarp was being taken off the field. We were on the third base line, so we had a great view of the famous train warehouse in right field.


On the whole, Camden reminded me a lot of Jake in Cleveland, which isn't that surprising since the biggest criticism of the new wave of ballparks is that they all look pretty similar. The park does offer a nice view of downtown Baltimore and it's not technically Camden's fault that the Baltimore skyline's got nothing on the Pittsburgh skyline.


Please don't get me wrong, because I'm not hating Camden. It's definitely a great park and an awesome place to watch a game (I definitely rank it above the Jake on the short list of parks that I've been to). I'm just a bit biased in my unconditional love for PNC Park.

I was more impressed with the Pirate fans around our seats. I'd guess the crowd was made up of somewhere between 25/30% Pirate fans for the game. From just my seat I could see a bunch of Pirate jerseys. Of course there were several Roberto jerseys:
I was more impressed with the Andy Van Slyke jersey (there were actually two guys in AVS shirts in my section).


My favorite, though, was the guy with the Roberto shirt and the mustard yellow John Olerud helmet. Just an awesome combination.

There was also actually a baseball game that took place. Radhames Liz was throwing smoke at the Pirates (hit hit 98 on the gun several times in the early innings), but didn't seem to have much control of his breaking stuff. He threw Nady several fastballs in a row that he timed, then whacked one that clocked in at 96 mph out on a rope to dead center. We all figured that would only be a start since Duke was on the mound, but we had no idea what we were in for.


In the bottom of the third, we started angering the nearby Oriole fans. Scott (on the left) asked me while we were wandering around town before the game, asked me if Brian Roberts was any good, because seemingly 90% of the Baltimore population was wearing Roberts' t-shirts. I responded that he was OK, but everyone likes him because he's short. As I said this, a 10-year old walked by wearing a #1 shirt and I jokingly added, "Actually, that might be him." When Roberts came up in the third inning, Scott realized just how short Roberts is and yelled, "GO BACK TO MIDDLE EARTH!!!" We immediately got some ugly glances, so he added, "SHOULDN'T YOU BE RIDING BIG BROWN?!?" while Mike (on the right) astutely added, "Hey, is he the short-stop?" This started a nightlong trend of us making fun of how short Brian Roberts is, followed by Roberts getting a big hit. In this case, he doubled in Adam Jones.

In the top of the fourth, another nightlong trend began. Scott asked me if Freddy Sanchez would start hitting again. I gave a few reasons as to why I think he might not, and Freddy responded with a laser home run into the stands to give the Pirates a 2-1 lead. If you're counting at home, that would be the Pirates' second lead of the game. In the fifth, we made fun of Roberts again, and he doubled in Jones again to tie things up. In the sixth, the Orioles grabbed the lead because John Russell had no feel for just how fried Duke was after loading the bases with one out. An eight pitch at-bat with Adam Jones ensued, ending in a strikeout (though it was clear that Jones was waiting Duke out and just missed the pitch he was looking for) and was followed by Alex Cintron almost clearing the bases with a double, with only Nate McLouth and Jack Wilson combining on a nice throw to nail Ramon Hernandez at the plate.

After that, things started to get weird. With two runners on and two out and me in the stands bad-mouthing Jose Bautista for everyone to hear, Bautista (please, stop calling him Joey Bats) ripped a three-run jack to left field. The guy in front of me in a ketchup-red jersey, waving a Pirate flag started going nuts.

A nice and loud "Let's Go Bucs!" chant broke out, while the O's fans couldn't even muster up the boos to shut us up. Shortly after Bautista's homer, I made a horrific observation on the out of town scoreboard:


Can you read that line? Jody Gerut? Back in the big-leagues? I need to start paying more attention to these things.

When the seventh inning kicked off, I saw Grabow on the mound and remarked, "Well, at least getting Duke through six innings means we don't have to see the crappy part of the bullpen." In response, the baseball gods that I have clearly angered responded with Nick Markakis's two-run homer off of Grabow that gave the Orioles a 6-5 lead (the Pirates THIRD blown lead of the game, if you're keeping track). Disheartened, I sat down and said to Mike, "This just means it's going to be even more agonizing when we come back in the top of the ninth and lose it in the bottom." Yes, I seriously said that.

Unfortunately, I got one prediction right. As you all know by now, Adam LaRoche utilized the Willie Stargell method of hitting ("Close your eyes and just swing!" Pops used to say) in the ninth inning with George Sherrill (who's as much of a lefty killer as Marte) on the mound and managed to whack what seemed to be a certain game-winning two-run homer. The Pirate fans in attendance went nuts.

And it was all downhill from there. Capps blew the lead by giving up a homer to Melvin Mora's injury replacement, then walked a hitter, at which point I knew we were screwed. A few minutes later, Ramon Hernandez ended the game with his walkoff single.

Walking out of the park and in the bars we went to after the game (which all smelled overwhelmingly of Jagermeister ... ugh) Orioles' fans got their share of jabs in at the many Pirate fans that hit the town for some much needed drinks. "You know how to break out of a slump? Play the Pirates!" "Congratulations on your loss tonight, guys!" and the expected ribbing, which was generally good natured. The reaction, by me and by every other Pirate fan I saw taking crap was universal, "Yes. We suck. We know. We're Pirate fans."

Different city, different park, same old Pirates.

One more game in Baltimore

Paul Maholm and Daniel Cabrera at 1:35. I'm probably in the car between Chapel Hill and Baltimore, hating my life and gas prices. Sporting News Radio tonight at 8:30 if I'm not back before then.

Going to Baltimore

It is strange, but in my entire life I've actually only watched baseball games in three cities and four stadiums. I've been to PNC and Three Rivers, of course, I've been to the Jake on several occasions, and once when I was in first grade I went to what was at the time New Comiskey Park to see the White Sox and Angels play (random side note, because I KNOW Bo Jackson hit a home run and I'm pretty sure the Angels won, it was probably this game). This is only relevant because by the time this posts, I'll be in Baltimore as I'm going to see some friends and watch the Pirates and Orioles play.

So yeah, I'm psyched for a number of reasons. Of course, Camden has always been high on my list of place to see a game. In fact, it's probably at the top since San Francisco is really far away, Yankee Stadium is getting torn down and I have no desire to deal with the people that inhabit Fenway (also, I just want to go to Wrigley to get drunk in the afternoon and laugh at Cubs' fans, actually watching baseball is secondary there). Throw in the fact that I'll probably only see three Pirate games in person this year and yeah, I'm pumped (if you're going to be there, keep an eye out for this guy, chances are quite good I'll even be making the same face).

Anyways, Radhames Liz and Zach Duke tonight, the gamethread for Sunday will auto-post, and if I don't have time to post before then, I'll be on Sporting News Radio Sunday night at 8:30. Hopefully sometime around, or before then, I'll be back with pictures aplenty.

Game 68: Orioles 9 Pirates 6

There's an easy litmus test that I can apply to a Pirate loss to decide if it sucks or not. All I have to do is ask myself one question. "Is it actually surprising that the Pirates lost that game?" If the answer is yes, the loss sucks. If it's no, it just fades into the background with countless other Pirate losses. My friends, that loss tonight sucked.

I've taken some crap recently for not being head over heels in love with Phil Dumatrait since he's joined the rotation. The reason I'm not sold on Dumatrait is that everything about him screams "JOHN VAN BENSCHOTEN!" to me. He was a top pick with some arm trouble who bounced back and pitched OK in AAA, but he's never really found his control. You just can't put runners on base the way he does and expect good results to keep coming. Tonight he got himself into some trouble in the first, but weaseled out of it with a double play. He didn't get that lucky in the fifth and as a result he left a game with a one run lead instead of a more significant one. As a starter on the Pirates, you can't leave the game after five innings with a one run lead and expect to win. Matt Capps, John Grabow, and Damaso Marte are great, Tyler Yates is pretty good, and mostly everyone else is awful. JR seems to have a penchant for putting Osoria in to close games in the sixth inning, which is always a recipe for miserable failure.

This is the second game that the Pirates have lost like this this week to a bad team. The thing I found particularly discouraging about this loss is that after making Brian Burres work in the second and third innings, getting guys on base, and seeing good things happen, we just let him cruise. Seeing Osoria, Burnett, and Dumatrait crap the bed isn't that frustrating because I don't expect a ton of out those guys. Seeing the offense unable to keep pace, on the other hand, kind of drove me nuts tonight.

Any other game

It is June 13th. The Pirates record today, before or after this game, does not matter. The Pirates have been at .500 almost this late in the season in both 2004 (29-29, I think, after the Mackowiak game) and 2005 (30-30 after beating the Devil Rays twice). There's no award for being 34-34 on June 13th, and affixing more significance to this game is unfair.

Anyways, the Pirates are in Baltimore for the first time since 1979. The Baltimore Sun has a great piece about the '79 World Series and tonight is actually a "throw-back to 1979" night, which is incredibly awesome given that we beat the Orioles in that World Series. As the Sun pointed out, that was a better time for both franchises, even if the O's lost to Pops' Fam-a-lee that year. Phil Dumatrait and Brian Burres are a long way removed from those two teams, but it's nice to have that kind of history to look back to when you're mired in decade-plus franchise losing streaks like the Pirates and O's are.

What's the ultimate goal here?

The Pirates are one game under .500 in mid-June. This is, to say the very least, a pretty pleasant surprise. Still, this brings up some interesting issues that most of us didn't think would be a problem this year. What is the ultimate goal of the 2008 Pittsburgh Pirates? It's an interesting question.

Goal #1 of every team, every year is to win. That goal isn't always attainable for everyone, but it's pretty clear when it is doable and teams have to take advantage.. The Penguins are a great example of this. I'm sure if you talked to Ray Shero behind closed doors, he'd tell you that "Win a Stanley Cup in 2008" was not one of his goals. Still, the season developed the way it did and he decided that he had to do everything he could to win this year. Enter the Marian Hossa trade, which as a result got the Penguins within sniffing distance of the Stanley Cup.

So where is the current Pirate team on that spectrum? Yes, they're a game under .500 in mid-June. Yes, they're tied for fourth place in the Wild Card standings. And yes, they've done all this with out the aid of their two best pitchers. Still, the question is not, "Can the Pirates finish .500 this year?" The Royals finished .500 in 2003, and that got them nowhere. The fans are desperate to see a .500 team, and that's understandable, but that shouldn't make it the goal.

Finishing a season at .500 is a step, not a goal. If the Pirates keep the core of this team together to play out 2008 and finish 81-81 or 82-80, the front office has failed. This team has a very limited shelf life. Jason Bay, Jack Wilson, Xavier Nady, Adam LaRoche, and Freddy Sanchez will all be free agents after 2009. Sure, we could re-sign some of them, but re-signing Jason Bay at the age of 31 (his age in 2010, the first year on his next contract) to $10 million per year is not a smart move for the Pirates. In fact, signing any of those guys at their respective ages and performance levels wouldn't be smart moves for the Pirates. This team has a "Use by 2009" sticker on it thanks to the old front office's short-sightedness. For the Pittsburgh Pirates as currently assembled, .500 is the ceiling, it's not a mark to be passed on the way to the top. You can tell me I'm being negative for the sake of being negative, and I'll tell you this: if the Pittsburgh Pirates make the playoffs this year with the team assembled the way it is right now, I will fly home for one of the games and buy everyone that's reading this and is willing to show up a drink.

My goal isn't to drag anyone down for being excited by this unexpected start. This start has been great for the Pirates. Jason Bay should be one of the most sought after outfielders on the market because of the way he's hit and the fact that he's got one more year on his deal. Xavier Nady certainly has the look of a player capable of stopping a gap on a contender. If we've all noticed how valuable Jack Wilson is to the Pirates, chances are someone else has, too. This off-season, Huntington was dealt an awful hand to rebuild the team with. Every day that the team overachieves, his deck gets a little bit more stacked and that means he can rebuild the minors that much quicker. Not playing the hand he has in an attempt to finish .500 or fulfill wild card pipe dreams would be almost criminal (Jason Bay for Matt Kemp?!? DO IT) and would be another step down the same road the team has been going down for 15 years now, no matter how good that .500 record would feel at the end of this year.

Game 67: Pirates 7 Nationals 5

I've decided that I'm going to take all of the pitching performances from this series with a grain of salt. Tom Gorzelanny seemed to look decent on the mound today, but he was facing a team that was batting Aaron Boone cleanup. Therefore, it's impossible to judge how he actually pitched today except to say that he certainly did more than enough to keep the Pirates in this game. In fact, if it wasn't for Sean Burnett's inability to strand any inherited runners, Gorzo's line today would look much more impressive. Still, he put those base runners there and it was against the Nationals.

Meanwhile, Ryan Doumit continued on his quest to destroy all forms of pitching. He's on a hot-streak unlike any Pirate since Jason Bay's ten homers in ten days back in May of '06. After a first inning two-run blast today, he hit four homers in three games against the Nats and he went on to add an RBI single in the fifth, just for good measure. The bullpen managed to hold on to things even without Matt Capps, who got a well-earned off-day after pitching in four straight games.

Anyways, the Pirates managed to outplay a team worse than them for three straight days and they even managed to win two of those games. Weird, huh?

Another afternoon game

Let's see, it's Thursday afternoon and two crappy baseball teams are playing in a different city today than they will be tomorrow. That can only mean one thing: afternoon game!

Tom Gorzelanny and Jason Bergman are set to go at it in about 15 minutes here, with Gorzo hoping to take advantage of the Nationals' historic ineptitude at the plate in the way that Ian Snell did last night. His opponent got the tar beaten out of him in his last start by the offense challenged Giants. If the Pirates win today, they'll have a chance to get to .500 in Baltimore this weekend, where I'll hopefully be in attendance Saturday. I'm both all for that and completely sure that it won't happen now that I've mentioned it.

Game 66: Pirates 3 Nationals 1

I think that it's pretty safe to say that the Pirates missed Ryan Doumit while he was gone. After four hits last night in the Pirates' ugly loss, he chalked up three more tonight, including his third homer in the two-game span, and helped the Pirates to the 3-1 win. That was possible because Ian Snell and the bullpen actually made the Pirates' early lead stick.

Snell had his second straight start that I think we could classify as "not completely awful," by throwing six innings and holding the Nats to one run on six hits, 3 walks, and 6 K's. It's not a great outing because of the three walks and the fact that it's the Nationals, but remember, we're looking for baby steps. I'm fairly certain that with the same outing from Snell last year, we'd have been callin this "one of those nights where Snell didn't have his best stuff, but managed to find a way to shutdown the other team anyways. If only he could find those nights with his best stuff again.

More of the Nats

After last night's soul-crushing loss, Ian Snell gets to go out and try to help the club rebound against John Lannon, another Nationals pitcher that's been surprisingly good this year. Snell's only given up one homer in PNC Park this year, so that should be good to avoid the 5-homer debacle that made up last night's game. Of course, eight walks would be almost as much of a debacle as 5 homers, so Snell certainly doesn't have a clear road here. Remember: baby steps.

More signings

Bucs signed six more picks today, though none higher than 33rd rounder Mike Carver. This front office seems to be much better at keeping quiet than the old one, so I bet we don't hear jack about Alvarez signing until Boras opens his mouth, even if they're already negotiating.

As an aside ... anyone know the kid from Bradford?

Game 65: Nationals 7 Pirates 6

You thought they were going to win tonight, didn't you? Three runs in the first, and you thought they were going to win. Paul Maholm cruising through four, and you thought they were going to win. Maybe you got a bit worried when Ronnie Belliard homered in the fifth (I mean ... Ronnie Belliard?), but you felt better after Ryan Doumit hit his second homer of the night. "This is an easy one," you thought to yourself. The Dmitri Young homered in the seventh. "Why is there no one in the bullpen." Then Jesus Flores homered. "Who's Jesus Flores? Wait, why is Maholm still pitching?" Then Belliard homered again. "Oh, for the love of ..." Three homers in one inning. That'll kill hope. Ronnie Belliard singled in another run in the eighth. "I can't believe we're going to lose this game."

Baseball's a funny sport, though. A trip through the heart of the order in the bottom of the eighth inning lead to two runs and a new lead. "I knew we were going to win this one!" Then Elijah Dukes doubled. "Uh-oh." Before that thought even escaped, Lastings Milledge had homered. Some nights, you're just not meant to win. Those nights should never happen with three run leads against one of the worst teams in baseball. Never give the Pirates the benefit of the doubt. Never.

The Nationals and the archaic blackout rules

For the second time this year, the Pirates are crossing into "blacked out in Chapel Hill for no discernible reason" territory as the Nationals roll into Pittsburgh. The Nats are really bad right now as they've got a ton of injuries and they've dropped four in a row and eight of nine. Maybe the Pirates are gonna hang around .500 from here on out and maybe they're not, but if they do manage to do it, it'll happen by beating teams like the Nationals. They'll start Tim Redding tonight and he's really been one of the few bright spots for the Nats this year. He's still Tim Redding, though.

Links

This is two days old, but it's an interesting read about Brad Lincoln. If you remember back when we drafted him, he was supposed to be one of the two best pitching prospects in what was a very pitching heavy draft and despite the Pirates' history, Tommy John surgery doesn't have to ruin a career. Very encouraging stuff.

The Pirates signed their first three draft picks. Not their first three picks as in Alvarez, Scheppers, Mercer, just the first three to sign in general.

As you probably know by now, Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 600th home run last night. I used that as an opportunity to write some alternate reality stuff at FanHouse, while reader Nate sends along a frame-by-frame breakdown of Junior's still awesome swing.

From the comments, Scout.com loved our draft. I can't remember ANYone ever loving a Pirates' draft before. Except Ed Creech, of course.

Game 64: Pirates 5 D'Backs 3

I don't understand it, but somehow a Pirates' lineup featuring Luis Rivas, Jason Michaels, Jose Bautista and Doug Mientkiewicz beat Randy Johnson. I get that Johnson is old and on the last legs of his career while Michaels and Rivas are on fire right now (against all odds), but still, it all seems rather improbable to me.

I didn't see the game so I can't know for sure, but I think that for the first time this year having Dougie Ballgame's giant mouth in black and gold payed off for the Pirates. He called a late timeout, which was granted, Randy Johnson got mad, Dougie jawed at him, the benches emptied, and Johnson lost his composure for long enough to walk in a run and get the Pirates the lead. From that point on, Johnson was a bit unhinged as he walked 5 batters in less than 6 innings, allowing the Pirates to score 5 runs without ever seeming to generate a ton of offense. That was just enough when Zach Duke lost it in the seventh, then Damaso Marte gave up a homer in the eighth.

As we stand, the Bucs are two games under. 500 on June 9th and with the Nationals and Orioles looming on the horizon, they're not going to get a better shot at .500 this year. If they don't do it now, it's not going to happen.

Duke and the Unit

We've got one of those pesky 12:35 starts today so that the D'Backs can get out of town early. They'll be looking to win this one to take a the series from the Pirates, while the Bucs are looking for what would be a good split in a series where we faced three good starting pitchers. The third one we're seeing is today, the ageless Randy Johnson. He's definitely not the pitcher he was during his first go-round in Arizona, but he's still been very good this year on what's seemingly his final lap around the National League. He'll face off against Zach Duke who's got a similar ERA and very little else in common with the big lefty. This one's not on TV in Pittsburgh, but that probably doesn't matter since most normal people are at work, huddling around GameCast or listening to the radio feed on super-low in the office. Because who would want to see Randy Johnson make what might be his last start in Pittsburgh? (Like they knew he'd be pitching today when they made the schedule ... I know I'm unreasonable ... I'm a Pirate fan.)

Finishing up on the draft

We've already talked a lot about the draft, but there's a few more links and opinions I'd like to give before we move on to business as usual.

In his draft round-up, Dejan confirmed the injury to Scheppers as a slightly damaged labrum rather than a stress fracture in his shoulder. It seems like the team's plan is to see how the shoulder looks as the August 15th signing deadline approaches, then make a decision on what to do from there. As it's been noted by just about everyone everywhere, Scheppers is pretty much the antithesis of a Littlefield pick. He's a top-10 talent if he's healthy and he's a top-ten talent, but labrum damage can be really serious stuff. The question is whether it's a risk worth taking. Given the high potential involved, it certainly seems like it is, with the caveat that we don't know a lot about the injury.

Wilbur Miller has a write-up on every single draft pick the Pirates made. If you want to know about the draft, you check WTM's site.

Some other interesting picks include 6th rounder Robert Grossman (who's very talented but a signing issue), 8th rounder Jeremy Farrell (Red Sox pitching coach and one-time Pirate managerial prospect John's son), 14th rounder Wesley Freeman (again, projects very well, but signability is an issue), 15th rounder Christopher Aure (who's from Alaska, meaning that if he ever makes it to Pittsburgh the Pirates would have had four of the ten Alaskans to ever play Major League Baseball on their roster), 22nd rounder Patrick Palmeiro (awesome first name, Raffy's son), and two players West Point (Chris Simmons and Cole White) taken in the 40th and 41st round, who should take advantage of the new rule allowing them to play minor league ball instead of fulfilling their service requirement.

For the people that complain about our payroll, please pay attention to the signing bonuses doled out to players in this draft. The Pirates have never previously spent more than $5 million in signing bonuses on one draft class. This year Alvarez and Scheppers could exceed ten million dollars between the two of them and there are several later that Huntington and Coonelly will likely offer bonuses well above slot money to attempt to persuade them to sign and skip college. This is exactly where the Pirates should be spending money right now, rather than trading for Matt Morris or signing Jeromy Burnitz. It's obviously far too early to know what's going to come of this draft, but it's really hard not to like what Huntingon and scouting director Greg Smith did in their first real step towards rebuilding the Pirates.

What did everyone else think? There's a poll in the sidebar, so make sure you vote.

Game 63: Pirates 6 Diamondbacks 4

Ahh, the big inning. Who doesn't love an old-fashioned ten-batter, five-run inning? That was exactly what the Pirates did in the fourth today by stringing a bunch of hits together and hanging a nice crooked number up that the D'Backs couldn't match, even with the help of Franquellis Osoria (how is his ERA only 4.70?).

This one had some other interesting moments. Namely, I'm talking about Jason Michaels' random ejection on a strike call right in the middle of the at-bat followed by a Doug Mienktiewicz appearance in the outfield, of all places (they must've been serious about giving X the day off). There was also Freddy Sanchez taking second on a sac fly in the big inning, which resulted in Bob Walk going into an apoplectic fit, insulting Chris Burke and everything he's ever done in his life for the mental error. Shortly afterwards, when Mark Reynolds hit his first home run, Walkie declared that he was much happier with the home run than he would've been with a walk. Needless to say, he was in rare form today.