Game 86: Brewers 2 Pirates 1

In every game that I watch, when the game ends there's nothing left but little flash points that I try to remember for each blog post. For example, from tonight's loss there's the following points:
  • Given the rich Negro League history in Pittsburgh, I think the Pirates wear Negro League throwbacks more than anyone in the league. I have nothing to back this claim up with, but I bet I'm right.
  • The collars on the Pittsburgh Crawfords jerseys look incredibly uncomfortable. Jason Bay had his neatly folded down so that it didn't irritate his neck. This is because if I am correct with point #1, Jason Bay has probably worn a Pittsburgh Crawfords jersey more than anyone since Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell.
  • The Brewers, er, Bears looked like the Yankees tonight. A lot.
  • For some reason, Milwaukee's announcers insisted on calling the Pirates "the Crawfords" all night, but didn't refer to Milwaukee as "the Bears" even once. Hell, I might be making the whole "Bears" think up. They should just call them "the Beers" like in Baseketball.
  • Paul Maholm was dealing tonight. I don't know what else to say. When he's on it seems like he can cruise through eight innings without breaking a sweat.
  • The play Jack Wilson made on that crazy 6-5-3 double play was exactly what I will miss about Jack when he's gone. I can (and will) write a whole post about that very play.
  • I hate strictly defined pitcher roles. There is no one on earth that should be pitching to Prince Fielder in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game with the winning run on second base other than Damaso Marte. If Marte's available, he should be on the mound. I don't care if Yates has retired 100 batters in a row and is throwing 103 mph (well, I might care about that, but it's not the case). Marte's on the team to get tough lefties out late in the game. He should've pitched to Fielder.
  • Intentionally walking Braun to get Yates to face Fielder? There's a spot in Arkham Asylum reserved for people that make decisions like that.
Losses like this one are way tougher than losses like the one on the fourth. Seeing Maholm pitch like he did, seeing Wilson make the play he did in the field, you feel like the Pirates did everything they could to get the game to the point that it was 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning, and then you sit there and watch it all slip away. I don't know why, but losses like this still sting like hell, even if I should know better.

Popular posts from this blog

WHYGAVS has moved

It's official. WHYGAVS now has a new official home. It's actually at WHYGAVS.com , which means that it's the same as the old home, but I'm off Blogger now, which means that this old link won't redirect. You'll have to subscribe to a new feed if that's how you read WHYGAVS, but beyond that things are going to be mostly the same.
Read more

Links

For reasons that will become shortly apparent, I've been working on cleaning/updating the sidebar links. That means that I've got some new links to add to the sidebar, as well as some other things for your general perusal. Cory Humes, Geeves, and Alan from Bucco Wire are all blogging again at MVN under the header Pirate Revolution . There's also The Green Weenie and The 'Burgh Blues , two blogs I should've added some time ago. Meanwhile, Dejan's series about the Pirates' presence in the Dominican is awesome. I'm sure most of you have been checking it out as it's been published, but if you haven't I can't recommend parts one , two , and three , Renee Gayo's list of the top 5 prospects yet to play in America , and everything else that DK's put on his blog on the subject enough. It's an awesome look in to the Bucs' international operation and how things have changed since Bob Nutting took the lack of Pirate presence in the reg
Read more

The Pirates are talking to Mark Loretta

There are a couple of possible reactions when reading that the Pirates are talking to Mark Loretta . The easy reaction is, "Well, so long as he's replacing Chris Gomez, I'm fine with that." That's true. Loretta's a useful utility infielder that can still handle a bat fairly well and can play just about every position in the infield in a short-term capacity. In fact, he's probably a better hitter than Gomez and he can't really be a worse fielder. That may make him more the successor to Doug Mientkiewicz, which is fine by me as well. But then I started thinking. Aren't we trying to trade our shortstop away? Isn't "successor to Jack Wilson" a position that needs filled on the depth chart at the moment? I mean, I know Huntington's not looking at Loretta as a starting shortstop next year ... but what if he is? This is how the offseason drives people crazy. You can go months and months without hearing any rumors, then as soon as rumor
Read more