Twins 4 Pirates 2

There's not really much to say about a game like last night's. Liriano was better than advertised, which is pretty damn good when you're advertised as Santana Jr. The thing about it was that Snell matched him almost step-for-step through six. Actually, you could argue pretty convincingly that Snell was better through six. He only struck out 6 to Liriano's 10 (Liriano added 1 more K in the 10th), but he'd also only given up 2 hits, 1 walk, and 0 runs to Liriano's 3, 1, and 2. Snell just hit the wall hard in the 7th, something that happens to young pitchers from time to time. He only threw 96 pitches total, his fastball was still buzzing at 96 mph (by the FSP gun), but clearly he had lost something. You can perhaps fault Tracy for not getting him out of the 7th sooner, but I think you have to let a young guy try and get out of a jam like that, especially with such a low pitch count. After Snell hit the wall, the Bucs were done. Liriano started to falter in the 7th, but got out of a 2-on 2-out jam by fanning Joe Randa, who looked like someone that hasn't seen a pitcher like that in about 12 years. After that, it's generally game over against the Twins and their lights out pen, and that was the case last night. The second base umpire getting in the way of a sure-fire double play ball that eventually gave the Twins their insurance run in the 9th didn't help any, but I doubt it hurt much either because Nathan put our 4-5-6 guys down on 7 pitches, needing only three strikes. It was a fun game to watch, both young pitchers were great, Liriano just had a little more in the tank than Snell. I don't see much shame in losing a game like that one.

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