Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

As you would expect, I'm not the only Pirate blogger churning out post after post today. I have one link that is news-related, then some other deadline takes. The news link is Chris Duffy's reaction to being called back up to Pittsburgh. "I don't like it there," he told Pirates officials. "I did all this hoping to get traded." That's from Will Carroll's final deadline rumor mill at BP . Most of it's behind a paywall, but that part is in the free intro. I seriously cannot even process a comment like that from a player like Chris Duffy The Bucs Dugout has a hilarious fake interview with Dave Littlefield . Charlie also kept up with the action all afternoon, but there's too many permalinks to put up here, so you can just go to the main page there and keep reading. Billy at Romo Phone Home is making Watergate comparisons.

I'm going to do my best to be objective here. It's probably pretty hard for me to do so, what with my mind being clouded by rage and anger, but I'm going to try. We'll look at each trade today individually, then on the day as a whole. Trade : Sean Casey to Detroit for Brian Rogers Analysis: The bottom line is that Sean Casey is injury prone and not very good, beyond all the singles hitting that he does. Brian Rogers has put up some good numbers in AA this year but is 24 in his first year of AA ball. Rogers probably won't help us much, but Casey probably won't help the Tigers much. We get the rest of what we owe Casey off the books, and this is an indication that he won't be signed to play first base next year so I don't think this is really an awful trade. Still, that doesn't mean that we should've had traded Casey to San Fran 2 weeks ago before Hillenbrand was on the market and before Casey got hurt again. Typical DL to miss the peak value windo...

The guys at ESPN are reporting that Ryan Shealy and Scott Dohmann went to the Royals for Jeremy Affeldt and Denny Bautista. I'm going to go think about something else for a while, possibly puke, and maybe make a Dave Littlefield voodoo doll. I will be back later with a final analysis on what's happened today. Thanks to everyone in the comments for all the help in keeping up to date on what was going on today, the flurry of Littlefield bed-shitting between 3 and 4 was certainly tough for one person to keep track of.

The guys on ESPN are saying that Shawn Chacon has been traded to us for someone, presumably Craig Wilson. UPDATE: It's a straight up deal, Chacon for Craig Wilson.

Kip Wells is going to Texas for... someone . Thanks to Brian and JB in the comments for the heads up. UPDATE (4:19 PM)- We get Jesse Chavez, whom no one has heard of. Courtesey of Handsome Sam and Brian in the comments, you can find stats here and here . Courtesy of bern1, we can all laugh as he has this to say about Chavez: The baseballcube stats on Chavez's height and weight can't be right ... 6'2" and 153 pounds? What position does he play? Batboy?

Jayson Stark just reported on ESPN that the Mets and Pirates are closing in on a huge deal for Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez. I know Perez has been awful, but he best not go to NY cheaply. UPDATE (3:17 PM)- ESPN just said it's a done deal, Dave Littlefield will finally get Xavier Nady for Perez and Hernandez. Obviously if this is true the deal hinges on what Perez does in New York. John Kruk just guaranteed that he'll be a great pitcher there, so that makes me feel a bit better. UPDATE (3:23 PM)- SI confirms the deal . I really hope a name is missing somewhere.

Gordon Edes at the Boston Globe reports that the Red Sox are talking to the Pirates about Kip Wells (via Rotoworld ). The ESPN trade chat has just suggested that the Padres are going to trade for Aaron Boone to play third base. He has been much worse than Randa this year, given Randa's hot streak since returning from injury. UPDATE (3:04): Buster Olney just showed up on my TV and told me that Kip heading to Boston is almost a done deal. Steve Phillips thinks this is a bad deal for the Red Sox, which means Theo is probably pressing the "Go" button on this one as we speak.

Via Rowdy (and now Charlie as well , information travels quickly on these here interwebs) Will Carrol at BP says that Jack Wilson may have demanded a trade this weekend. Like the other two, I can only speculate what would cause that, maybe the soul crushing realization that he signed his soul over to losing seasons for the rest of his career when he signed that extension? I can't say for sure, but like the Bucs Dugout, I couldn't help but pass this along. We'll know shortly if anything will come of it.

Littlefield will make at least one move before 4 today: he's traded Sean Casey to Detroit as the Tigers have- get this- demoted Chris Shelton to AAA . Meanwhile, we get Brian Rogers, who is described by Rotoworld thusly: Rogers has had an excellent season in Double-A, but the 2003 11th-round pick is a 24-year-old reliever with less-than-exceptional stuff. He's not very likely to be a successful setup man in the majors. I'll try to find out more about Johnson and the salary figures in this deal, meanwhile you can check out trade deadline stuff from Dejan and Rob Rossi , while keeping in mind that neither predicted this deal (not to fault them... no one did). UPDATE (12:34 PM): This Rob Rossi article on Casey's time in Pittsburgh , which was posted to the Trib's site last night, is written in the past tense and now seems strangely prescient. UPDATE (1:16 PM): David Pinto at Baseball Musings says Rodgers is a nice pick-up for us . This is true, if we're planning...

After seeing the other four starters in the rotation all string together good starts, Zach Duke had no choice but to come to the park with his best stuff today and he did just that. That's not quite right, he could've kept sucking, but he would've felt pretty lonesome with Maholm, Wells, and Gorzo all making good starts. Duke skipped lightly through 6 and 1/3 innings, shutting out the Giants on four hits and only 63 pitches. I would say somehting like "then the rain came" but I don't think that would accurately describe the situation. There was some serious Old Testament rains in Pittsburgh this afternoon, unlike anything I've seen in the city since probably the Hurrican Ivan induced floods in late '04. That stopped the game for a good 2 hours, effectively ending Duke's night early. Seeing as how Craig Wilson was again on the bench while an ancient and inferior player took the field and that Craig still hasn't been traded and with Abreu going t...

The Bucs and Giants wrap this three game series up this afternoon at PNC. As I guessed last night, there's no Bonds in the lineup for San Fran today . There's also no Craig Wilson in the lineup for us, but that clearly is meaningless. As Dave Littlefield doesn't believe in silly things like "showcasing his players" because there wasn't anything like 12 scouts in attendance last night . Duke and Morris take the mound with the Giants needing a win to avoid falling even further behind in both of their respective races (4 back in both their division and the Wild Card).

I decided late in the afternoon today to head down to the game and see Bonds in what very well may be his last game in the 'Burgh (I kinda doubt he'll play tomorrow in the afternoon game), even though that meant a SRO ticket. Despite the lack of seats, I'd say it turned out to be well worth it. Tom Gorzellany turned out to be much better than last time I saw him pitch . In fact, Gorzo turned out to be very good tonight. He went 7 strong with 6 hits and only 1 walk and ramping his fastball up to 96 on the gun. He gave up two runs, but the first one was fairly cheap as Jim Tracy insisted on playing the outfielders in Oakland with Barry Bonds at the plate, even though he's clearly only a shadow of his former self right now, allowing him to loop a routine flyout between Jack Wilson and Bautista that got by Jose for an RBI double. Beyond that, Bonds was a non-factor walking once and whiffing twice (once at Gorzo's hand and once at the hand of JOHN GRABOW who managed to n...

Gorzo takes the mound against Jamey Wright tonight looking for his first big league win. The giveaway may well be the reason that Sean Casey is still a Pirate, this is an organization that would not shy away from not dealing a guy to keep the giveaway intact. The plan is working as I think tonight is another sellout, though that's likely more of a function of Pirate fans trying to get their last glimpse of Barry Bonds before he fades off into the American League.

David Bell, traded. Joe Randa, not Danys Baez, traded. Mike Stanton, traded. Roberto Hernandez, Salomon Torres not. Ben Broussard, traded. Craig Wilson, not. Littlefield insists he's not difficult to deal with. Reality suggests otherwise. Still, in Jayson Stark's latest "Stark Market" (Insider only), he indicates that other teams are saying that Littlefield is finally becoming reasonable. It may be too late.

Now there was a pretty enjoyable baseball game. The highlights were, in no particular order, Kip Wells increasingly making me not look like a moron for sticking up for him in his last push to get the hell out of town, Barry Bonds not even making a throw to homeplate with Nate McLouth barely rounding third so as to not embarass himself (and maybe, just maybe, flashing back to 1992 and hating himself for it), the Pirates getting three straight hits followed by 2 walks after Jason Schmidt set down 17 in a row, and Damaso Marte getting over his bed-shitting antics and getting Bonds to fly out with the bases loaded and 2 down in the 8th. Beating Barry Bonds will never get old.

I think everyone knows the drill tonight. A particular former left fielder of ours who you may or may not remember will be taking the field to a likely shower of boos for the Giants tonight against the Pirates. Another former Pirate and reminder of DL's failings as a GM will take the mound for the Giants against Kip Wells, who hopes that a similar fate awaits him when he gets his ticket out of town. Tickets are hard to come by from this one from what I've heard, and no matter what happens it will probably be fun.

Though there have been some small moves in the past couple weeks, mostly Dayton Moore shuffling around loose parts in KC, trade season officially opened up today with the shipping of Carlos Lee to Texas for Laynce Nix, Kevin Mench, and Francisco Cordero. This kind of seems like a deal that could work out for both teams. Obviously, the Rangers get Lee, but the Brewers needed a guy like Cordero after Turnbow's recent implosion and Mench should be able to be decently productive, though he's not playing very well this year. Of course Cordero has been struggling lately as well and Mench is certainly not Lee, so maybe it won't work out. This is somewhat interesting to Pirate fans because Mench's bulbous melon is a perennial DL trade target (which is amusing because as much as the org seems to hate guys like Craig Wilson, they keep trying to trade for clones of him). Meanwhile, DL is still just sitting there. The rumors haven't changed recently, Torres here, Hernandez the...

Sorry for the lack of posts today, but tomorrow is poster day where I have to present some of my research, so I've been running around like mad all day trying to find a printer at this damn school that I can print my poster out on. Still, I've got some links to share with everyone. Beyond the Boxscore assigns fielding rankings to most of baseball, the infield here and the outfield here . If you haven't seen them yet, they aren't pretty. At all. (Via Bucs Dugout ). Yes, I'm aware of the whole Van Slyke/Ozzie Guillen thing that's going on. The fact is, you've got two guys with big mouths going after each other. It also depends on how you take Van Slyke's "atypical" comment. If you take it at his word, The Mighty MJD has a good take on things . If you think he meant "typical" then he's pretty stupid. Either way, I don't think this thing is bad enough to force a name change on the blog here. Meanwhile, both Rowdy and Charlie w...

I'm not much of a country music fan, but I recently watched the Johnny Cash movie and have been unable to get certain songs out of my head. Then I realized why, because there were certain parallels that struck me. Sung to Folsom Prison Blues , of course. I see the deadline comin' Right after the weekend And I ain't seen a good trade Since I don't know when I'm stuck watchin' Dave L-field And time keeps draggin' on He traded our third-baseman On down to Chi-ca-go When I was just a baby My daddy told me "Son, Just watch that man Van Slyke And never play with guns." But Dave traded Schmidt to San Fran And he got White Flag When I see the deadline comin' My spirit starts to lag There's other teams a-dealin' And making themselves good They're prob'ly tradin prospects Or a has-been-never-was But I know I had it comin' I know I can't be free But Dave just can't get fired And that's what tortures me. Well if they freed...

Holy freakin' crap the Pirates won a road series. The last time that happened, we promptly lost lots and lots of games all in a row. We managed to win today because Paul Maholm kept his head after his characteristic terrible start and the offense managed to catch up. The offensive help came from all over (six Pirates had ribbies), and the Pirates never looked back after Jason Bay's game tying homer in the 5th, rallying for two more runs that inning and two in the top of the ninth. The best part about it was that it came against Capuano, who said some vaguely mean things about the Pirates when we steamrolled them in May that were certainly true, but still mean. I don't remember what they were and I can't find them anywhere, but it was almost certainly along the lines of "They aren't that good." He was right, but I still get some perverse satisfaction out of beating the Brewers. I know they're better than us and they're on the right path while we...

Apparently the Pirates and Brewers have been playing since 2. I lose track of all these damn afternoon games and things are hectic at work, hence my forgetting to post a gamethread. Plus, Blogger losing my e-mail posts doesn't help matters at all. But here it is now, Maholm and Capuano, in progress, with the game tied at 4 after a very recent Jay Bay dinger in the top of the fifth.

There's pretty much only one story from tonight's game... Ian Snell was out of his mind tonight. Remember Ian Snell= L insane L. I don't know what to do with those L's, they kind of throw a wrench into things. Snell matched Ben Sheets and one upped him in just about every way possible in Sheets' big return to Milwaukee's rotation with a 7 inning, four hit, 1 run, 9 K line, with the only run he allowed being a Prince Fielder home run. On the offensive side of things, the only run the Pirates mustered off of Sheets in his six innings was an opposite field Jeromy Burnitz home run, after which pigs flew and the temperature in Ogden Nutting's den dropped precipitously. Luckily for the Pirates, Sheets was done after seven and was followed by Dave Bush, who proceeded to give up five runs in the top of the eighth, capped off by a second Burnitz homer. I would hope that somewhere a GM would be thinking, "Man, he's really started to hit the ball. We could use...

Snell and Sheets tonight. Hopefully those two can spearhead a game in which the Pirates and Brewers don't play as if they spent all afternoon before the game at a bar. Also it would be nice if the Pirates won.

The Stats Geek did his bi-weekly chat today and it's hilarious. I don't want to ruin any of it, just check it out .

The Stats Geek makes a case for Ryan Shealy. Joe Rutter's notebook at the Trib says the Angels are still interested in Craig Wilson. John Perrotto gets in on the fun and throws a bunch of names around in the BCT today. My " One Craig Wilson " piece from last week is now cross-posted at Irate Fans . It's the same there as it was here. If you'd like to submit something to Irate Fans make sure you check this page out. Baseball Tonight fired Harld Reynolds today for no apparent reason, yet saw fit to leave John Kruk and Steve Phillips employed.

As previously noted, this was an uuuuuuuuugly one. Duke had about as little as I've ever seen him take the mound with and the Brewers made him pay for it. He also committed an error AND balked the same runner over. This is one of those nights that I'm sure he'd prefer to forget about just as much as we would. Victor Santos then came in and did an admirable Ryan Vogelsong impersonation, which unfortunately doesn't help much if the ultimate goal is winning games. We managed to make three errors besides Duke's (2 by Castillo) but only one actually resulted in a Brewers run. The Brewers themselves didn't play particularly well either. Their poor pitching and defense through the game almost allowed the Pirates to crawl back into the game, though us being the Pirates meant we couldn't really take advantage of it. Bay appears close to re-tracking himself after a 4-for-4 night that just missed the cycle by a single. His monstrous two-run homer in the top of the firs...

Tonight we return to the site of where this nightmare of a season began, Milwaukee. The Brewers have been falling apart lately, losing 7 of their last 10, to fall to 5 games behind the Reds in the Wild Card race. We've played the Brewers twice this year, they swept us in Milwaukee and we swept them in Pittsburgh. They're 29-20 at home while we're 11-39 on the road. This three game set opens up with Doug Davis and Zach Duke on the mound. They've faced off once before this season with Duke getting the win and Davis getting smashed all around the park in his three innings. It would be nice to recreate that experience, but the road/home splits likely indicate otherwise. IN GAME MUSING (10:16)- I have never seen a team play as badly as the Brewers have and still have a 6 run lead in the 6th inning. I know I'm prone to exaggeration and hyperbole from time to time, but I'm being dead serious right now. If I watch much more of this I think my eyes will start bleeding.

There's some very interesting stuff from Dejan's chat today. First off, he makes it sound as if John Grabow will bring Shealy from Colorado: If they were to offer a young, ready-to-step-in reliever, from what I understand, they could have Shealy. If that were to be someone left-handed -- who does not necessarily have to be Mike Gonzalez -- that might be welcome, too, especially if Colorado moves forward in trading Ray King. Not to name names or anything. I've cooled in Shealy a bit because part of the reason I felt like the trade had to be made was to strengthen the market for Casey, especially where the Giants were concerned. This is likely no longer the case, though there have been rumblings that Oakland would be interested in him. Still, Shealy represents an upgrade over Sean Casey, who would seem at the moment to be the most likely candidate to play first next season. If it's true that Grabow will get the deal done, we'd be absolutely stupid not to do it. Deja...

What Dave Littlefield says : The people we have out there in the trade market basically are viewed as extra pieces, quite frankly, as they are with our team right now. They're pieces that maybe can help as a bat off the bench or somewhere else. What he means: I am going to attempt to try to trade a paperclip for a house, but I know I am not likely to end up with more than a handful of paperclips. This would seem to indicate that I don't think there's anything wrong with the Pittsburgh Pirates, which is insane. Also, Paul Maholm has taken over for Jason Bay as the Pirates' player rep . This would normally not mean much, but rookie Maholm is going to have a quick wake up to the process, as a new CBA will be negotiated this offseason.

There were some positives in today's game, so we can start there. Tom Gorzellany finally got his head together and had a pretty good major league start. He still walked a ton of people (4 in six innings), but he was greatly improved over last Tuesday in his 6 inning, 5 hit, 2 run performance today. I think we'd all love to see him get on track in Pittsburgh before this season ends. Jose Bautista also set out today to make up for his terrible game in center yesterday and did a pretty decent job of it by picking up two outfield assists and getting on base 4 out of 5 times today (2 hits, a walk, and reached on an error). Unfortunately, he dozed off on third base during a Dontrelle Willis wild pitch and failed to score what would've been a crucial run in the fourth inning. Why is it that we seem to have so many young players that struggle with focusing so often? Also in the positive column was Freddy breaking out of his mini-slump with a 3 hit afternoon. Unfortunately our 4-5-6...

The Marlins sure like to play games at screwy times, as they've started their Sunday game at 1:00 instead of 1:30 a day after a 6 PM game. Gorzo and Dontrelle Willis take the mound in the final of this four game set in Miami today. Willis hasn't been great this year, but he's been very good in his last 7 starts and he struck out the side in the top of the first after loading the bases today. The Pirates are probably just hoping for any runs at all after the last two games while Gorzellany will be looking to shore things up after Tuesday's debacle.

Rob Rossi notes in his notebook today that the Pirates have told three teams that Matt Capps is off limits. This is why we suck, because we place a FREAKING RELIEVER as off limits. Gotta make sure our bullpen is strong to hold those leads that our invisible offense and disappointing pitching staff get so often. Meanwhile in Dejan's notebook the Pirates stunning lack of speed on the basepaths is discussed, as well as the Astros' not so serious interest in Damaso Marte and the Pirates intense desire to replace their least favorite player with a clone, in this case Kevin Mench. At the end is a mention of Chris Duffy in AAA, and his 10 stolen bases in 13 attempts in 18 games, which is pretty damn impressive.

Getting shutout on four hits is never fun, but giving up four runs because your centerfielder... I dunno I don't really have any words to describe Bautista yesterday. Kip didn't pitch particularly well, but only one of the runs he gave up was really his fault as Bautista and McLouth botched a flyball into a triple leading to two runs in the first. Beyond that, Nolasco dominated us with 7 Ks through 7 and 1/3 and we never seemed to really stand much of a chance against him. I hate the Marlins and their young pitchers that are actually producing up to expectations.

Kip Wells takes the mound tonight, hoping to keep building on his comeback, which has started to turn around in the last two starts. He'll face off against Ricky Nolasco, yet another one of Florida's legion of young and impressive pitchers. It was just three years ago that Florida won a World Series on the young arms of Beckett, Penny, and Willis (with Burnett on the DL that year), and they've already reloaded with a young staff that has the potential to be just as impressive. It amazes me how fast some teams seem to reload and how some teams just keep on being the Pirates. This one is supposed to kick off an hour early, assuming the weather holds out .

Dave Littlefield's hemming and hawing has likely screwed the Pirates once again. A week ago the Giants would've made a deal for Sean Casey, but Littlefield waited and held out for more while the Giants signed Shea Hillenbrand . That all but assures Casey will be a Pirate for the rest of 2006. According to the Trib, the Pirates have also fallen out of contention for Ryan Shealy because they are unwilling to pay the price of Matt Capps, according to today's PG notebook. If no one else makes a better offer some combination of Torres, Marte, and Hernandez may get the deal done, but I wouldn't count on it. Also in the Trib notebook comes the not new information that no one seems willing to pay the price for Craig Wilson. The Dodgers are the latest team to pull out, with the Pirates strangely interested in Cesar Izturis, who's pretty much Jack Wilson in blue. The assumption would be that the Pirates have a trade for JWilson as well, but that would be pretty shocking. In ...

Scott Olsen is exactly the type of pitcher that has owned the Pirates this year. He doesn't throw especially hard, but he throws good off speed stuff and uses it to place the fastball, which makes our Buccos look like a bunch of morons. He struck out 11 tonight, including six straight at one point. Paul Maholm took the hard luck loss as he actually pitched quite well, only really being hurt by a Cody Ross homer and Jose Castillo missing a ball that a nine year old would've turned into a double play. Speaking of which, Cody Ross has six homer and 23 RBIs this year and three of those homers and 11 of those RBIs are against the Buccos. I honestly don't even know how that happens.

Tonight is Paul Maholm and Scott Olsen. Maholm's been nice and OK in two of his last three starts, but he was mostly not very good at all before then. Olsen is another of the Marlins' youngsters that's been pitching very well this year, though he's run up big pitch counts early in his last two starts and hasn't gone more than 5 and 1/3 in either of them. If you're looking for some in-game reading, I would recommend checking out The Onion's fantastic "PNC Park Threatens to Leave Pittsburgh Unless Better Team Is Built" (sent in by reader Matt) if you haven't yet (I'd imagine most internet savvy Pirate fans have). There's also Mondesi's House's Pittsburgh Sport Power Rankings , which I'd recommend checking out if you've got the time.

Today in the Pirate Notebook, Dejan tells us that the Rockies want a "young middle reliever" for Ryan Shealy . That probably closes the book on Torres or Marte getting the job done. Grabow isn't particularly young or particularly good, so I'd imagine he's out of the question as well. In the majors that leaves Capps, who almost 23. Gonzo is 28, so even though he's only in his third year, he's not particularly young. In the minors we have two guys have good years but who aren't really all that young, Bayliss (almost 26) and Sharpless (25 and a half), but I doubt the Rockies want a minor leaguer for Shealy. Since Dejan usually goes out of his way to mention that he doesn't write about unfounded rumors (and reiterates in this week's Q&A ) there's not really any reason to doubt that the Rockies have asked about a young middle reliever. From above reasoning, my best guess is that they've asked about Capps. So the question is, should we t...

Tonight's game was played in an on and off deluge that almost ended the game early with the Marlins ahead. Instead, it lightened up just enough to let two unlikely heroes came through to help the Pirates to a come from behind win. First up we had a Mighty Mouse McLouth (I can't help it, I'm a big alitteration fan) homer to tie the game up in the eighth, then the Bucs rallied again in the ninth with the go ahead hit coming off of the bat of pinch hitter Jeromy Burnitz (who was only 5-for-14 with runners on third and less than two outs coming into the AB), before a Jack Wilson RBI double put things away. Beyond the comeback thing, Ian Snell had a pretty decent start only giving up 6 hits and a walk in six innings, though he did give up three runs. Oh, and Jason Bay destroyed a ball to account for the rest of the Bucco runs that I haven't described yet. It probably went at least a million feet. Well, maybe 440 feet, but since numbers are infinite, a million and 440 are pra...

Snell and someone named Josh Johnson, about whom I know nothing, go at it tonight. Both Paul Meyer and J oe Starkey note how good the Marlins are at rebuilding. Maybe they're good at it because DL ditched them to come here.

The longer Littlefield sits without having done anything, the more convinced I become that this trade deadline will be another Littlefield failure. When you're chips aren't worth as much as what other teams have, you have to move early. Craig Wilson and Jeromy Burnitz only hold value when other teams are unsure if Alfonso Soriano or Bobby Abreu are going to be available. The Shealy trade would seem to be such a no-brainer from both sides that I'm incredibly nervous it hasn't happened yet. Most likely the Rockies are asking for an Oliver Perez or a Mike Gonzalez to complete the deal and Littlefield is still clutching to his idea that Salomon Torres alone can make it happen. Over at Honest Wagner , Rowdy has posted about this New York Daily News articl e , which would confirm something similar. According to Bill Madden the Yankees are unwilling to deal with Littlefield, even if it's for a guy that will help their team out.

The Pirates won in a pleasantly surprising manner this afternoon, with Zach Duke putting together a good start save for the three consecutive doubles he allowed in the top of the sixth (again, one inning got him, besides that he was very good). Joe Randa kept driving his trade stock up with another good performance at the plate, going 2-for-4 with 3 ribbies this afternoon. Torres (in an audition?) pitched a solid inning in relief, as did Capps, before Mike Gonzalez took the mound and proved to Jose Mesa that he learned all he knows about closing from him (36 pitches, one run allowed with a 2 run lead, getting the third out on a strike out with the bases load, I'm sure Joey Table was a proud papa today). We also got a personal audition from Ryan Shealy, who was just called up yesterday as if DL called O'Dowd and said "Hey, can we see him in person before we ship half our pen over there?" Shealy didn't disappoint, going 2-for-5 with 2 doubles, scoring 2 runs and kno...

I had a post about why we should trade for Ryan Shealy finished, but Blogger ate it and I have to get back to work. The Bucs and Rockies are playing an afternoon game today with Duke and Jason Jennings facing off. Shealy is at first, so we get a first hand look at him.

I can honestly say tonight was one of the worst Pirate games I've ever attended in person. Gorzo started out alright, but completely fell apart after his throwing error in the second. He kept throwing hard (94ish) but lost all control. After he fell apart, the team just kind of quit on the field. Bautista played a Jose Castillo-ish center field and the whole team was just plain lethargic. The game didn't actually go longer than 3 hours so it can't be considered that long, but it felt like a lifetime out in the bleachers in center. Ugh, I don't really want to talk about it anymore.

I'm heading down to the park tonight to check out Gorzo in person, who I haven't even seen pitch on TV yet. He faces off against Jeff Francis, the rare pitcher that is better at Coors Field than away from it.

More rumors and such, nothing particularly new, but since we're sitting on July 18th, 'tis the season: Bern in the comments points us towards the McCovey Chronicles' take on the purported Pirates/Giants talks involving Sean Casey, humorous Littlefield/Sabean conversation included. The basic sentiment here is that the Pirates would be almost retarded not to deal. Umm, guys... Meanwhile the Pirates/Yankees talks appear to be heating up involving a certain over 40 relief pitcher. The Staten Island Advance (via HW ) has a story and I was going to link to a Jersey paper that Rotoworld used as a source, but it turned out to be the same column. Burnitz, meanwhile, acknowledges that while common sense dictates that he be traded , he really hasn't played well enough to merit much of a move. The New York Islanders fired their GM after only two months , in which no games were played. Meanwhile, we are still stuck with DL, five years later. And finally, Peter Gammons is out of ...

By now, I'm sure most of you are familiar with the exploits of the most recent internet celebrity du jour, Kyle MacDonald. About a year ago he set out to obtain a house by starting with one red paperclip and an ad on Craigslist hoping to trade the paperclip for something else. The goal was to continue obtaining items with slightly more value than what he already had until he got his house. If you missed it, you can find all of his exploits at his website, the aptly named "One Red Paper Clip" (click above paperclip for a link). Last week, his goal finally came to fruition. He had turned his paperclip into a pen, which became a doorknob, a portable stove, a generator, an "instant party" (beer keg and Budweiser sign), a snowmobile, a trip to Yahk, BC, a cube van (UHaul), a recording contract, a year's rent in Phoenix, an afternoon with Alice Cooper, a KISS snowglobe, a speaking part in Corbin Bernsen's next movie, and finally a house in Kipling, Saskatchewa...

Two little tidbits from the PG earlier today (actually yesterday), that I didn't have time to post about. I've also got something a little more current. Apparently, there's still no movement between the Pirates and Casey on an extension , which is good. Of course, DK has to throw in that it doesn't mean there WON'T be an offer, and hell, we might even extend Bobby Ancient as well. And the Trib from yesterday would seem to confirm that they will at least try to extend him . In discussion the locker room chemistry in his chat today, Dejan casually mentions that "the veterans want out." As usual, there's lots of other good stuff in the chat that's worth checking out. And while we're at it, there is apparently some speculation about the Pirates trading to get 2B/utility guy Jeff Keppinger (part of the Benson deal) back from the Mets, possibly for Roberto Hernandez. I first ran into this rumor at the Bucs Dugout , where Charlie muses that if such...

And the Pirates' second straight effective start comes from... Kip Wells?!? Kip delievered a quality start tonight, his first since, I dunno, 8 BC (before clot) and the Pirates offense coupled that with juuuust enough (lead by Freddy Sanchez's 2-for-3, 1 RBI, 1 R night) to eek out a win. The game wasn't on tonight, and since I'm smack dab in the middle of Pittsburgh, not even my Extra Innings Free Preview week had the game on, so I can't directly comment on what Kip did because I didn't see it. Still, the line looks pretty good, 7 innings, 7 hits, 2 walks, 1 run, 4 Ks. He threw 67 of 100 pitches for strikes, which is pretty good on any night. Out of his 7 hits, one was a homer to Barmes (oops, Barmes has been awful this year) and one was a double to Atkins, beyond that he scattered 5 singles. Probably the most impressive thing is that he did it on an oppresively hot and humid night, which is exactly the kind of night you would think a guy that's been rushed ...

The Rockies come into town tonight hoping that a visit to PNC is what the doctor ordered to keep their season from falling off the face of the earth. They've lost their last 7 and fallen to last place in the hotly contested NL West (they're still only 4 games off the pace). They'll have to hope that Kip Wells can be their slumpbuster tonight because they're trotting Byung-Hyun Kim out, and I don't think he inspires confidence in anyone. Also, it's approximately a million degrees (that's Celsius, of course) out in Pittsburgh today, which will likely have some kind of effect on this one. UPDATE (7:15)- This one is nowhere to be found on the TV... that's strange for a Monday night game.

After a full weekend of the Pirates pitching staff playing bend but don't break with the Nats, they finally broke in the 11th inning today, surrendering four runs to the Nats and costing themselves only their second sweep of the season. Paul Maholm got off to a good start today and mowed down the Nats through six, but he hit trouble in the 7th and let the Nats get back into the game by giving up a 2 run homer to Alex Escobar. Still, it's not entirely the fault of the pitching as the offense, which had been so hot coming out of the break, managed only one run after the first inning against such stalwarts as Livian Hernandez, Saul Rivera, Kevin Gryboski, and Mike Stanton. I suppose every once in a while we need that reminder that we are in fact the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Pirates look to start off the second half by breaking out the brooms against the Nats today. Paul Maholm and Livian Hernandez will take the mound which means that the precendent set by the first two games of this series, lots of hits, lots of walks, looooooong baseball games, will likely be followed.

Let's move past all of the Craig Wilson and Jeromy Burnitz talk to the back burner for a second (if you missed it, rumors were popping up that the Pirates had offered those two to the Yankees for Melky Cabrera , but that the offer was rejected ... both links from Pinstripe Alley ) and talk about a subject brought up in the PG today; trading Jack Wilson . This would be a very, very good idea and yet it's likely impossible because of Littlefield's own stupidity. First off, between Freddy Sanchez, Jose Castillo, and Jose Bautista the Bucs can fill second, third, and short with cheaper players that are more productive than Jack at the plate and younger (except in Freddy's case), while not really losing much defensively at all. Jack Wilson is an above average defensive shortstop who also happens to be one of the worse hitting regular players at his position and possibly one of the worse hitting regular players in the league. He's also a great guy who always plays hard, w...

For the second night in a row, a funny thing happened with the Pirates. Placed in a situation where they had typically failed in the first half of the year, the Pirates managed to squeeze out another win tonight. Tonight the situation was bottom of the ninth, tie game, bases loaded, no outs. With the fateful D'Backs game of mid-June fresh in mind and Jose Bautista's strikeout causing Pirate fans to again fear the worst, Ronnie Paulino stepped up and delievered a game winning single (which was actually a ground rule double, but the game ends once the first run crosses) and got the Buccos off to their first two game winning skein in over a month (since that fateful series in San Francisco that had all of our hopes so high). Sure, it's only the Nationals, but last time I checked, we're only the Pirates. The whole game was a see-saw affair, starting with Soriano's depositing Snell's first pitch into the stands and the Pirates responding with 2 in the bottom of the f...

Tonight Ian Snell and Pedro Astacio go at it as the Pirates try to lock up something that they managed to avoid pretty often in the first half, a series win. Interestingly, there's no Craig Wilson or Jeromy Burnitz in the lineup for a second night in a row. It's getting to be that time of year where something like that is rather suspicious.

This is a couple days late, but Billy and Zeke of Romo Phone Home saw a particular Mr. G. Ogden Nutting at the All-Star Game, as apparently MoleMan decided to come out of his layer and actually see what this new fangled "base ball" is all about. Also, via Romo, is a thread at OnlyBucs.net in which a Kevin McClatchy interview in the Pittsburgh Business Times is discussed . This one isn't for the faint of heart. ESPN.com lists their top 10 big contract busts of 2006 and Jeromy Burnitz is #8 . But, you know, we can't afford the compete with bigger market teams. Regular commenter Murphy was also at the game last night , and sitting in rather nice seats to boot. They were, in fact, prime "Jeff Cox heckling seats." In today's Pirate Notebook (PG version), there is discussion of presenting Freddy Sanchez with a extension for his upcoming arbitration years and it sounds like Freddy probably wouldn't hang the Pirates out to dry over the contract. Dejan also...

The paid attendance tonight was somewhere around 26,000 for a Pirates/Nationals game on one of the hottest, muggiest nights of the year. I can't even imagine what a baseball game would be like if this team was coming into the game at 45-45 instead of 30-60. That being said, it was a rather strange game tonight. I don't know if it was the 4 day layoff or the 4000% humidity, but not one Pirate pitcher could find the plate tonight. Duke looked like he had no idea where the ball was going whenever it left his hand (4 walks in 5 and 2/3rds) and none of the relievers were much better (except Capps, who walks no one ever). Still, I thought Tracy and co. did a good job managing the pitching staff tonight. Colborn came out to talk to Duke after he walked the bases loaded in the fourth, and the little change of pace seemed to help Duke get out of the inning. Tracy also managed to do something I'd been hoping he'd do for months, get the starters out of games when they can be the w...

I'm heading down to PNC to watch the opposite of what was seen there on Tuesday, the Pirates and the Nationals. Actually, that's incredibly unfair to the Nationals, who are only 8.5 games back in the Wild Card race and just pulled off a hell of a trade. Tonight is Zach Duke takes on Ramon Ortiz as the Pirates try to avoid losing 39 of their next 72 games. And of course it's XTREME Cap Night (they spelled it with an X, so you know it's good).

I love how everyone (including myself) refers to the first game after the All-Star break as the first game of the second half. The Pirates will play 162 games, they've played 90. The second half started like a week ago, but there wasn't a big long break announcing it was halftime (who's idea is it to not have the break in the middle of the season? I guess the 4th gets in the way or something). The Pirates will need to go 33-39 in the 72 games after the interim to avoid 100 losses. I'd say it's rather unlikely this will happen, given the fact that they've lost 60 of their first 90 games. This is why I haven't really done a second half preview, there's not much to look forward too. After thinking about it, and here's what is going to keep my watching in the second half: Can Duke and Maholm make any progress? Can Snell become more consistent? These things are going to have to happen if 2007 is going to look different. Finally getting an answer to the c...

With today being the last Pirates-less day after the All-Star I could talk about moves that DL will be looking to make before the deadline, but that is frankly rather depressing. Instead, I'm going to go back over my pre-season MLB predictions and re-evaluating for the second half. AL East My prediction : Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox, D-Rays, Orioles Currently : Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays, Orioles, D-Rays Comments : I said before the season I thought this would be the year that the Blue Jays would break up Yankees/Sox 1/2 punch at the top of this division, and I still think it might be. The big question is, of course, what the Yankees will do to shore up their rotation and fill in the holes in their outfield. They don't have much to deal in their system, though, and I could see them faltering down the stretch instead of picking up steam. The Red Sox are going to rely on some young pitchering with Lester now in the rotation and Delcarmen, Hansen, and Papelbon now in the 'pe...

On this very date 5 years ago the Pittsburgh Pirates hired Dave Littlefield as their general manager . In five years, Dave Littlefield has done something that no one would've believed was possible on July 13, 2001, he's proven himself to be a worse GM than Cam Bonifay. Happy anniversary, Dave! Only under the close watch of Kevin McClatchy and the Nutting family could someone as totally inept as you keep your job for this long. God bless America. Thanks to Bern in the comments for the tip.

Last night I was patronizing one of the fine alcohol serving establishments on the Southside when a vaguely familiar song came over the jukebox. After about thirty seconds I managed to place the song. I recognized it as Adrian Brown's at-bat music from his time with the Pirates. I am still unsure why Adrian Brown's at-bat music was buried somewhere deep in my brain and frankly, I am still afraid.

Let's change gears here for the pitchers. The Buccos offense this year has been surprisingly almost average, but the pitching has been pretty bad. It's true that they're incredibly young, but I don't think anyone thought they'd be as bad as they've been. Instead of awards, I'll just try and measure my disappointment with each pitcher. Actually exceeded expectations As far as I can tell, only one person on the Buccos staff has done that, and it's Matt Capps . He's had his ups and downs, but he's been very effective for a 22 year old reliever with only one dominant pitch. He's probably got a future as a lights out closer. His middle name is Dicus, which I find pretty funny. Have I mentioned he has 7 times as many strikeouts as walks? Expected to disappoint, but didn't Roberto Hernandez and Victor Santos . Expectations were low for Hernandez because he's rather advanced in age, but he's actually been pretty good out of the pen this...

Rowdy posts about Jason Schmidt saying the Pirates aren't so bad and how he's probably right. I'll be honest, during the 13 game losing streak I kept looking at the team thinking to myself, "How is this actually happening? Look at these players, they aren't this bad. There's something here that isn't right." Charlie does a "Pirates trade value" post. Where have you gone... Chad Hermansen ? As pointed out to me below in the comments, apparently Kevin McClatchy's seat has been empty lately because he's afraid of getting booed at the park . With the All-Star Game over, I'd guess McClatchy will be getting out of town ASAP. Unfortunately, I'm not so sure about the Nuttings. Not baseball related at all (sorry, I had to share), but hearing Zidane's mom talk goes a long way towards explaining the head-butt.

Meant to post this sooner, but here are some thoughts I had on last night's game: How does one city go from having Meatloaf sing the National Anthem at an All-Star Game to Carrie Underwood just 12 years later? I was only 9 when I was at the last game and I still remember the Loaf's anthem. The huge ovations for Freddy and Jay Bay were awesome to see during introductions. It obviously meant a ton to them to be there for this and they deserve it. Somehow the Pirate fans at the game got the memo that A-Rod and Jeter are supposed to be booed, but they missed the one about Tracy deserving the same treatment. For shame. I still enjoy looking out my window and seeing the Goodyear blimp circling the city. All of the Roberto tributes were great, from Ozzie Guilllen's "Chasing 3000" shirt, to the RCW sweatbands, to the award ceremony. One small complaint, I wish they had Lanny or Greg Brown MC the ceremony instead of Selig. They both take a lot of crap online, but a hometow...

I hate doing the whole "ABC" or "1-10" grading scale. I hate it. That usually means that I have to stretch the creativity 'round this time of year when people expect to see some midseason grading up. Personally, the most brilliant form of grading I've seen in some time was done by Page 2's World Cup Blogger, Michael Davies . He graded each of England's players after matches on a scale of "No Pants at all" (the best) to "Complete, utter Pants" (the worst). Instead, since it was so much fun with the pitchers last year , I will create utterly random and meaningless awards and hand them out. The "Team MVP, biggest surprise, absolutely no pants WHATSOEVER, with a special side prize for making Dave Littlefield eat a giant shitburger" Award This one can only go to Freddy Sanchez . We all knew he was a better man for the job at third base than anyone DL tried to sign, but no one saw .358/.396/.520 coming. He has been the lone pl...