You win, Bob Nutting

Being at the park tonight, it's hard to say how many people got out of their seats after the third inning. I'd put it somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000. The part that was sad for me was that maybe 100 or so left the park altogether. I don't see what kind of message gets sent by a couple thousand people standing around the concession area for an inning, then sitting back down. In fact, this was a depressing Pirate game tonight. Just around me in my section on the right field wall was some disinterested 12-year old who destroyed his Bob Walk bobblehead while his dad looked on like he couldn't do anything about it, six brain dead college age kids who were literally threatening the life of Austin Kearns every time he took the field, and two enormously obese women who needed four seats between them and spent most of the time swearing into their cell phones.

Anyways, the owners win. Whenever people tell me that Pittsburgh isn't a baseball town, I defend it with my life. There are real fans here, I tell them. If you dig deep enough, baseball still matters to Pittsburgh. It doesn't. The white noise from the crowd doesn't change when Tom Gorzelanny throws his first pitch. When people are asked to walk out of the game to show that they care, only a small fraction of the people actually walk out of the game. The rest go back to their seats after an inning and pretend like nothing happened. I'm not angry, I'm just sad. I dunno what else to say. Maybe I'm misreading this and maybe I shouldn't speak for people that aren't myself, but really, I think baseball is dead in Pittsburgh. There would be almost as many people at these games if you just told them it was a circus. That's what the protest showed me, that the Nutting family could own this team for 100 more years and no one would care enough to make it change.

ETA: I'm sorry if you went to the game and didn't walk out or didn't leave for whatever reason and read this and were offended. If you're reading a Pirate blog, you're a Pirate fan. That's all there is to it. If you care enough to get online and find this site or any other blog like it, we need more fans like you, and I'm sorry if the wrong message got across.

The Protest

You probably feel like I've been avoiding talking about this, other than posting news bits about it on the Fanhouse, and if you do, I understand. It's my fault. I'll be honest with you guys, outside of the blog, I've been having a bad, bad week (I don't like to drag my personal life onto to WHYGAVS, but let's just say a girl is involved and leave it at that, lest you guys worry about the health of my family or something) and I haven't been thinking about the Pirates or the protest terribly much. I've known since the date was announced that tonight was on my dad's season ticket plan and I've been putting off what I'm going to do tonight until my uncle gave me a talking to this morning and basically told me that as a prominent Pirate fan, it's my duty to everyone that comes to this blog every day to not only go to the protest and write about it, but to take a stance and make sure people know what it is. I don't like to think of myself as any different from anyone that reads this page (seriously, I'm just a guy with a computer and maybe an above average way with words), but he's right.

I'm going to the Pirate game today, and I'm wearing a green shirt, and I'm leaving after the third inning. How can I not? I won't try to duplicate Charlie's amazing post (must read if you haven't read it) but I love the Pittsburgh Pirates and the people that own this team and killing them. I watched the 1991 highlight video and "Battlin' Bucs, the first 100 years of the Pittsburgh Pirates" until I wore the VHS tapes out as a kid. I somehow feel connected to Babe Adams because when John Lackey was the winning pitcher in Game 7 of the 2002 World Series, I knew he was the first rookie to win Game 7 since Babe Adams did it for the Buccos against Ty Cobb's Tigers in 1909 before anyone on FOX could tell me that. Honus Wagner isn't just a guy that has an expensive baseball card, he's the forefather of everything I love about the Pirates. Who's the first team to ever come back from a 3-1 World Series deficit? Why, the 1925 Pirates of course, and they had to beat Walter Johnson in Game 7 to do it. Pie Traynor, Kiki Cuyler... what a team. I get visibly pissed whenever Bobby Thompson or Joe Carter's home runs get ranked above Bill Mazeroski's. Greatest World Series performance of all-time? Screw Reggie Jackson, Roberto owned 1971. Then there was 1979. I was -6 then and my parents weren't even married, but don't get me started. And then we can talk about what I remember. I grew up with Andy Van Slyke and Doug Drabek on the TV at all times. I shut off FSP whenever their best baseball moments come on so that I don't accidentally see "the play" again. I can never root for Barry Bonds and it has nothing to do with steroids.

And that's why I keep going to the park. Because that's what great about baseball, somehow it lets you feel like you're a part of all of these things even if you weren't alive when they happened. On Wednesday I was having a shitty day. Just awful. Then Xavier Nady and Ryan Doumit hit back-to-back homers and the Pirates won a game I thought they were going to lose and I smiled. Did it fix everything? No. But I smiled and for a couple minutes, I felt really happy. And that's why I have to go and I have to walk out tonight. Because I really feel like the way the team is being run is stealing that kind of feeling from way more people than just me. People can laugh at us all they want for paying for a ticket and walking out of the park, but they don't get it. The Nuttings get the money one way or another, either from us or from the league. But tonight, tonight's a chance to give a message. You can say that the message won't get to them if it doesn't hit them in the pocketbook, but that's not true. If enough people leave that stadium, it'll be a story and it won't be one Bob Nutting likes.

Will I go back to PNC Park this year? Hard to say. In a month, I'm moving to North Carolina to start grad school and my options for seeing Pirates in person will mostly be limited to watching Indianapolis when they play in Durham, or maybe getting really desperate and driving to Greensboro to watch Hickory play. I'd like one more hurrah at PNC before I leave. When I cleaned out my apartment at Duquesne this week, I found a stash of like 50 or so Pirate tickets. This is a part of who I am. And that's the message I'm sending tonight. The Pirates are something I love and a part of who I am, and for tonight, I'm walking out on that part of me to send a message, to let Bob Nutting and Kevin McClatchy know that while bobbleheads and fireworks might fill a stadium on a Friday or Saturday, there are people out there that care about the Pirates a lot more than they do.

Game 79: Pirates 3 Nationals 2

So let me get this straight, in a Pirates' game tonight a team wasted a great outing by their starter, had a 2 run lead in the seventh inning, and then watched it disintegrate in an awful, ugly, bad loss. But it wasn't the Pirates. Oh, man, Nats fans. I feel really bad about this because I know how you feel.

But anyways, the Pirates played a good game tonight and if they saddled Snell with a loss, I would've been rather pissed and that probably says nothing about how he would've felt about it. In fact, I'm guessing the wrath of Snell is exactly what spurred the team on to victory. Nate McLouth had to get a hit when he pinch hit for Snell because otherwise, Snell would shoot laserbeams out of his eyes and murder him. And Bautista? Well, Snell knows how easy it can be to hit a sac fly and mentally influenced him into both the game tying sac fly and the game winner. Because come on... losing? Snell doesn't [expletive] do that.

Ian Snell returns to the [expletive deleted] mound

Ian Snell faces off against Matt Chico. We've got ample evidence to believe that Ian Snell will be very angry tonight, and generally whenever Ian Snell is very angry, Ian Snell is very, very good. He's pitching against the Nationals, so I've gotta hope he'll be very good tonight. I'm not sure an Ian Snell insult is even necessary tonight because he's already so pissed, but it's a bit too easy.

Hey, Ian! You call that weak [expletive] from last week a [expletive] tantrum? No [expletive] way!!! My [expletive] gramma throws bigger [expletive] tantrums than that weak [expletive]. Figures that a weak ouburst like that would come from such a [expletive] short pitcher, if that's what you call yourself. I bet you can't even beat the [expletive] Nationals tonight.

Please don't kill me, Ian. I kid because I love.

This can't happen soon enough

Seriously, have you ever seen a more encouraging headline than "Armas' Days Numbered?" This guy has been nothing but bad news for us this year. Put anyone else in the bullpen instead. We've already got Wayback Wasdin, why do we need two White Flags in our bullpen? Answer: because our rotation includes guys like Zach Duke and John Van Benschoten, who can't make it through five innings. Regardless of that fact, seriously, it's time to dump the Tony Armas charade, eat his salary, and let someone else suck in the bullpen.

*Note- if they cut Armas and fill his roster spot with Jonah Bayliss, I will probably scream. Just sayin'.

Game 78: Marlins 9 Pirates 7

Holy cow, the Pirates played at noon today. I went to Pittsburgh to clean out my apartment and got home and the game was over already. These damn afternoon games piss me off. Anyways, another Pirate starter struggled and failed to make it into the fifth inning at all, only today Zach Duke left with a 6-2 deficit instead of a 5-2 lead like JVB did last night. Even though the Pirates ended up scoring enough runs to bail Duke out, they didn't bail out Tony Armas, who threw gas onto the fire and gave up a walk and a two-run homer in his first two hitters, and Shawn Chacon, who gave up one more insurance run to the Marlins in the eighth after the Pirates closed the deficit to 8-7. So basically, the storyline on this one goes, Duke sucks, Armas sucks, the offense can't cover for it. Sound familiar at all?

The Protest

You can read my take on it at the Fanhouse. It's posted there because it can get a wider audience there. Here's the thing about this protest. It may not be the best organized thing in the world, but I certainly didn't put one together on my own, so who am I to complain? The local media has picked it up and given it a ton of publicity and that is a very, very good thing. I really think it can do a lot to give a wider audience an idea of how bad the ownership is here in Pittsburgh. The way the Pirates are attempting to wipe the whole thing off the record is despicable and it shows that they're at least a little scared of us. That's the bigger story here. That's the one that needs to get to ESPN and Fox Sports and everyone else. It's not that some Pirate fans (I honestly have no idea how many) are going to walk out of their seats on Saturday, it's that the Pirates are so terrified of this that they're asking their TV crews not to cover it and they're wiping it out of their message boards. That speaks volumes more than anything else, I think.

Game 77: Pirates 7 Marlins 5

I can't believe we won this game. I am literally in shock. This is the type of game that we lose over and over and over again. We had two three-run leads (3-0, 5-2), but Tracy pulled Van Benschoten after 81 pitches and four rocky innings and brought in Wayback Wasdin. Wayback somehow only gave up one run in his two innings (he got hit hard), then Masumi Kuwata came in and gave up a monster gopher ball to Hanley Ramirez. Suddenly it's a 5-4 game with no outs in the seventh. Vomit check time. We're giving up passed balls, getting thrown out on the bases, basically doing all the same old shit we always do and I had this one chalked up in the L column. LaRoche and Bay went down like puppies in the tenth and I had a nightmare about who would blow the game in the bottom of the inning. Then some beautiful and awesome things happened. One of those things has a large hooked nose and the other has eyes as black as the devil's soul. Yes, Xavier Nay and Ryan Doumit hit back to back homers and Matt Capps nailed the save down and the Pirates won 7-5. If you would've asked me for odds on the Pirates winning when JVB exited after four innings with a 5-2 lead, I probably would've said less than 25%. So here's to the less than 25% of life that sometimes works out.

The Bucs go for two

You know what the difference between the American League and the National League is? I don't feel hopeless playing the Marlins this week. Plain and simple, I feel like the Pirates can win two out of three in this series. Tonight probably isn't a great night for that second win to come. John Van Benschoten has been less than impressive in my eyes since he's been called up, and Sergio Mitre has suddenly become some kind of ace with his 2.34 ERA and 1.21 WHIP. Even his strikeouts are starting to match the way he's pitching. Raise your hand if you saw that coming. That's what I thought.

Ian Snell is probably my favorite Pirate

Seriously, everyone should be more like him. He used his drive to turn himself into a top notch starting pitcher, just to shove it in the face of the organization that thought he couldn't do it. After Saturday's ugly game, there was his expletive filled tirade to the PG. Today? After he heard that so many people loved his remarks after that game, he gives us this:

"I don't think everybody's playing the level of baseball that they expect of themselves," Snell said. "I mean, they'll get mad or throw their helmet or hang their head or this and that ... it's not going to help you win a ballgame. I think if they just keep their heads in the game, work the counts as a hitter, get the out if you're a pitcher ... just show some heart. Don't be scared. Don't be scared to win. Nothing's going to hurt you if you win."

He even goes on to tell me to shove it.

Some might argue that the Pirates are not underachieving but, rather, performing to their talent level.

Snell was asked what he thought of that viewpoint.

"Seriously, you can tell anyone who says that to go shove it. This team is underachieving. I think this team has a lot of talent. We've got a lot of good players here. I just don't think everybody's bringing it out. And it's upsetting because you're expecting to win and you're not focused on winning."

Ahh, now that is what I like to hear. My senior year in high school we had an idiotic coach who tried as hard as possible to sabotage our team through his Homer Simpson-itis, and a group of us seniors literally started running the team for him, telling him who to play and who to bat where and who to pitch, and more or less what to do. We ended up in the playoffs that year, one year after he had driven our team to an 0-14 record with a potential future major leaguer on the team. Snell reminds me a lot of that team. Don't be afraid to win. I know his message is to the players, but it goes to the front office, too. Don't be afraid to win. Sometimes I feel like the team is afraid that by putting a winning club on the field, that expectations will get too high and the fans still won't be happy. But come on, how can that be worse than what's happening now?

Game 76: Pirates 3 Marlins 2

Sorry for the lack of posts yesterday afternoon/last night. My internet went down and the cable went down with it, meaning our family did things like "go for bike rides" and "listen to the Pirates on the radio" and I was pretty stranded from getting anything posted. So I'm still here and I'm still blogging, though I don't know how long the internet connection here will hold out for.

So... Paul Maholm was pretty good last night, eh? Three hits and a walk over 7 and 2/3rds is an impressive outing, even if he did manage to somehow give up two runs to the Marlins on that meager allowance. Then an amazing thing happened. The bullpen came into the game with a tenuous lead (one run) and got four whole outs without letting anyone on base or anyone score. That's pretty freaking good and not very Pirate-like. Kind of nice to see, what can I say.

The offense wasn't very good against Willis, but it didn't need to be, either. They got their three runs early (the third run was a Jack Wilson homer?!?) and that was really all that was necessary behind Maholm for the night. It's nice to see the Pirates, you know, win after that dreadful trip out west. At least interleague play is over.

Masumi Kuwata

I'm happy that Kuwata has worked out well so far. Really, I am. But it's very depressing to me that the best pitcher in our bullpen recently has been a washed up 39-year old former starter from the Japanese leagues. It would be great if he'd come and done a good job as a middle/long relief guy, but he's seriously the only person that can get outs reliably right now.

I guess the thing that scares me the most about Kuwata is that this is what a lot of people predicted for him this year, early success while people were figuring him out, followed by him getting pounded. We are in phase 1 right now, and I have to wonder how far behind phase 2 really is. Maybe it's not coming, but in that case, what good does the guy do for us? He's almost 40 and he certainly won't get better. Could we actually trade him to a contender? I'd say chances are pretty slim there. I suppose where I'm going with this is that Kuwata is a nice story and it's good to see him succeed and all, but I don't see how any of it is particularly relative to the Pirates outside of the here and now.

That being said, the story about his rainbow curve in the PG today is an amusing one and worth a read if you've got the time.

Rejuvenation

The fan base is getting restless. Protests are planned, die-hard fans are listless, even bloggers are bored with the Pirates. This is about as bad as I can remember things in my 2+ years of blogging. I mean, this is really ugly. But little did I know the Pirates had a fool-proof plan to turn things around.

Bring back Wayback. Yep, John Wasdin is back with the team. On one hand, he can't be worse than Jonah Bayliss. On the other hand, oh wait, yes he can, he's Wayback Wasdin. And just when I was about to institute the brilliant name suggested for Bayliss in the comments, "Gas Can." Jesse Chavez and Franquellis Osoria are weeping together in the Indianapolis clubhouse right now.

Frustration and podcasts, or lack thereof

No podcast this week because, well, it's just not worth it. I'd just be rehashing things I've already said and I don't really have any urge to do that. Here's the thing; the Pirates are a bad baseball team. Very bad, in fact. Their lineup is bad, their rotation is bad beyond Gorzelanny and Snell, and their bullpen is awful. Their minor league system is bereft of talent besides Walker and McCutchen. Things are so bad down there that we view Brian Bixler as a major talent. The front office lacks any kind of vision whatsoever. They drafted a relief pitcher with the fourth pick in the draft. It's just very hard for me to put any sort of brainpower into the Pirates when things seem so cut and dried right now.

Game 75: Angels 4 Pirates 3

Pirates lose in soul-sucking fashion. Didn't see the game and don't care to learn more beyond "Angels 4 Pirates 3 F(10)."

Can fat Bartolo complete the sweep?

Bartolo Colon has been awful recently this year, but I fail to see how that will matter in a week that both Jeff Weaver and Felix Hernandez have gotten untracked against our terrible offense. Since our win in the first game of the Seattle series, we've scored five runs in four games. That won't win you a lot of baseball games and in fact, it didn't win us any at all over the past four days. That's about par for the course for Tom Gorzelanny, who's used to pitching will and watching the bullpen blow leads or the offense not score enough. Still, he's been worked into the ground recently and I'm expecting him to be pulled out of a game early with "elbow stiffness" any day now. Whatever the case, today closes out the yearly nightmare that is interleague play for the Pirates. A win and we're 6-9, a loss and we're 5-10. Sadly, either outcome is better than any of us expected.

Only in our dreams

I don't think this PG article that talks about the Pirates being interested in Jared Saltalamacchia is worth too much. I mean, everyone's got to be interested in the guy and what do we have to offer for him? Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny, Neil Walker, Andrew McCutchen, and... wait, that's it. The only way he's coming here is if it's for one of them, or a package of players that come from Atlanta for Jason Bay, but if he's in the deal I don't think it would be a very large package. Keep reading the Inside Pirate Baseball and you'll see that Littlefield appears completely uninterested in anyone that isn't a pitcher

Game 74: Angels 10 Pirates 1

We got crushed. I am running out of things to write in recaps. Ian Snell didn't pitch so great, and that was pretty much our only chance against Escobar. I have a ton of family in town which means there is very little Pirate-watching time.

A quick rundown, Escobar didn't really dominate us, with only 4 Ks and 2 walks in 8 innings, but we only got five hits and only scored once. Snell had one bad inning, but since he gave up as many runs in that inning as we've scored in the past four games, things weren't looking so good from there. Our offensive star, according to Yahoo!, was a fat piece of shit that couldn't even run around the bases, but stayed in the game all night because Tracy made our other catcher a DH and to remove Paulino and put Doumit at catcher would forfeit the DH for the night. I realize this is why Tracy has lobbied for Cota on the roster all year, but wouldn't it just be easier to play Doumit in right and DH Nady? Doumit's got a better arm anyways. After Snell went six, Armas came in and made sure no one was coming back from anything and gave up five runs in the next two innings. End of story. Pirates lose.

The Angels are afraid of us

...or something. They're skipping both Jered Weaver and John Lackey in the rotation this weekend against us, which obviously means their aces don't want to play us. The best pitcher we'll get this weekend is probably Kelvim Escobar, who's pitching tonight and has quietly been one of the best starters in the American League this year. His mound opponent will be Ian Snell, who's quietly (to everyone else) been one of the best starters in the NL this year. The big question for Ian tonight will be how his burned finger is after the salad making incident last weekend. He's going to have to be good tonight because quite literally, no lead is safe with our bullpen and their "pitching."

Between the Weaver shutout and last night's awful loss, it's really hard to get amped up about the Pirates right now. They're just not a very interesting or exciting team to watch. They are actually on TV tonight, which is a nice departure from the past two nights, and I guess they're starting at 9, which seems strange to me, but whatever. That means if it's like 11 o'clock and you find yourself not out for the night and you're looking for something on television, you can click in for the nightly bullpen meltdown.

Tonight's Ian Snell insult is a pretty obvious one.

Ian... you injured yourself tossing a salad? Go figure.

Josh Phelps, whoopee

You've probably seen by now that the Pirates claimed Josh Phelps off of waivers from the Yankees. Jim Tracy refers to him as a "home run threat" and Littlefield talks about how he has "some power." What a load of crap. First off, he's right-handed. And we play in PNC Park. Major power decrease there. He slugged .363 with the Yankees this year and .424 with Tampa last year, hitting 7 homers in 265 plate appearances. Besides on year in Toronto, he's not particularly good at drawing walks. Phelps is like Ty Wigginton, except with less power and the ability to play less positions. And also, without the whole "murderous rampage against catchers" thing, which more or less makes him less fun.

Game 73: Angels 5 Pirates 4

It seems like whenever I drive from Boardman back to my house and the Pirates are playing, bad things happen to the Pirates. The simplest explanation is that bad things usually happen to the Pirates, so why should nights I can barely hear them on the radio be different?

When I got into my car, I could hear the Pirates were winning 4-1. I couldn't tell what inning it was, but judging by the time, I assumed it was pretty early (6th or 7th inning was my guess). I heard the Angels score two runs, but my reception cut out. I tried the local Pirates affiliate, but they haven't carried any of the west coast games this year. I got back to my house and put the game on TV except that, oh yeah, it wasn't on TV because FSP has better things to put on TV at midnight on Friday in the summer. Looked up gamecast, tie game 4-4. Said, "screw it" and went to bed (it was like 1:30 AM, I had a long day yesterday). Woke up this morning and found exactly what I expected to see. 5-4 Angels, L- Bayliss.

But hey, at least we scored some runs.

Game 72: Mariners 3 Pirates 0

Umm... I guess Felix Hernandez is better than Jeff Weaver. He's been pretty bad lately, but he does have that ceiling and all and the Pirates are good in bringing that out in everyone. Really good at it. I mean, we haven't scored since the seventh inning on Tuesday. That seems like a long time ago. I don't really know what else to say. Looks like Van Benschoten pitched pretty OK, but two strikeouts and two walks in five innings is not particularly great. Jury's still out in my book, but my hopes are not getting higher.

I think maybe I just won't post until the Pirates score a run again.

Mariners Finale

The Mariners series ends here, starting at 10 PM tonight. Felix Hernandez and John Van Benschoten take the mound for this one. Felix has been struggling mightily since his return for the DL. Guess what the doctor ordered? Yep, the Pirates. I'll be interested to see him pitch, as well as seeing JVB face off against a non-White Sox opponent. If we win this one, it would be three straight series wins in a row. I'm not counting on it.

Today seems pointless

I don't feel like talking about the Pirates today. Everything seems kind of pointless after being shut-out by Jeff Weaver. I'll be back later tonight for the gamethread.

Game 71: Mariners 7 Pirates 0

Jeff Weaver threw a complete game 4-hit shutout at us tonight. I'm not sure I can, or need, to say anything else. My pre-game prediction was waay to optimistic, and that never happens. Paul Maholm sucked tonight, but who cares? We got shut-out by Jeff Weaver. Jeff Weaver. In my life-time I have played for two (not one, but two) baseball teams that finished with 0-14 records. We specialized in losing by the ten run rule. I have never, ever, been so embarrassed by the outcome of a baseball game as I am this morning. Jeff Weaver shut us out. He shouldn't even have a job in the big leagues. He was thisclose to being CUT before tonight's game. And he shut us out. We could win every game for the rest of the year and it wouldn't make this suck any less. But we won't win every game for the rest of the year. Because we just got shut-out by Jeff Weaver.

We should be able to beat Jeff Weaver

Jeff Weaver? Raise your hand if you're happy the Pirates didn't listen to me and sign this guy. Yeah, me too. Weaver has been so bad (10.94 ERA, 2.19 WHIP, 0-6 record proving that pitcher record can be indicative of performance sometimes) that you almost feel like he's due for a good outing because no one can be this bad. Wait? Did I just say due for a good outing? Does anyone know a team that seems to excel at making bad pitchers look good? What? The Pirates are that team? Weaver's longest outing this year is six innings and he's reached that fine milestone twice. I'm calling seven innings and two runs on five hits for the nightmare Weaver tonight.

His mound opponent is the Jekel and Hyde-like Paul Maholm, except that his Jekel is more "mediocre, adequate, not bad" rather than, say, "excellent." Regardless, he does seem to be getting his act together if his past four starts are any evidence at all. One would think he need not be very good tonight to win this game, but one would also be foolish to assume that the Pirates will score more than three runs on any give night.

One more thing to think about: a win tonight, in this most winnable of games, gives us a winning interleague record to date this season. Even more reason to believe something unspeakable and awful (like my above Jeff Weaver prediction) will happen in this one.

Dave Stewart (?) Bashes DL

That's right, former Oakland A Dave Stewart is taking Dave Littlefield to task for being a shitty GM. It's a fun read. Nice to know that even former players know what a joke the organization here is.

Via Baseball Musings.

Misplaced Priorities

Yesterday's Stats Geek and today's Pirates Notebook both got me thinking about the way the team is being run this year. The Pirates are using a ton of brainpower (insert joke about the Pirates having brainpower) to solve a problem that doesn't really need solved and their not using their brains at all on one that has an obvious solution.

The problem the Pirates seem to be racking their brains to solve is the Jose Castillo- Jack Wilson- Freddy Sanchez situation. There are three players. There are two positions. Someone has to sit. Here's the thing. All three players are pretty similar. Freddy offers a little more offense, but a little less defense. Any combination of the three is going to give you pretty much the same thing every night. I know. It's practically swearing to lump Freddy in with those two, right? Not if he hits like he has this year. We know that .344 is a fluke for Freddy, because .344 is a fluke for anyone that isn't Tony Gwynn. But even when he hit .344, in his flukey good, as good as we can expect season, Freddy's OPS+ was only 117. That's better than average, but his inability to get on anyway other than a hit really hurts him. And when teams adjust to take away that little drop double over the first baseman's head and he hits, say, 35 doubles instead of 53, he's suddenly not a terribly useful offensive player. He's a better offensive player than Wilson or Castillo, but at second or short he's worse defensively than both of them. Castillo's defense could be the best out of any of them, but that's only when he cares. His offense is the same way, he can kill the ball, but only when he tries. Jack is pretty even keel in the field and at the plate except for those short stretches like the Yankee series when he doesn't really try terribly hard. There's no though process here. If they're all the same, try and stick with whichever two are hotter. End of story. This huge debate the team has sparked that the team has no idea how to solve is common sense.

Then we take the catcher situation. On the surface, it seems like a complex problem. Doumit hits, but the pitchers throw better to Paulino. Which one is more important? But wait, let's see who each catcher has caught this year. Paulino has gotten to catch 12 of Ian Snell's 14 starts and 10 of Tom Gorzelanny's 15. He caught Tony Armas and Shawn Chacon a total of five times. He also caught Maholm 10 times and Duke 13 times. Only five of his 50 starts have come with Armas or Chacon on the mound while 22 of the 50 have come with Snell or Gorzelanny on the mound. By contrast, Doumit has made 15 starts behind the plate. Of those 15 starts, six have come with either Chacon (2), Armas (3), or John Van Benschoten (1) on the mound. He's caught Snell and Duke once, Gorzo four times, and Maholm three times. So 40% of Doumit's starts come with the fifth starter on the mound with 10% of Paulino's starts come with the fifth starter on the mound. Duke and Maholm have been bad for stretches, but the Armas/Chacon/JVB slot has clearly been the worst rotation spot on the team (save for Chacon's 10 strikeout game, which Doumit caught!). Despite all this, somehow the we're supposed to believe that the team's record when they play and cERAs mean something. Without even talking about Paulino's abysmal play behind the plate this year, I call bullshit. The solution here is an easy one. Let Doumit catch four of every five games for a while and see if things even out.

This should be easy to figure out. It took me about a half hour on BRef to tally up the gamelogs. The Pirates have clearly spent less time on it and come to the wrong conclusion, while spending all their time worrying about Sanchez, Castillo, and Wilson, something that's not really worth worrying about. And we wonder why they suck.

Where have you gone, Don Slaught

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much. I'm not actually trying to find them.

It was hard not to love the Pirates' catching platoon in the early '90s. Spanky and Sluggo. Slaught was the short half of the platoon when Mike LaValliere was in town, but he was always my favorite of the two. It may have had something to do with the fact that he was definitely a better hitter, but when my Minor League (that was the 8-10 year-old machine-pitch league back in the day where I'm from, Joseph's Paint rocked the house) made me the catcher and started calling me Sluggo it definitely sealed the deal.

If any of you have Bill James' historical abstract (and I'm betting at least a few of you have it), Sluggo is in the top 100 (I don't recall where exactly and my copy is in Pittsburgh at the moment) and James makes the comment that had he played anywhere but catcher, he'd probably have turned into a really good hitter. Instead, he stayed as a catcher and had to deal with limited playing time his entire career because of his rather poor skills behind the plate. Don Slaught has paved the way for Neil Walker's move to third base.

Slaught really was a good hitter in his limited duty for the Pirates. In 1990 he hit .300/.375/.457 and in 1992 he hit .345/.384/.482. In fact, that 1992 year for Slaught brought up one of the things that I remember driving me the most insane about Jim Leyland; his devotion to the platoon at that time in his career. He only got Slaught 285 PAs with that great line in 1992 even with Spanky batting .256/.350/.328. In the 1992 NLCS, Sluggo 4-for-12 with a double and a homer, drawing six walks, scoring five times, and driving in five runs. Still, Leyland used a straight platoon and started LaValliere in Game 7. Oh well.

Game 70: Pirates 5 Mariners 3

And the nice little run the Pirates are on against bad American League teams continues for one more night. There was good stuff all around tonight, the Pirates hitters drew 4 walks off of Miguel Batista in 5 and 1/3 innings, then two more off of Sean Green over the next 2 and 2/3. That kind of patience tends to pay off. Gorzelanny got a lead early and held onto it for seven innings, then Tracy played musical relievers with some success (Richie Sexson's monster homer off of Jonah Bayliss was the only run allowed by the pen tonight) to get the win. Freddy and Bay had two hits apiece and every starter other than Nady and Wilson had one. Shawn Chacon closed out the save with two straight strikeouts after Damaso Marte started the ninth.

Of course, there were also downsides on this one. Gorzelanny started the seventh inning after 100 pitches and threw 123 tonight. This is really starting to add up. We struck out 11 times, which is puzzling because of how much we walked. Jonah Bayliss really sucks. Ronnie Paulino tagged up on a flyball with two outs.

Let the road trip from hell begin

The Pirates have traveled cross country to play their first game ever in the city of Seattle (I was going to make a joke here about Seahawk fans, but I'll take the high road) with a nice little four wins in six games run going. The Seahawks are on the other end of the spectrum at the moment, having lost their past five to other NL Central teams (that's a no-no for anyone). The Pirates have to like the pitching match up tonight as Tom Gorzelanny will go against Miguel Batista. He'll have to be good because the worst bullpen in the universe is even worse now with Matt Capps finally suspended for three games. I would've liked to see Gorzo get the extra day of rest yesterday's off-day could've afforded, but Ian Snell's bizarre injury has prevented that from happening. Oh well.

Ian Snell's fortitude

If you read the below linked Ian Snell story today you probably noticed a funnily edited quote from former Pirate and former Pirate minor league manager Dave Clark. I couldn't help myself, so I wrote it up at the Fanhouse. I would've put it here, but that just needs a bigger audience. And I'm a sell-out.

More links

Pirate links from the MSM today:

Wait... so Ian Snell is motivated by naysayers? Who knew?!? I am now 75% certain that he knows about the Ian Snell insult game. I say this all the time, but I know Paul Meyer articles just by reading the titles.

Matt Capps will be suspended for the Mariners series. It certainly took MLB long enough to make a decision on that one. It cost us a bench spot for a full week. Anyways, Shawn Chacon will be the closer and a whole bunch of shitty relievers will do all the other stuff.

The Stats Geek talks about the infield. I've been meaning to do this for a while, but haven't gotten around to it.

Apparently we've never been to Seattle before. Then again, it rains at least once a day here, what more do we need to know? Seriously, it's like a monsoon outside right now.

Links

I'll admit, one thing that I don't do nearly as much as I'd like since I started writing for the Fanhouse is trolling the internets for interesting stuff about the Pirates and baseball in general.

Steve at The Parrot has video up of the Sopranos parody done at the ballpark on Saturday night. He's also got some thoughts on the ridiculous schedule that baseball has become so fond of in recent years. When do we get to go back to the NL East and play the Phillies and Mets and Expos all the time? I miss those days. Then again, I suppose you could figure from the very name of my blog that I'm a bit nostalgic at times.

Matt at Wait 'Til Next Year has his surprises and disappointments to this point in the season.

It's never too early to be talking about trades, which is what Cory is doing at the Lumber Co.

Seriously, did you guys see this? File it away under "most unlikely inside the parker ever."

Jim Tracy won't be the first manager fired this year. He won't be the second, or third, or fourth either.

Really, Ian? Really?

You've all heard about Ian Snell's strange finger burning injury by now. I don't even know what to say about it. I wrote it up for the Fanhouse already, mainly just mentioning bizarre baseball injuries and introducing the unsuspecting world to how good Ian Snell has been this year. But seriously, what do you say about this? It doesn't seem serious and he's only going to miss one start, but do we laugh about this or get pissed at him? I don't know.

The WHYGAVS Podcast, Episode 3

This week's podcast can be listened to or downloaded here, or you can subscribe on iTunes here. Some of the topics are:

• The Pirates have a winning week
• The level of competition and if it should matter
• John Van Benschoten's debut.
• Shawn Chacon, the reliever
• Ian Snell's bizarre injury
• Jason Bay's struggles
• The Rangers and Angels

There's a bit of static for the last couple minutes. Still working the kinks out here, so you'll have to forgive stuff like that.

Game 69: Pirates 8 White Sox 7

Nothing is easy for this club, is it? Today's win certainly could (and probably should) have been an easy one. Afterall, we've said again and again that if the bullpen could just bridge things from the starter to Capps, we'd have it made. And if Duke could give ups some good starts, we'd really have things going for us.

Well, Duke gave us a good start... except for that one inning where he gave up five runs and almost blew the game for us. And the pen was great, except for that part where Capps gave up two runs and almost gave it back to the White Sox. And yeah, you can talk about Castillo's error that hurt Capps, but then I'm taking away Bay's homer saving catch that kept Thome from tying things up for the White Sox.

Still, a win is a win and we've got four of these things in the "W" column this week, which isn't a bad week, even with the opponents taken into account. There were certainly good things today. Jose Bautista is killing the ball right now. Nate McLouth actually got a couple nicely timed hits today and drove in four runs, to go with the two he had coming into today. And finally, in the seventh inning, with Bay on first and two outs and LaRoche at the plate and all of the Pirate world thinking to themselves, "let's get a couple hits here," LaRoche hit a ground rule double and Nady singled up the middle to score both of them. I thought it would be enough to win right there, but we added one more on later and it turned out to be a good thing.

Get this- the Pittsburgh Pirates are 4-5 through nine interleague games. I know that's not great, but compared to what we're used too, it's pretty damn decent.

The Rubber Match

I thought that when Kip Wells was traded, the most frustrating Pirate pitcher was of the team. I should've known better. There's a long line of frustrating Pirate pitchers, from Wells, to Benson, to Schmidt, and so on back for quite some time. Zach Duke has assumed that mantle from Wells this year. I don't know what's happened to him, but he really sucks. He gets his chance to pitch against the offense that made John Van Benschoten and Paul Maholm look like world beaters today. If things don't go well for Duke today... I dunno. I would say we should demote him but I don't know who would take his place.

The White Sox send Javier Vazquez to the mound against Duke today. I remember a few years back when Vazquez and Tony Armas were always my sleeper fantasy pitchers because no one payed attention to Expos. Unlike his former teammate, Vazquez seems to have regained some of that Expo form this year with his 4.15 ERA and 1.14 WHIP and 67 strikeouts in 78 innings. He's only got three wins to show for that rather impressive line, but that's not his fault. If he's going to rack up anymore wins, he'd better do it against teams like the one he's facing today.

Game 68: White Sox 6 Pirates 1

So I suppose the first thing everyone wants to talk about is John Van Benschoten. He was OK tonight, and I think that's about the best way to describe it. He went 5 and 2/3rds innings and while two earned runs show up on the stat sheet, they were only "earned" because of the baffling decision to not give Adam LaRoche an error for an awful throw to the plate that would've nailed Jermaine Dye and ended the inning if it had been remotely on target. And while he certainly looked adequate tonight, let's remember he faced a terrible White Sox squad that started two guys tonight (Jerry Owens and Josh Fields) that I honestly had no idea existed before tonight. He wore down pretty quickly (no strikeouts after the third) and struggled with control a lot. I can't say for sure, but I'm afraid that a good team would destroy the pitcher I saw tonight.

What else? The offense wasn't terrible against Buehrle, but it was also unable to string any hits together at any point except the second inning. (Inserting tongue in cheek) Maybe it's because Jim Tracy was at his son's graduation and the team needs his guidance to get clutch hits (removing tongue). The worst part about the team, though, is the bullpen. I seriously considered leaving in the sixth inning when Grabow took the mound with a 2-1 deficit (for the record: I lasted until the ninth when the prospect of watching the utter failure that is Tony Armas was too great for me and I had to bounce). He gave up a mammoth (as in, to the second level of bleachers mammoth) homer to a nice gentleman named Josh Fields. Given Fields' status as a former first round pick and his minor league numbers, I suspect he's a decent prospect. That does not excuse Grabow. Dan Kolb is just about as bad as I feared he would be; that no strike out miracle act from 2004 was a looong time ago. Tony Armas? I don't want to talk about him. This might be the worst bullpen in history right now. I'm not sure I'm kidding.

I just hope his arms stay attached

Posting the gamethread early because I'm heading down from home to catch John Van Benschoten's re-debut against the White Sox this afternoon. I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure I didn't see JVB throw at all in his brief 2004 stint with the Buccos (I know I saw Burnett, though). One thing is for sure, with him in the lineup tonight we'll probably have a better hitter in the nine slot than the eight slot. Mark Buehrle goes for the White Sox and he's pitched well this year but is only 3-3 because of the well documented awful White Sox offense. And that's why it's at least a good move to make this Van Benschoten's first start. I'm not sure what kind of leash he's on, but this is definitely better than calling him up to face the Yankees. I don't have high hopes for him today or this year, but it is impressive that he's made it this far back. I didn't think he'd make it this far. Maybe he'll keep surprising me.

Links

Jack Wilson may still not be a starter after his good performance last night. I hope Tracy keeps him on his toes for at least a little bit.
Oliver Perez dominated the Yankees and outdueled Roger Clemens last night. Have I mentioned lately that I hate Dave Littlefield? Because I do.

Actually, that's all I got for the moment. Brace yourself for John Van Benschoten tonight.

Game 67: Pirates 4 White Sox 2

Remember two days ago when Jose Castillo was hitting the ball well and I said that while it was encouraging to see, I wanted to see him do it against a team that wasn't as pitching poor as the Rangers? Replace Jose Castillo with Paul Maholm, hitting the ball with pitching, pitching poor with hitting poor, and Rangers with White Sox and you've got the basic outline for this recap. It's not that I'm not impressed with Maholm's outing tonight, it's just that the White Sox are really freaking bad.

Fellow Fanhouser and Foul Balls editor Tom Fornelli is a White Sox fan. This afternoon he pointed out to me that not only do the White Sox have a much worse OBP than the Pirates and not only have they scored 30some runs less than the Buccos, they've done it in the DH league. That is some bad offense.

And yet, you can never take a seven-inning, six-strikeout start from Paul Maholm for granted. Forgive me for being glib, but sometimes it takes him two starts to get those numbers. Matt Capps scared the bejesus out of everyone in the ninth tonight by hitting one guy and walking two guys, but he was also reaching back for 96 mph and managed to only give up one run to close out the save. And Jack Wilson rebooted his season with a nice play at short and two hits. I'll set his next tank date at July 17th.

All in all, it was a nice win for the Pirates, who have now inexplicably won three out of four. I know it's three out of four against bad teams, but hey, we're a bad team too. That excuse doesn't count.

Now this series will be thrilling

I just wrote about this for the Fanhouse, but the two worst teams in the league at getting on base will face off at PNC Park this weekend. I've got a gut feeling that this will be an ugly series for us. Gorzo and Snell won't pitch at all, so we'll counter the White Sox anemic offense with Paul Maholm, John Van Benschoten, and Zach Duke. The White Sox will find out just how bad their offense is this weekend. The Sox will send Jon Garland to the mound against Maholm tonight. Garland's been pretty good this year but his record doesn't reflect it because the White Sox don't score a lot of runs. It's gonna be a fun one...

Is anyone on this team overachieving at the plate?

I think it's a fair question. We can throw Ryan Doumit out for now, because he's got too small of a sample size. That leaves us with only two viable candidates for the title of "team offensive over-achiever" at the moment, Jose Bautista and Xavier Nady.

We can start with Bautista. His hitting line is currently .275/.357/.432. That's honestly not a whole ton better than his PECOTA of .259/.338/.436. His stats as a leadoff hitter are slightly more impressive at .317/.404/.537, but he's only got 95 PAs from there, so it's hard to judge. We also have to remember he started last year really hot and slumped terribly in the second half. There is one area in which he's been pretty impressive this year. He's only struck out 38 times in 268 PAs, he struck out 110 times in 469 last year. That's a significant improvement and with his 29 walks, he's easily got one of the best batting eyes on the team this year. If he can keep this up, he's going to hit over 40 doubles this year and be a very good leadoff hitter for us. That's a big if though.

The other guy to talk about is Nady. We knew he could hit lefties and we knew he could hit outside of PNC Park. Since half of our games are at PNC Park and more than half are against right handed pitchers, that left us with a lot of unknown. So how's Nady doing? Against righties he's hitting .250/.305/.473. That slugging percentage is pretty encouraging, as his career line is .246/.296/.416. It's still great, but he does seem to be figuring things out a bit. A lot of this may be due to his recent hot streak, though. At PNC this year he's hitting .256/.330/.446. Again, not great but better than his .275/.321/.314 last year. His overall line of .283/.343/.503 is somewhat better than his PECOTA of .286/.340/.471, but again, he saw a huge dip in power in the second half last year (and not just when he came to Pittsburgh) and we can't count that out again this year.

Really looking at it, even the two guys that people like to point out as overachievers to this point in the year are just barely falling into that category. So how is it that nearly every single player on the team is either underperforming or just barely meeting expectations (if you go by preseason projections)? Are the projections too high? Or are Jeff Manto and Jim Tracy doing something so fundamentally wrong that they're screwing these hitters up beyond belief?

Game 66: Rangers 6 Pirates 0

I could quote you all of Kameron Loe's relevant stats and what a mess getting shutout by him is, but it's not like he's the first awful pitcher we've made look good this year and I doubt he'll be the last. What I'm more concerned about was Tom Gorzelanny's pitch counts before tonight's game. 117 against the Yankees, 120 against the Padres, and 118 against the Cardinals, with a 97 pitch outing against the Dodgers wedged in between the Padres and Yankees starts. Pushing 120 in three out of four starts makes it no wonder he gave up three gopher balls tonight and ran out of gas in the sixth and seventh innings against the Rangers tonight.

What else can we say about this one? There wasn't much too it. A crappy pitcher dominated our suddenly struggling offense and Gorzelanny ran out of gas early and we got crushed pretty good by a pretty crappy team. Dan Kolb made a crappy debut. Masumi Kuwata pitched again, then in the 10 seconds I caught of Tracy's post-game presser our skipper made verbal love to the diminutive man from Japan, talking about how he had 11 pitches and could make his 87 mph fastball look 94 and on and on. I've got a feeling Tracy has a new 8th inning guy.

Time for brooms?

I didn't think I'd be asking this question, but can the Pirates sweep the Rangers tonight? You've got to like the pitching match-up with Tom Gorzelanny facing off against someone named Kameron Loe, owner of a 7.40 ERA and 1.68 WHIP. The Rangers have played like a Little League team in all facets of the game over the past two nights and even though I had pretty low expectations for this series, I'd be disappointed if they didn't pull this win out and finish the sweep tonight. Will management cave to Jack Wilson's bitching and put him in the game despite Jose Castillo's recent run of decent play? Can the Pirates look competent for three straight games? Can the bullpen hold a Tom Gorzelanny lead? The answers to all these questions and more TONIGHT AT 7:05!!!

BP stands for "Bull Pen"

The Pirates just announced that Shawn Chacon is headed back to the bullpen, effective immediately, and that John Van Benschoten will be called up to take his spot in the rotation. It's terrifying that the team's answer to solidifying the bullpen is to put Shawn Chacon back into it. JVB has 45 strikeouts and 30 walks in 66 minor league innings. That's not good.

I feel like I've just been kicked in the groin

I just went out to the mailbox to see what the postman had for me today. Since it's Thursday, I fully expected a Sports Illustrated in the box. I flipped through the letters and saw the SI header in the back of things. I got to the cover. I saw a bunch of New York Mets. I read the title, "MIX MASTER." I read the description, "The Unlikely Story of How Omar Minaya Created the Melting Pot Mets." Then I saw it. On the cover are five Mets around Omar Minaya. Minaya's got his arms around two of them. One of the two? Oliver Perez. Oliver Perez is on the cover of Sports Illustrated in a Mets uniform. I want to vomit.

Where have you gone, Curtis Wilkerson

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much.

Oh, that's right. Curtis Wilkerson, or as my head fondly remembers him, "Lloyd McClendon without the talent." That's a faulty recollection though. I remember Wilkerson as a fifth outfielder, BRef tells me he was a utility infielder. Oh, well, time glosses over all things in our heads, I suppose.

Anyways, Wilkerson is a special player. Not because he was good, but because of how much he sucked. His career batting line was .245/.286/.305. His career OPS+ was 63. Despite that, he played parts of 11 seasons in the big leagues. His hitting line is eerily similar to one John Wehner's. His career highlight was probably in 1988 when the Rangers traded him, Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams and a bunch of other crappy players to the Cubs for Jamie Moyer and Rafael Palmiero. Wilkerson only played one season with the Pirates, 1991. As per his career stats, he sucked in 1991 going .188/.243/.277 with a career high 2 homers in 210 PAs for the Pirates.

So why is Wilkerson featured here? Because as bad as he was, he will forever feature prominently in one of my all-time favorite Pittsburgh Pirate memories. It was September 19, 1991. My family and I were driving into Chicago to visit my aunt that lived in the city. Chicago is a long hike from home and we were just getting into the city as the Pirate game ended. Since we managed to have them on the radio in Chicago and they were playing the Cardinals, I can only assume we had the game on KMOX. I remember the Pirates entering the ninth down 1-0. Looking at the boxscore, I can see that was because Omar Olivares dominated us that night through eight. Little did I know that in less than 10 years, Olivares would be a Pirate disaster. Regardless of that little tidbit, the Pirates tied the game up and the Cards brought Lee Smith. "We own Lee Smith," my dad said as he was driving. We loaded the bases up against Smith and Leyland brought Wilkerson on to pinch hit for Stan Belinda. We could hear the call over the radio, "Wilkerson hits a high fly ball to right field..." then we drove under a bridge and the already thin reception crackled out. As we came through the other side of the bridge we heard, "And Wilkerson has hit a grand slam to bring the Pirates all the way back to win this one 5-1!" We went nuts in the car, my dad incredulous that Wilkerson of all people hit the grand slam. Wilkerson hit two home runs as a Pirate, and I remember one of them like it happened yesterday. It doesn't matter how ugly the guy's career stat line was. I can never hear his name again without smiling.

Game 65: Pirates 8 Rangers 1

Before we move on to anything else, let me just say that Ian Snell is awesome. He came out and actually looked kind of rusty through three innings despite four early K's, but then flat out cruised through the last six. It was one of those "didn't get to him the first time around and there was no chance from there on out" type outings that good pitchers seem to have so many of. The only run he gave up was on an error by Jose Bautista or we'd be talking about Ian's first career shutout tonight. Not that it mattered. In fact, I found myself wishing we had a bullpen so that Ian could've taken the night off after 7 innings and 85 pitches, but he got through this one in barely over 100, so things weren't so bad.

Secondly, I love seeing Jose Castillo in the starting lineup. I'm as hard on Jose as anyone, but bear me out on this. The one thing that Jim Tracy (and his predecessor) talk about all the time is that the Pirates will be a hard working team and everyone that plays will play hard. Jack Wilson has been a huge space cadet lately. He's not trying in the field and that makes him worthless. Tracy has actually noticed and addressed this by putting Castillo on the field and guess what? He's playing well. I know we should wait to see him face some pitching other than the Rangers sad staff to assess his bat, but the spark is back in his play in the field. He turned a great double play tonight with such a laser to LaRoche that I couldn't help but think that maybe he is the answer to our bullpen problems.

Another good aspect of tonight? Bay, LaRoche, and Nady weren't great at the plate but we still scored eight runs. We could say the same thing about the Rangers pitching as before, but screw it. We're playing an American League team that we should beat and we're beating them. The Royals series from last year is all to fresh in my mind to not enjoy these two wins.

Can my bad luck continue?

Let's see here. The Rangers are the worst team in baseball recordwise. Ian Snell is either our best or second-best pitcher, depending on who you ask or what kind of stats you value. That's a pretty good match-up for tonight in our favor, I would think. Except that I'm going to the ballpark and the Pirates are 0-6 in my presence this year. Immovable object, meet unstoppable force. Something has got to give. Either that or we'll get rained out. That seems likely, too.

Tonight's insult comes courtesy of azibuck apk in the comments below:
Hey Ian, your mother's a snowblower!

Catching up

So it looks like we won one last night. I didn't see any of the game, but from what I can tell we got out to a big lead and almost gave it all back. Typical stuff there. I'll do a "Where Have You Gone" post tomorrow because I haven't had time to work on one today and it's something that I like to put a decent amount of thought into. I'll have more up when I get some time this afternoon.

WHYGAVS Night and other things

There's a chance this is the only post I'm going to get up today, so if that's the case the comments can double for a gamethread later tonight. If I get a chance, I'll get a gamethread up later.

I'm thinking July 20 or 21 for WHYGAVS night for a couple reasons. This weekend is obviously too soon, I figured I'd leave the 30th open for people that would rather protest, and if we make it for more than a month away, people that want to come from further away have more time to plan. This isn't set in stone, but it's certainly looking like the best date to me.

If I don't get a gamethread up, let me say this; this Rangers/Pirates series has the potential to be this year's Royals/Pirates series.

Is this the last thread?

Disclaimer: The thread title refers to Daniel Moskos being the last thread for most Pirate fans, not the last thread on this blog ever. Sorry if I scared you.

I'll be honest, as upset as I was the Daniel Moskos pick, the outpouring of public outrage over the pick has really surprised me. The pick itself didn't surprise me at all. There was not one bone in my body that thought the Pirates would pick Matt Wieters, and I was surprised to see that people that followed the team closely were flipping over the pick.

Lots of you have already noted that someone is organizing a protest of the June 30th game at PNC Park. The Irate Fans have booted their website up again and are writing new articles. You all know that I actively helped the Irate Fans out last year and wrote some articles for them, but honestly, I don't know how much of a point all this has. Yes, it serves to show people that die-hard Pirate fans still exist and yes, it will get media attention. But if you think this is going to sway the Nutting family in any way, I'm afraid you're wrong.

Protesting the games and even boycotting them doesn't cut into their pocketbook because from what I understand, they'll just get more money out of the MLB central fund. Yes, the Nuttings are the problem in Pittsburgh, but baseball has created the monster that allows the Nuttings to exist. No other sport rewards bad ownership the way Major League Baseball does. The NFL is concerned about putting a rounded product on the field with as many competitive teams as possible. Major League Baseball is concerned with pimping the Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs as hard as possible. The Nuttings would probably be happy if no fans existed because then they could make their money in peace and quiet. It's a depressing feeling, but as long as Bud Selig is commissioner, no one is going to force the Nuttings' hand in Pittsburgh because Bob and company are owners right after old Bud's heart, right down to the penny pinching and dismal baseball teams.

If you're going to protest, then I'm certainly behind you. I'll give the protest and the Irate Fans as much publicity as one blogger can. But if we really want to make a difference, the protest should be of Major League Baseball, and not just the Pittsburgh Pirates.

WHYGAVS Podcast Episode #2

Monday means podcast day. You can listen to it or download it here, or subscribe on iTunes here. Here's a list of topics:

• The draft. I included some of my interview on Steeltown Mike's show here.
  
• Just why the draft pick was so damn bad.
  
• The past week, the Nationals series, the Yankees series, and why the Yankees sweep isn't surprising at all.
• Roger Clemens
• What to expect against the Rangers and White Sox (here's a hint, not much).

Again, let me know what you think, if you have suggestions, etc.

Game 63: Yankees 13 Pirates 6

And so the weekend concludes with the Pirates 47 year losing streak in New York intact. They got crushed today, which is pretty much what everyone expected with BP Chacon starting against the Yankees. We tried to hang around for a bit, but when the starter only lasts 3 and 1/3 innings and you have our bullpen, well, things aren't destined to go well.

Let's see... how did the pen fare today? Well, Josh Sharpless entered the game with a 6-5 lead and two runners on, and immediately served up a homer to Alex Rodriguez. Masumi Kuwata came in next and started off decent, but then he walked Abreu and served up another home to A-Rod. This is where I stopped watching, but there was a Jonah Bayliss appearance where he served up three more runs and at that point I assume everyone wondered why he's still in the majors.

It's all for PR

Oops, guess this one started at 1:15 instead of 1:35, so we're already in progress here. Shawn Chacon will attempt to show the Yankees up for trading him (yeah right), while the Yankees will sent Tyler Clippard to try and hold the Pirates under 7 runs and get the Yankees a win today. Oh, look at that, Bobby Abreu just tripled. Sheesh.

Anyways, does anyone want to bet against a Masumi Kuwata/Hideki Matsui matchup. I was mystified as to why the Pirates would call a guy up just off the DL to fill a spot in our already awful bullpen until Greg Brown mentioned that Kuwata and Matsui were teammates in the 90s on the Yomiuri Giants and a matchup between the two of them would be huge news in Japan. And that's why we did it. Not to strengthen the bullpen, but to get on the front pages in Japan. Typical Pirates crap.

Steeltown Sports Live Audio

I meant to post this yesterday afternoon and I didn't really have time for it, but Steeltown Mike has posted the audio from my interview on his show yesterday on his blog.

Instead of posting the whole thing here like I did last time, then posting another podcast tomorrow, I'm going to use some choice bits from Mike's show for the podcast. If you want to hear the whole thing though, take yourself over to Mike's blog and check it out.

And as always, big thanks to Steeltown Mike for having me on his show.

Game 62: Yankees 9 Pirates 3

This one finished just about how I figured it would, score-wise, but it didn't get there in quite the manner I envisioned.

I was not terribly impressed with Roger Clemens today. I'm sure he'll be a good pitcher for the Yankees this year, but I'm not convinced he'll be a great one. He had the splitter working quite well today, but didn't seem to have great control over anything, worked deep into counts, and couldn't get his fastball much above 92 mph. It was good enough to look dominant against the Pirates, but not particularly great, I didn't think. He let the weakest part of our lineup (hobbling Nady, Paulino, Wilson) tie the game up against him in the fourth and I was honestly pretty surprised by that.

Maholm struggled like crazy with the strike zone today, but still held a good Yankee lineup to three earned runs in 5 and 1/3 innings. That's honestly more than I expected out of him, but with our bullpen one can never expect to leave a game close and have it stay that way. John Grabow and Tony Armas played the role of letting the Yankees distance themselves from us
over the course of the rest of the game, turning a manageable 4-3 deficit with two guys on into a 9-3 loss.

The only other thing worth mentioning is the crappy play of Jack Wilson today. Holy hell, it looks like he'd rather be anywhere but on the field playing for the Pirates. If you watched the game, you know exactly what I mean. He just doesn't seem to be trying for balls not hit right at him any more. Screw this, let's get Bixler up here. I've got no time for Wilson at this anymore. He's in the lineup for his glove and his glove isn't even that good.

Blah.

This Clemens guy

Clemens vs. Maholm. Clemens will be making like $1 million for this start. This matchup is a pretty good indication of what's wrong with baseball. I kind of feel like the Yanks are going to tee off on Maholm and it won't really matter what Clemens does. I also think that Clemens success against us in Houston is part of the reason why the Yankees wanted him to start against us instead of the Red or White Sox. Gotta make sure that first start is worth the hype, right? This one's on FSP, but I think it may be flipped to the Fox Saturday game in some markets (I have no basis for this statement other than TV loves Roger Clemens).

Quick Links

Homer Bailey made his debut for the Reds last night and looked fairly decent. Now the Astros, Brewers, Reds, and Cubs have exciting prospects up and playing for them. This division is depressing.

Jerry Crasnick write an article for ESPN about how Jason Bay is good and pretty much everyone else on our team is bad. Thanks for everyone who pointed this one out to me.

After three minor league innings, Masumi Kuwata is coming to Pittsburgh and Salomon Torres is going on the DL. As bad as Torres has been, I don't really think this is a good thing.

Game 61: Yankees 5 Pirates 4

Umm... I'm not entirely sure I want to talk about this. Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming.

That's what I thought.

Seriously, four innings for Capps in two days? Another 115+ pitch outing for Gorzelanny? I realize there's no one else to go to, but at the same time if they get hurt, we're even worse off. They are taking some serious abuse this year.

Melky Cabrera would've been a good Pirate, eh? If he didn't misplay Duffy's flyout into a home run, we're barely even worried about this one.

Blech.

I'll be on Steeltown Mike's radio show tomorrow from 12:05 to 12:40 or so talking Buccos. That's WMBS 590 out of Uniontown if you're in the area. If not, I'll post the audio afterwards.

The Yankees

We did this two years ago, the Pirates were 30-30, the Yankees were, well, I don't remember, something slightly worse. Everyone was really excited about the Pirates chances in the series and maybe even a strong finish. We flamed out in the three games and got swept and lost something like 21 of 25. Last year we had an awful start, then played even worse in interleague play (check out my Fanhouse post about our interleague struggles).

This year? We're 26-34 and the Yankees are 27-31. We're going to Yankee Stadium again and we're going to be the focus of national attention tomorrow when Roger Clemens makes his comeback against us. The Yankees need a jump start to get back to .500 and back into the AL Wild Card race. They're better than that record (315 runs scored, 278 allowed) and eventually they're going to play better. I've got a sinking feeling it's going to be against us.

Our best chance to take one in this series might be tonight. Gorzelanny will take the mound for us tonight and he'll face off against Andy Pettitte. You've probably heard rumblings all year that Pettitte isn't nearly the pitcher he once was, but he's the only Yankee pitcher to stick in the rotation all year and his ERA is 2.96 on a very rough schedule. Still, his WHIP is at 1.34, which is a bit high, and he's striking out less than five batters per nine innings, which is pretty down for him. It should be a good pitching match-up to watch, if nothing else.

ETA: I forgot to put this in the gamethread, but since a ruling on Matt Capps' suspension appeal isn't expected until Monday, he's going to be allowed to pitch this weekend.

Steve? My how you've changed

Just grabbed this screenshot off of Pirates.com. If you can't read the caption, it identifies what clearly seems to be Bob Walk as Steve Blass. And they wonder why no one believes what they readon the dot-com.

More on Moskos

Anyone watch him pitch on ESPN today? I DVR'd it and am watching it now. I will post thoughts on his pitching in the bottom of this post when I have them. If you saw him today, feel free to talk about it in the comments.

UPDATE (3:30)- So, having watched his 5 and 1/3 innings, I've got some thoughts on the guy. First off, he's going to fit in just fine. I don't mean the six runs in 5 and 1/3, I mean pitching well and watching your clueless teammates muck things up in the field. Of the runs he allowed, the first homer should've been a solo shot because the runner on base was only there after Clemson's right fielder badly misplayed a routine flyball into a single. His only mistake in the first five innings was shaking his catcher off and throwing a fastball that got whacked into the stands. In the sixth inning, the right fielder badly misplayed another flyball, the third baseman let a grounder under his glove, and Moskos gave up an aluminum bat homer, meaning that the batter reached way out, got a one hand swing off, and somehow the ball got over the centerfield fence. Clemson is a seriously bad defensive team, but that's neither here nor there.

As for Moskos, I saw his fastball quoted at 91-95. Today, he was more like 88-91. He definitely didn't top 91 from what I saw and mostly sat in the high 80s. He can throw a bunch of pitches (besides the fastball he's got a slider, curve, and change from what I saw) for strikes, and he does have a nice slider. He did seem gassed in the sixth and threw a couple fastballs around 85. Basically, this guy has to profile as a reliever in the bigs, I think. As a starter, he would be another Duke/Maholm type guy. If we were a really good team that was a left-handed reliever away from a top-notch playoff squad, I might be excited. But we're not. We're a bad team that had the fourth pick in the draft and a chance to pick a franchise player. Instead we picked a low-upside guy that we're planning on using as a reliever. Wilbur Miller writes at OnlyBucs that he thinks Moskos will be here very, very soon and that this was an image pick to get a guy that will be here and produce quickly in a role that's been a gaping hole for the Pirates this year. Or, you know, the exact opposite of what we should be doing with the fourth pick. Which mostly means that WTM is probably right,

Game 60: Pirates 3 Nationals 2

So lost in all of the hubbub about the Pirates making another really bad draft pick was that they did play a nice little game and pick up a win in Washington today. After they fell down 2-0 on a home run by Dimitri Young (where does steak come from? SteakGrowsOnDimitri) they came back on an unlikely homer by Freddy Sanchez, seven strong innings from Ian Snell, Jim Tracy using Matt Capps for two innings instead of one because of his looming suspension, and Jason Bay with the big time homer in the ninth to pull ahead.

That's right, the Pittsburgh Pirates just won a series. That's the first win since we took 3 of 4 from Cincy, which wasn't that long ago so I shouldn't complain. But actually, we only won one other series in the month of May (2 of 3 from the Cubs), so really, it is kind of nice to see happen. This seems like an opportune time to mention that the Pirates are still only 7 games out of first place. They have, however, fallen to fourth in the division, meaning they have to make up ground on not just the Brewers, but the Cubs and Cardinals as well. What I'm trying to say is, the window is pretty much closed. But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy a series win against the Nationals. There's always time to enjoy that.

Daniel Moskos

Is your 2007 first round selection for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Yes, a college pitcher. Get your needles ready, folks. Yet another low-upside, low-"risk" pick by the Pirates. If you're all watching a home, I'm sure you were thrilled when Gammons said, "This guy hasn't even started that much at Clemson. He's been used mostly as a reliever."

Can you feel the excitement?

UPDATE: John Sickels had Moskos as the ninth best pitcher in the draft.

BA on Moskos:

Stocky and compact, Moskos pounds the zone with a 91-95 mph fastball that bumped 97 out of the bullpen. He has a wipeout slider that has been up to 87 and also shows a more conventional curveball that he tends to use earlier in the count, just to keep hitters off balance. His changeup has fade, and he mixed all four of his pitches extremely well. Moskos has solid-average command of all of his stuff. He lacks projection and doesn't hold runners well. He joins Ross Detwiler and David Price as the cream of an especially strong crop of lefthanders in this year's draft.

Slightly more positive there.

Andrew Johnson of AOL Sports: "A fast-track guy with a limited ceiling."

Gotta bounce for now. Will post more when I find it.

Draft/Game Thread

This thread is for both the afternoon game and the 2 PM Draft. Essentially it's so we can talk about the game and bitch when we don't draft Wieters. Today's pitching matchup is Ian Snell vs. Matt Chico. Matt Chico is the third consecutive Nationals pitcher that I haven't heard of in this series. He's got the worst numbers of the three. It kind of looks like we should tee off on this guy, honestly, given his numbers. Still, I'm not counting on it.

As for the draft, I'll be around at least for the Pirates first pick and put something up after the selection happens.

And as for Snell, this insult is courtesy of reader Edmund-

Ian, you're so short that they should call a short-stack at Pamela's an "Ian Snell."

If you're curious, yes, I'll be taking reader submitted Ian Snell insults all year.

The Draft

The MLB draft is kind of hard to follow from a blogger's perspective. Except for the rarest cases, the players taken don't make any kind of immediate impact and half of even the first rounders are hit or miss anyways. Still, I can do a quick write up about guys that will be available at the four slot when we pick in the first round. After that, hell, I've got nothing.

David Price- Hands down the best prospect in the draft. Lights out pitcher from Vanderbilt. Going to Tampa Bay in the one slot. Forget about this guy.

Matt Wieters- Best college hitter in the group. He's a catcher, but may be moved from there. May go to the Royals at two, but may possibly fall further because he's represented by SCOTT BORAS (oooooo).

Rick Porcello- Best high school pitcher in the draft. This is who most people think the Royals will take. Also a Boras client.

Josh Vitters- A high school third baseman who is supposed to be a hell of a hitter. The Pirates are likely interested. Unfortunately, so are the Cubs who pick right before the Pirates.

You'll note that four players are listed here. That means one of the will be available when the Pirates pick at #4. Most indications are that it will be Wieters available at #4. If we don't take him, we're going to be making a big mistake.

Beau Mills- Great numbers in college, but at Lewis-Clark State. I don't even know where that is. He seems to be for real as a hitter, but it's hard to say for sure. I believe he's a first baseman.

Devin Moscaro- I don't know much about him besides that he's a high school catcher from Punxsatwany. Taking him at four would be a huge reach, but we're the Pirates. He'd be a great PR pick....

Mike Moustakas- High school third baseman. Some have him ahead of Vitters, some don't. Regardless... BORAS!!!

So what do I think we should do and what do I think we're going to do? If Wieters, Porcello, or Price is available, we should take them. If we pass on Wieters, we're making a mistake, because he's going to be a stud. We will pass on Wieters. If Vitters is there, we'll take him, and it might not be a bad pick. Mills also wouldn't be a bad choice, but we should start him in Lynchburg and let him hit. Instead, we'll probably stick him in State College and hold his hand through the minors and he won't get to Pittsburgh until he's 26, meaning it'll be a wasted pick. If we take Moscaro, I'll scream. Other names to watch from the four slot are Ross Detwiler, Daniel Moskos, and Nick Schmidt. They're all college pitchers I see in the top 15 of mock drafts, meaning that if Vitters is gone, they're likely who we'll consider. I'm seeing us picking one of them and DL making a statement like this.

Well, we considered several other players for this slot, but we've already got a first baseman in Pittsburgh in LaRoche, Neil Walker is the third baseman of the future, and we've already got two catchers at the big league level. This is a pick to fill a need on the Pittsburgh Pirates and it really makes the most sense when you think about it.

Other recommended reading (and sources for most of the information here)
John Sickel's Minor League Ball- great stuff, has profiles on most of the top prospects up, rankings, and a giant five round mock draft. This is where I go for my draft stuff.
Jeff Passan's mock
Baseball America- This is their Super Bowl.

The draft will actually be televised on ESPN 2 today at 2 PM. Postman R will be liveblogging at the Fanhouse, with contributions coming from all of the Fanhouse writers, myself included.

Game 59: Nationals 6 Pirates 5

See, now if we had won this game, it would've been a good win. Instead, we can file it away as another shitty loss. I mean, Zach Duke did his "I'll give up five runs and look like a crappy pitcher" thing and we were behind 5-1, but Adam LaRoche gained a measure of revenge on the world for being called out on a bogus interference call earlier in the game and launched a three-run homer to tie things up. And that set the stage for Salomon Torres.

But you know what? It's really hard to blame Torres for this loss. I mean, infield singles aren't really ever the pitcher's fault unless they directly cause them. And on his walk of Austin Kearns, the home plate umpire literally flinched on a perfect 2-1 pitch that was right down the heart of the plate. Instead of a 2-2 count, it was a 3-1 count and Kearns walked. I mean yeah, the wild pitch is his fault, the walk is partially his fault, but it's really hard to hang this loss on him like some of the other ones this year. They say that a team's record in one run games comes down to mostly luck, which is why lots of teams hover around .500. That ninth inning sure felt like bad luck to me.

Oh, and Nady left this one early with what is hopefully a not-so-serious hamstring injury. Talk about bad luck. I was just starting to think he was getting a clue against right-handed pitching.

Two in a row?

After last night's... win (I refuse to call it a good win, though there were several positive characteristics), the Bucs will line up for two in a row tonight against the National's Micah Bowie. Bowie is one of a number of Nats' pitchers this year that have good numbers, but are not really god pitchers. Bowie's been around forever- he's 33 and was drafted in 1993 by the Braves. Other people drafted in 1993 include Jeff D'Amico and John Wasdin (and Alex Rodriguez, Derrek Lee, and Chris Carpenter as well, drafted Charles Peterson in the first round, if you're curious). So Bowie is not some young kid trying to make it, but rather some old guy trying to hang on.

Zach Duke is the opposite, a young kid trying to make it. You know all about Duke and his troublesome delivery and propensity for getting the crap beaten out of him on the mound. He's given up 95 hits in 66 innings this year. That's insanely bad. Seriously, I'm sick of watching him suck. I hope he stops sometime soon because it's really kind of getting old. A win tonight and the Pirates exceed the victory total I projected for them this week in my podcast. Can they do it? I guess we'll see.

Where have you gone, Cecil Espy?

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much.

Ahh, now this is more like it. I opened with Doug Drabek, but guys like Espy are who I had in mind for this "Where have you gone..." feature. This is why Espy is important, because he is the first Pirate I ever remember thinking actually sucked. You see, when the Pirates were good, I was quite young. Thus, I had a favorable impression of everyone that wore black and gold in those times, no matter how bad they really were. I would name names, but that would ruin the fun of future WHYG... segments. The point is this: I never, for one second of my life, though Cecil Espy was a good baseball player. And for that, I will never forget the guy.

A more objective glance at Espy's career shows that I was pretty much dead on as a six year old. In two years of partial duty as a Pirate, Espy hit .244/.281/.329 and .258/.310/.340. If you check out his gamelogs on BRef, you'll see that Espy was Chris Duffy before being Chris Duffy was cool. That is, he was a speedy outfielder that Jim Leyland would constantly bat leadoff (that is, when he would start, which wasn't often), despite his general inability to get on base. I do remember Espy being fast, but he only stole ten bases in two years as a Pirate. Of course it's not like he had a whole ton of chances to steal bases since he was a fourth outfielder and terrible at getting on base.

One other fun Cecil Espy fact: the Pirates lost him in the 1986 Rule 5 draft to the Rangers, only to resign him before the 1991 season when he became a free agent. Dave Littlefield wasn't the first Pirate GM to develop huge crushes on players, I guess. As we will see with so many other players that will be featured here, Espy played one short season with the Reds in 1993 after being cut loose by the Pirates, then dropped into baseball oblivion forever. But I'll always remember him as the guy that sucked. I know that sounds harsh, but that's better than him being one of the guys from those teams I don't remember at all... right?

Game 58: Pirates 7 Nationals 6

After this one ended, either Greg Brown or one of the other Pirate talking heads on FSP described this one as a "good, close win." Exsqueeze me? Horsepucky, I say! How is a lead in which you have a 7-2 lead and only win by one run a good win? Salomon Torres did a great job getting three lefties out in a row, you say? They were Brian Schneider, Ryan Langerhans, and Nook Logan! Sweet merciful crap, if he can't get them out, who can he get out?

Perhaps I am being too harsh after a win. The Pirates did a nice job after Chacon gave the Nats a 2-0 lead by firing right back with five runs. Mike Bacsik didn't have good control tonight and we actually took advantage of it tonight, taking five walks in his 4 and 1/3 innings of work. And after Chacon, Marte, and Bayliss almost gave the five run lead back, Grabow, Torres, and Capps did hold it down for the one run win. In two outings as closer, Capps has now thrown 18 pitches and recorded two saves. It's hard not to love that.

Another good part about tonight? The Nats decided that Jason Bay wasn't going to beat them, so they walked him three times tonight. The rest of the lineup actually stepped up and scored seven runs tonight. Nady had a big double, Sanchez had two hits, and Chacon helped himself out to the tune of two hits. Jack Wilson and Ronny Paulino added unlikely homers. It was nice to see contributions come from all around tonight instead of just a couple guys. But it still wasn't a good win.

The Nationals are not as bad as you think

Everyone is doing a lot of talking about how bad the Nationals are and how important a sweep is for the Pirates in this series. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Nats aren't that bad. At least not of late. Ever since they dropped to 9-25, they're actually 14-9. In those 25 games, they're 5-2 against the NL Central. This is not a team to be taken lightly.

Tonight they send Mike Bacsik to the mound against Shawn Chacon. I have honestly never heard of him before in my life. The required action is to look him up on BRef, then maybe the Cube. Looks like he's been around a while, but not in the majors since 2004. He's been good for the Nats this year. This doesn't necessarily mean that he's good. Same goes for Shawn Chacon. We know all about his last start. He K'd 10 Padres in seven innings, then watched Salomon Torres blow the lead. Still, just because his last start was a good start doesn't mean he's a good starter.

This should be a fun game tonight.

It's Rajai Davis time!!!

Everyone has been bitching about the Pirates for weeks now and the Pirates have finally made a change... Humberto Cota is going back to AAA and Rajai Davis is coming up. My initial thoughts:

• Cota still has options left? How is that possible?
• Blah. Who cares.
And that was it.

Charlie is fond of saying that Davis is like a worse version of Chris Duffy (and Nyjer Morgan is a worse version of Rajai Davis so...) and he's right. I know the goal of this move is to help the bench, but, umm, how does having a bench of Davis, McLouth, Kelly (at least I think he's still on the team), Castillo, and the nightly loser of the Doumit/Nady/Paulino sweepstakes qualify as better than anything?

This is the 2,000th post in WHYGAVS history. I was going to do a special post about that in itself, but then I decided that Humberto Cota being demoted for Rajai Davis was a microcosm
for the 2+ years I've been writing this blog and that it would be fitting if that's what post #2,000 was about.

WHYGAVS Night

From our last conversation, it seems like a Friday/Saturday game is going to be the best. If I'm wrong in this assumption, lemme know in the comments. The fact is, if a lot of people want to do this, it's going to be impossible to accommodate everyone. The goal is going to be to find the night that the most people can get to the park. The Friday/Saturday games between now and August 1st are:

• June 15 and 16 against the White Sox
• June 29 and 30 against the Nationals
• July 6 and 7 against the Cubs- I can't go this weekend due to a wedding.
• July 20 and 21 against the Astros

Once we pick a date, we have to decide how to do tickets. The easiest route to go may be to just pick up random tickets at the park and have everyone hang out on the rotunda. Other suggestions are welcome.

Game 57: Dodgers 6 Pirates 5

What a bad game. It went from the pain of seeing a no-hitter coming to the even worse pain of having opportunities and not cashing in on them. I'm not sure which one is worse (yes I am, it's the second one).

This could've been avoided a number of ways. Paul Maholm ran out of gas but was left in an inning too long. Josh Sharpless was brought into a close game. Then again so was Tony Armas, but we avoided further disaster there. Jason Bay could've done something other than hit a broken bat grounder in the ninth. Jack Wilson could've not jumped on Broxton's pitch, no matter where it was (who am I kidding, no he couldn't). We could've tried getting a hit in the first six innings. We didn't need to do all of these things to win tonight, just a couple.

And so the homestand concludes. That was a really shitty homestand. All of the five losses sucked. By my count, four of them could've been avoided. I know it's to wish that the Pirates went 6-1 over seven games against the Dodgers and Padres, but 4-3 would've been great. At least it would've been encouraging. What actually went down was not so encouraging.

Dodgers Finale

I suppose we can technically still earn a split in this series against the Dodgers, but it really feels like this series is already lost to me. Yesterday's loss really sucked, it would take quite an impressive win to bounce back from that one, I think. The Paul Maholm/Derek Lowe pitching match-up tonight is not an encouraging one. Lowe's got very good career numbers against us and I'm never very encouraged to see Paul Maholm on the mound. Still, Maholm has looked better in his last couple of starts and we did actually hit Brad Penny pretty well yesterday, so maybe I've got this one misjudged.

Nah.

Pirates sign Dewon Brazelton

This was actually in yesterday's paper and I saw it in there, but I missed posting about it, so let's take it now. The Pirates signed pitcher Dewon Brazelton to a minor league contract yesterday. I saw that and thought I remembered Brazelton being a pretty good prospect in the D'Rays organization once. Looking at his Baseball Cube page, I could have only been thinking about 2002. That's a long time ago. Not much else to make of this signing. He's a huuge reclamation project and I can't see much coming of this signing. Instead, let's use this post to catch up on some of the other minor league pitcher's we picked up in the off-season.

Yoslan Herrera- 6.47 ERA, 1.66 WHIP, 27 Ks, 16 BBs, 6 homers allowed in 48 and 2/3 innings in Altoona. Clearly the two-year layoff was not his friend.

Alay Soler- 4.26 ERA, 1.55 WHIP, 19 Ks, 15 BBs in 31 and 2/3 innings in Altoona. It's pretty obvious why the Mets didn't want him. This guy looks worthless.

Serguey Linares- Promoted from Hickory to Lynchburg despite a 10:9 K/BB ratio in 22 and 1/3 innings. Had a 1.41 ERA in Hickory with a 1.03 WHIP. Only one appearance in Lynchburg thus far, 5 shutout innings with four hits, four walks, and only two K's. Good basic stats, but those peripherals are going to catch up.

DL's first foray into Latin America hasn't looked so great thus far.

The WHYGAVS Podcast- Episode 1

That's right. The first ever WHYGAVS Podcast is finally here. It's more of a test run than anything, so I'm looking for feedback. You can listen to it here, or grab it on iTunes here (if you do subscribe on iTunes there will be some ads from my host, Switchpod, that come along with the podcast). I have an option to embed it, but I can't do that without having it automatically play whenever the site opens. If I can turn that off, I may embed it later.

A quick list of topics

• Why I'm podcasting and what I expect.
• Week in review
• The bullpen
• Torres
• Capps
• Everone else
• Can the Pirates win the Central?
• Who will?
  
• The week ahead
• The Yankees

It's only about 13 minutes long, so give it a shot if you've got some time today.