Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

And, it's over. The Pirates managed to go out in 2008 just the way they came in, with a win. That they only sandwiched 65 other wins in the intervening 160 is the problem here. This last win came with a mammoth home run by Adam LaRoche that the Padre's announcers said may have been the first ball to reach the upper deck in Petco's right field. Steve Pearce added a home run behind him to give him three in the final week of the season. I've been advocating sample size vigiliance with Andy LaRoche, so I won't brag about Pearce's homers. Instead, just remind how badly lost Pearce looked at times during the year and contrast that with how he looked in the last week and remember that young players do eventually tend to stop being overwhelmed. At least we got to close the season with a fun little scorer's nuance. Ross Ohlendorf struggled with his control again and couldn't make it through five innings, which means he didn't qualify for the win. At that poin...

When you watch enough baseball, things slow during the game. I don't mean that the games get longer, I mean that you recognize little things that would be imperceptible to other people. Take, for example, the pitch thrown by Jesse Chavez to Ryan Braun that Braun walloped for a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the tenth. As the ball left Chavez's hand and travelled to the plate, I could see the pitch was a fastball and immediately knew that Braun would crush the ball and end the game. I don't even know if it's actually POSSIBLE to diagnose a pitch like that, but that's what I'm fairly certain happened in the tenth tonight. Of course, anyone who thought that Chavez was getting out of that inning belongs at Arkham, so maybe that line of thinking influenced me. Anyways, anecdotal prognostications aside, tonight was a really interesting game. In fact, I think it's fair to say that it was about as interesting as Pirate games get in late August. Yovani Gallardo...

On one hand last night, there was CC Sabathia. He's been known to wear down in the past (see: 2007 ALCS) and was pitching on short rest for the second time in as many starts last night. He looked tired in his two starts before last night. And he destroyed the Pirates with 11 strikeouts in seven innings. On the other hand is Paul Maholm, who also looked tired in his last start and has clearly started to lose his control on the strikezone. And yet, he was sent out to the mound to throw 95 pitches yesterday, resulting in six walks for the second start in a row and four runs on only two hits. Maybe he would've looked better if he got to pitch against the Pirates.

Baseball is a funny sport. I really want the Brewers to make the playoffs because I like Dale Sveum and Jason Kendall and CC Sabathia and want to see the Mets fall apart again, especially with their ludicrous extension of Omar Minaya today. On the other hand, Prince Fielder is a fat, annoying turd and seeing him hit a walk-off home run tonight was particularly painful, even if it was incredibly inevitable. I realize that "incredibly inevitable" seems like a strange choice of words, but as soon as Ryan Braun singled up the middle, I knew how this game was ending. At least there were highlights from this game tonight. Jeff Karstens put together his first nice start in a while, going six innings and striking out six, while holding the Brewers to three runs. Seeing him pitch well against a team in a must-win situation is good to see. Nyjer Morgan also dinked out four hits in his best Tike Redman impression and Steve Pearce hit what could've been a game-winning two-run homer i...

I don't know if I've ever seen anything sadder than Nyjer Morgan attempting to barrel over Russel Martin (play the video) and score the winning run on a weird little misplay with Tony Beasley waving him home for no reason and Martin brickwalling Morgan, only to have Adam LaRoche hit a fly out in the next at-bat that could've won the game easily. If I could build a statue to remember this season by, it would probably be an animated memorial to this very play. It had ill-advised baserunning, a failure to score runs, and it ended up costing us the game. There were definitely other things that happened in this game (JR leaving Maholm out on the mound in a seventh inning where he clearly didn't have it, risking health and a Manny Ramirez grand slam that Maholm avoided, Craig Hansen losing the strike zone again and wiping out the progress he'd made, etc.), but really, it's only that play that's going to stand out for me. Hey, at least something memorable happene...

There's a reason that games like these are called "laughers." Consider the eight inning tonight; the Pirates rallied for eight runs will all of them coming with two outs. Ryan Doumit hits a right-handed two run homer off to give the Pirates a 9-7 lead. Slight grin. Andy LaRoche singles in two runs, giving the Pirates an 11-7 lead. Grin grows to borderline goofy proporitions. Doug Mientkiewicz triples thanks to a misplayed ball in right by Andre Ethier. 12-7. Chortle. Jason Michaels singles in Mientkiewicz. 13-7. Another snicker. Freddy Sanchez grounds out to first, only to have James Loney screw up the throw while Michaels and Nyjer Morgan race around the bases to score and make the game 15-7. Actual honest to goodness laughter at the ridiculousness of the inning, the number on the scoreboard, and the path of the season in general. If nothing else, at least tonight's game reaffirmed my sneaking suspicion that the team we put on the field next year will not be the wor...

I feel like almost the exact same recap from last night's game applies to this one. All of the same themes are there. Hey! At least we scored! This guy that used to pitch for the Yankees did not pitch so well for us. Losing is no fun The Pirates lose a lot Actually, we've got a subplot tonight. Since his near perfecto, Karstens has a 7.11 ERA, a 1.54 WHIP, and only nine strikeouts (against six walks) in his 25 1/3 innings. That's awful. Back to the plot. Opponents have a .345 OBP and a .552(!) SLG against him in that span. That's really awful. He's chalked up a loss in each of his last six starts and he's earned them.

I do believe that my feelings on this game can be summed up in the following four words: "At least we scored." I mean, you can imagine nightmare scenarios, but nothing preps you for giving up a home run to Juan Pierre. NOTHING. Thank you Marino Salas, for doing something that was so improbably bad that even I wasn't cynical enough to forsee it. On the flip side, Ross Ohlendorf continues to look really bad as a starter for the Pirates. This isn't exactly surprising or disappointing, though I did allow myself a tiny window of hope after he pitched well in Indianapolis. He's been getting hit HARD though, in his few starts here and his fastball was tracked as being a little down tonight from where it was earlier. I guess if we've got nothing else, we've got plenty of space in the rotation to give him a shot to prove himself, but I'm less confident about that than I was a couple weeks ago. And so it goes with the Pirates, I suppose.

First things first: a win today ensures that the Pirates won't lose 100 games this year. It's always a perversely good feeling to know that we're bad but not AWFUL. Small victories are all we can get as Pirate fans. This win was even better than that, though, because the win ensured a home sweep of the Cardinals while the Brewers collapse had given them hopes of rejoining the wild-card race. As things stand today, the Cardinals are 4.5 games behind the Phillies and Brewers. With a 7-10 record against the Pirates this year, they've got to be feeling like they should be a lot closer to that lead right now. Playing the spoiler is always the only consolation for a bad team, and swatting the playoff hopes of Tony La Russa is about as good as it gets in my book. Even better from an actual Pirate fan standpoint is seeing Nate McLouth killing the ball again (.393/.460/.698 in September before today with two hits and a homer today), while Bone Crusher and Andy LaRoche chipped in...

Like the Pirates last night, I got nothing. I'm ready to kick into "season in review" mode with 16 games left, to be honest. If you're keeping track at home, this is 17 losses in 20 games (lose 10 in a row, win three of four, lose six in a row). This is bad, bad stuff. Bring on the Cardinals?

Sorry I didn't get to write this up before now, I spent most of last night focusing on my weekly FanHouse column, which I took to examine the Astro s and what Ed Wade and Drayton McLane have done to them in the name of contending year. It was really quite fun painstakingly making the point that Miguel Tejada's been a terrible addition for them this year, only to see Denny Bautista turn and surrender a grand slam him minutes later. I could be wrong, because I feel like I say this every single year, but this is one of the worst stretches of Pirate baseball that I can remember. Last night Tom Gorzelanny left with a finger injury that seems like it might be pretty bad, Freddy Sanchez is seeing an eye specialist for his blurred vision, and Jack Wilson's not even allowed t hold a bat. Throw in McLouth's shiner, and I hope they just freeze Paul Maholm in carbonite before something bad happens to him.

This was a pretty disastrous effort from the Pirates on all fronts tonight. Ross Ohlendorf got completely bombed by the Astros, giving up six runs on nine hits in four innings. He looked a lot like he looked in his first start after the Reds had seen him once. I see in the comments that Nate says he got squeezed lower in the zone and I'll check on that a bit later, but he seemed very, very hittable tonight. The offense, meanwhile, was made to look pretty awful by Randy Wolf almost all night after a two-run first inning. The only offense we got after that first inning was Steve Pearce's first career homer, a nice shot off of Wolf in the seventh inning. In the name of seeing young guys do well, I guess that's a positive tonight, just like Craig Hansen getting through an inning without a major incident is a positive. All told though, they feel like pretty minor wins after Ohlendorf flamed out tonight.

There are a number of aspects of this game that I could focus on for this recap. Ian Snell continued with his baby steps, making another pretty solid start by striking out nine Astros in six innings and holding them to three runs (even though three runs was enough for the loss). I could talk about Nyjer Morgan's nightmarish base running and outfield play but, guh, I'd rather not even think about that. There's also the bad bounce that turned what should've been a game-tying double by Adam LaRoche into a ground-rule double, sticking Ryan Doumit at third base where he would eventually be stranded. Those things seem to happen to bad teams. When you can't catch a break, you just can't catch a break. Instead, I'd like to focus on one pitch. Ian Snell did a nice job tonight, but he made one mistake and it ended up costing him the game. Facing pinch-hitter Matt Saccomonno in the fifth inning, Snell probably didn't have a book on the guy and decided to groove him...

Loss #82 comes with a ten run fourth inning. Jeff Karstens does a Zach Duke impression, the Pirates score 12 runs in two straight losses, and the sixteenth straight losing season is clinched. I will have more about this later. One the bright side, Craig Hansen made it through an inning without giving up a run or a walk. In the history of babysteps, this is the babiest. More on the momentous occasion later.

Even in the 141st game of the year, it's impressive how quickly the Pirates' bullpen can blow a lead. Last night, Denny Bautista came into the game in the seventh inning, probably because Paul Maholm rightly won't be crossing the 100 pitch barrier much for the rest of the year, and in six batters and what felt like about 30 seconds had turned a 4-1 lead into a 4-4 game. That set the stage for John Grabow to come in and throw one pitch to Scott McClain, which was promptly launched into the stands to give the Giants a lead. Later on, Jesse Chavez got his official inaguration into the Pirates pen by giving up the first homer of his career, and a game that the Pirates had on lock through six turned into an ugly 7-6 loss. Pretty fitting for the 81st loss of the year.

With nothing to do due to the fear of a hurricane bearing down on North Carolina, I actually stayed in and watched most of this one last night. The early going was interesting, it seemed like Zach Duke put someone on base every inning. Indeed he put two runners on in the first, one on in the second, and loaded the bases with no outs in the third, but escaped unscathed every single time. All in all, he only got one 1-2-3 innings the whole game, but he strung nine zeroes together for his second career shutout, which is a pretty stunning statement about the quality of the Giants offense. Really, it was a vintage Zach Duke performance, if we define vintage as "his awesome rookie year in which he somehow managed an ERA under 2.00 with a 1.21 WHIP." On the offensive side of things, it was a weird night that saw FOUR run scoring sac flies and two triples, one by Brian Bixler and one by Bone Crusher Moss. Freddy Sanchez, Nate McLouth, Ryan Doumit, and Adam LaRoche combined for ten hi...

When Chris Gomez hit a two-run homer after a scoreless Gorzo first inning, I knew we were in for trouble. There's nothing in the world that can slowly suck away your soul quite like watching a 5-0 lead dissipate one run at a time over five innings for the other team. Somehow, though, the Pirates bounced back from their death by a thousand cuts to take a 6-5 lead in the top of the eighth on a Nate McLouth solo homer. Surely with 10,000 relievers at his disposal John Russell would find a way to get the last six outs, right? I mean against the Reds, the only thing he could do to flat out lose the game at that point would be to do something silly like bring in Craig Hansen. So JR brought in Craig Hansen and he once again avoided the strike zone like the bubonic plague, walking two hitters, giving up a hit, and only recording one out while only throwing three of 11 pitches for strikes. I can't imagine what he was doing in the game in such a high leverage situation, but his presence ...

Did the Pirates really just string two wins in a row together? Tonight's win was a little more stirring than last night's in that Ohlendorf was not particularly impressive, but the Pirates put together some offense to back him and the bullpen held things together to bring home a win. You know, kind of how most wins happen in baseball games. The offense was a mixed bag tonight as they scored four runs against Edinson Volquez, but struck out a whopping 13 times before the Reds' bullpen even got involved. It was enough tonight, which I guess is more than they've been doing before the last two nights so I guess I won't complain that much. The real story, of course, was Ohlendorf. He only struck out two in his six innings and I thought the Reds hit him pretty hard after he got through the lineup once. Both home runs he gave up (to Joey Votto and Chris Dickerson) were destroyed. Votto's was a laser beam to right field and Dickerson's was a bomb to left-center that...

The streak is dead! If there are few things in the world more maddening to watch than Nyjer Morgan and Luis Cruz batting first and second and Ian Snell's shell giving up a lead-off home run to Chris Dickerson, then there are few things more gratifying than watching Bone Crusher Moss and Andy LaRoche hammer back to back homers with the Reds nattering announcers talking about how Moss isn't going to develop power for at least a few years and Andy LaRoche is, "A .135 hitter!" Seeing the guys we brought in from the trades is always good to see, but it's especially good to see An. LaRoche hit after all of his initial struggles. As for the other aspects, Ian Snell pulled together after giving up the homer to Dickerson to give the Pirates six decent innings, holding the Reds to two runs despite giving up seven hits and two walks. He didn't look great tonight and the Reds are just as trade-decimated as the Pirates are. That makes it hard to rave over Snell's start...

Can you think of anything worse than getting one-hit, losing 7-0 to run your losing streak to ten games, and having the other team file an official protest with Major League Baseball over the validity of your ONE hit? This is some seriously embarrassing stuff we're mired in right now.