Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

One would think that after being shut-out by Kyle Lohse (sorry, no recap, what is there to say about that game?) that it would be hard pressed for things to get much worse for the Pirates in a year when Matt Morris, Phil Dumatrait, Jimmy Barthmaier, Ty Taubenheim, and John Van Benschoten have all started games for the Buccos. Then Dumatrait went back on the DL because his shoulder is still bothering him (red flag! red flag!) and the Pirates called Yoslan Herrera up from AA to make his start tonight. You'll surely recall Herrera as Dave Littlefield's attempt to circumvent any need to scout in Latin America by simply signing defected Cubans. The problem with Herrera has been that after he took a couple years off in defector's hell, he came back without a fastball. He's got a nice ERA in Altoona, but most of his peripherals are all kinds of ugly, with only 53 strikeouts and 32 walks in 92 and 2/3 innings. He made one decent spot start for Indy, but he's not very good a...

I don't really like the Cardinals at all. This is mostly because they've been the best team in the NL Central for the past few years, Tony La Russa is obnoxious as hell, and I've got to hate someone other than the abstract concept of the Red Sox and Yankees. That semi-irrational hate means that this three game series will be one of the most important the Pirates play all year as far as I'm concerned. That's because the Cards have slipped into third place right now and the Brewers and Cubs just went about arming themselves for a stretch run, while the Cardinals are just hoping that Chris Carpenter comes back and all of their unlikely performers (Ludwick, Wellemeyer, tonight's starter Lohse) don't collapse back down the slippery road of "career norms." Losing a series to the Pirates this weekend would be devastating to them. I like the sound of that. Zach Duke kicks off the team's quest to gain unnecessary vengeance for a blogger they've nev...

At some point every summer, this happens. Some Pirate pitcher starts cruising through start after start and the fans get really excited about how well said pitcher is throwing the ball and he gets declared the Pirates "ace," then everyone gets all disappointed and angry when said pitcher stops living up to artificially raised expectations. Don't do this with Paul Maholm. He's recently been the only Pirate pitcher you can count on to go beyond the fifth inning regularly. Since May 31st , his shortest start was the six inning start he made against Baltimore on June 15th. He's got a 2.67 ERA in those games with a 1.03 WHIP. Most importantly, the Pirates are 5-3 in those eight starts (he's 4-0). Still, he's given up ten home runs in those eight starts, which is kind of high for a pitcher that's been on such a role. His strikeout rate isn't Zach Duke-bad, but it's not improved a whole lot over last year's. The same goes for his walk rate. The Ha...

As you all likely know by now, the Pirates made some minor moves involving minor league players before last night's Yankees game. They picked up two guys from Cleveland for a PTBNL and sent one to Seattle for a PTBNL. None of this would be remotely remarkable if the player that we sent to Seattle wasn't Craig Wilson. Nearly two years ago, Craig Wilson was traded to the New York Yankees for Shawn Chacon. After that trade, I wrote this: If DL wasn't such a jackass, he should've swallowed his pride and signed Craig to an extension when his agent asked for it prior to this season. Instead, as is his MO, he held on to Craig until the last second, leaving him languishing on the bench while his value diminishes until all we can get is Shawn Chacon who, except for the second half with the Yankees last year, pitches like Kip Wells' first two comeback starts all the time. If you can get past the AWFUL tense shifting there, there's a whole ton of venom for Dave Littlefield...

Baseball is a game of split second emotional changes. For example, this was me over about ten seconds tonight: Tie game, eighth inning, Nate McLouth squares around to bunt with Jack Wilson on first and no one out. NATE'S BUNTING?!? WTF RUSSELL??? HAVE YOU WATCHED THIS DUDE SWING THE BAT THIS WEEK?!? Nate swings away, launches a home run into right field YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! I watch the replay and realize that the ball went almost right over the seats that I was sitting in when I was at Maholm vs. Mussina Mk. 1 and that, hey, if I pause the replay I do believe that's my dad and my brother. Crap. Stupid rain. After four straight awful starts, the Pirates got their second sparkler in a row from Paul Maholm tonight as he cruised through eight innings against the Yankees, only really stumbling in the seventh when he let the Yankees string a few hits together and tie the game up. If the only reliever we see is Damaso Marte, that means that there's a pretty good chance that the ...

The Pirates and Yankees round out interleague play for everyone tonight with a make-up of the June 26th game that was rained out, despite my being in attendance. Strangely, the same two pitchers are taking the mound tonight that were supposed to take the mound two weeks ago. Hopefully things will go better for Paul Maholm than they did in the first inning that didn't count, because the Yankees were destroying him before A-Rod ran into a bad double play. The truth of the situation is that the Yankees need this game a lot more than the Pirates and the Pirates haven't been playing that well of late (the Astros don't count). They're not pleased with having to come into Pittsburgh on their way to Toronto, and they've won four in a row. I really don't like how things are stacking up for the Pirates in this one.

The "Munoz replaces JVB" story at the PG has been updated with this blurb : Also today, the Cleveland Indians claimed starter Bryan Bullington off waivers from the Pirates. Had he cleared by this afternoon, he would have reported to Indianapolis. Now, I'm trying to think of some kind of cogent analysis here. That maybe there's something buried in Bullington's AAA stats that have indicated to Shapiro that he's worth something. Instead, all I can think of is, "HAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!" Seriously, the Indians are screwed if they think Bullington can help them in any way, shape, or form. Maybe when they overreact and fire Shapiro this winter, he'll come be an assistant for Huntington.