We Believe in the Bucs

Bobby Hill optioned

2005-07-21T21:45:00.000-05:00

In a very depressing note, Bobby Hill was sent to Indy tonight after the game. On a brigher note, it was so that we could call up Brad Eldred. Honestly, Hill is one of the last bench players I would have wanted to see get sent down. Tike or Restovich should not be on our team and Vogelsong could use some real innings instead of these practical jokes Lloyd likes to play on him like "see if you can pitch when we're down 10 without it shattering your confidence, but then I'll bench you with 2 outs in the 9th." I don't know what it is that Hill ever did to Lloyd or DL or McClatchy or whomever he pissed off, but he plays way better than his playing time indicates. On another note, does this mean a Ward trade is looming?

--Jeremy

I actually have some time to post today

2005-07-14T08:40:00.000-05:00

There have been a bunch of hot topics in Pirate-dom lately, including the trading deadline, "clutch hitting" or if it even exists, pitching woes, and so on. Naturally I've got a lot to say about all of it and upon starting this entry I promptly forgot everything. Most of what I've said has been covered in various other blogs, and since I haven't posted in a long time some of it will be old news, but it's new from me to you.

First off, the trade deadline. DL says we'll be sellers, and I say we sell off as many players as we can possibly manage to get rid of. Lawton is highest on my list of people we need to dump, mostly because of his salary but also because of his unbelievable lack of skill running the bases and fielding. I'm sick of watching pop-ups fall right in front of him while Castillo and even Ward have made huge efforts to run halfway to the right field wall trying to chase these things down. Plus we're paying him well over $7,000,000. Since his only good attribute is his bat, that makes him highly overpaid. Get rid of him while we can still get something for him. I'd also be willing to part with Kip Wells, because while he is occasionally good he is also often bad. Everybody knows that as soon as he goes somewhere else he'll become a fantastic pitcher, so let's all hope that he lands in the AL somewhere, or at least out of the NL Central. He should be able to land someone decent in a trade, hopefully a young bat. I will also trade Mark Redman. After the start he had to the season I never would have wanted to get rid of him, but he's cooled down rapidly and has decided that his option isn't good enough, so he's going to want more money than we should give him. I don't think we'll be able to get anybody fantastic for him, but we should at least be able to get some quality farm guys which we desperately need right now. Now that Craig is back, I'd also like to have some offers for Ward. I have started to like him a lot this year, recent power outage aside. His defense is improved, his patience at the plate is much better, and he actually turned out to be a decent guy. If he's willing to stick around for the great price we're paying him now (somewhere around $950,000) then I'd be ok with keeping him, but if he starts to want more and more money I feel like we could find somebody else, or perhaps start calling up the younger folk like Eldred.

The lineup I'd like to see as we start the second half:
1) Freddy Sanchez, 3B
2) Jose Castillo, 2B
3) Jason Bay, LF
4) Craig Wilson, 1B
5) Rob Mackowiak, CF
6) Ryan Doumit, RF
7) Humberto Cota, C
8) Jack Wilson, SS
9) Pitchers: Perez (if he can get himself together, Snell if not), Duke, Redman, Fogg, Williams

Obviously there will be platooning, Ward at first and myriad lumps in the outfield (Redman, Restovich, perhaps Lawton if we have to keep him) but I think that's the lineup that puts our best guys on the field. There's no reason that that lineup couldn't run at .500 or even a little bit better. I don't see us getting to .500 for the season when all is said and done, but we can be close. If we manage wisely through the deadline and when the roster expands, we'll have a number of skilled, ready-to-go guys for next year.

We still have a lot of talent coming up in Paulino, Eldred, Bautista, Gorzelanny, De Caster, Koonce, Duffy, Mclouth, and others. Not to mention that stud Ty Wigginton. Who, by the way, strikes out roughly 22% of the time against AAA pitching. We have two guys at Lynchburg who are ripping the cover off the ball: Adam Boeve (OF) is hitting .313 with an OPS of .957, and Pat Magness (OF) is hitting .300 with an OPS of .991.

Andrew McCutchen watch: in 12 games, he has 42 ABs, is batting .333 and has an OPS of .916.

As we enter the second half, I think most Pirates fans are hoping to just get the young guys some playing time, as our chances of actually contending for anything other than pride are pretty bad. I see no real need to keep Lloyd as our manager unless we're looking for a team cheerleader, because he's not good at much else like managing a baseball game. Of course a new manager would mean we'd have to start the rebuilding process all over againbut at least we'd have some promise for the future. I like Lloyd, I really do, but I don't think that he's a very intelligent manager. Actually, come to think of it, I'd like to get rid of pretty much everybody from Lloyd up, but if that happened we wouldn't really have a team anymore, so I guess we'll have to take what we can get.

--Jeremy

Checking in

2005-07-06T16:08:00.000-05:00

I haven't been able to update for some time, mostly due to the new job that keeps me busy all day instead of having a lot of time to sit around and research stats etc. I haven't even been watching quite as much, so I just haven't had much to update with.

That said, I still have some things to go over. First and foremost, this calls for a nice, general "OUCH." Just everything. Hitting .500 then going 5-15, Ollie breaking his toe in a very Kevin Brown-esque move, losing 12-1 to the Phillies, the list goes on.

I was at the game Monday, and here are some things I noticed:
1) It's waaaaay too hot in Pittsburgh, and also far too humid. Somebody should fix that.
2) Tike Redman was, is, and will continue to be an absolutely awful fielder.
3) Matt Lawton apparently DOES know how to try in the outfield, he just usually chooses not to.
4) Michael Restovich is worthless, although he does have a pretty decent arm.
5) Lloyd STILL has no idea how to manage his baseball team when it comes to who should get playing time and where. Some things never change, I suppose.
6) There were still a ton of people at the game when it was 12-1 in the bottom of the 9th. I think this says something about both the Pirates and the fans.

More later on, whenever time allows.

--Jeremy

Ollie to the DL

2005-06-28T11:22:00.000-05:00

Oliver Perez pulled a Kevin Brown with his foot and a laundry cart in St. Louis, landing him on the 15-day DL with a broken toe. I know it's been a frustrating year for him, but that's the last thing he needs is to start breaking things. On the bright side, this gives us a chance to call up Nate Mclouth, and means that Ian Snell will probably get a chance to start.

--Jeremy

A Welcome Diversion

2005-06-25T09:44:00.000-05:00

Here's a welcome diversion from the travesties in New York, Boston, and now St. Louis. This article about Dock Ellis is an EXCELLENT read and I highly recommend it for all Pirates and/or LSD fans out there. Enjoy

--Zach

At least there's still somebody in America with a sense of decency

2005-06-18T08:07:00.000-05:00

Thank God... this was ridiculous and disgusting from the very beginning.

--Jeremy

As last night was a heartbreaker, the only way to write about it is with awful poetry. The game as a series of Haikus:

2005-06-16T08:15:00.000-05:00

Sanchez is the man
A great return for Suppan
We got Gonzo, too.

Jack-Castillo-Ward
What a great combination
Double play city.

Mark Redman pitched well
Too bad it won't count for him
Since we messed it up.

A-rod's a sissy
He plays like a little girl
Look out David Ross!

I'd like to point out:
A-rod earned in two at-bats
What we paid for Ross.

The streak's still going
We got our extra-base hits
From Jack and Jason.

Rick White still scares me
I wouldn't want to meet him
In a dark alley.

Jason found his swing
First time since Cincinnati
Worthless. Thanks Mesa.

Sheffield was not safe
Mesa didn't do his job
So long victory.

Why, Lloyd McClendon?
Mesa can't handle pressure
I know you know this.

Screw you, Giambi
I could hit a ball that far
If I were on 'roids.

--Jeremy

Why I'm not scared of Kevin Brown

2005-06-15T15:17:00.000-05:00

Wall-punching incidents aside, I can't be scared by somebody who's given up 2 HR's to freakin ICHIRO in only 10 ABs. I mean seriously, how many homers does this guy get a year, 7? 8? 10 with a better, but now banned suplement? He's slugging 1.000 against Brown. Ichiro isn't a slugging kind of guy. And yes, I'm sure you could make a case where a big superstar can't hit him at all, but that's not the kind of stat I'm looking for and it's not the kind of stat that I find as humorous. So there.

--Jeremy

Bob Smizik must have a mental condition

2005-06-14T12:14:00.000-05:00

The man never ceases to amaze me. Unlike counterpart Ron Cook, who has managed to turn out a couple of decent articles lately, Smizik continues to flap his head like he knows what he's talking about. Today's issue for Smizik: Why are people worried about the trade deadline when we're winning games? .....He then goes on to write an entire article about our trade situations. Wait, Bob, I thought we WEREN'T supposed to focus on the trade deadline? It's funny, because your article makes no mention of our winning streak, which is allegedly what we WERE supposed to be thinking of. I'm confused.

But wait, there's more. Smizik talks in depth about how we shouldn't trade at the deadline but instead wait until the end of the season. While he may have a point in that some teams will be more likely to be in the market once the offseason hits, the rest of what he's trying to say is the biggest load of crap I've read in a while. His main point: There are no good players available at the deadline, so why try to trade for one? His examples of how there are no good players available? The Aramis Ramirez trade, the Benson trade, and the Suppan trade. Now I'll grant that Suppan wasn't exactly a star, but we did get Freddy Sanchez back for him and that seems to be working out fairly well right now.

Ramirez isn't a star? Ramirez, who's OPS is sitting near .900, who put up 36 HRs and 103 RBIs last year isn't a decent player to pick up mid-year? He's not exactly a superstar or anything, but I wouldn't hesitate to pick up somebody with his bat at the deadline. Also, we got Bobby Hill for him, and Hill has the potential to turn into a solid player if he could ever get some playing time. No, Hill isn't as good as Ramirez, and no, he'll never be a big star. But he's a decent pickup, especially for a team that needs guys who can get hits and get on base. As for the Benson trade, a lot of people were projecting for him to have a great year this year. Again, he's not a superstar, but he's a very solid contributor for teams that are in need of solid starting pitchers.

So what's your point, Bob? There's no talent available at the trade deadline? Maybe you meant to say that we're the source of all the available talent at the deadline? It's not the market's fault that we got players like Ty Wigginton and Matt Peterson, it's Dave Littlefield's. There's plenty of talent available, we just don't know how to go about acquiring it. Right now there's a few teams writing us thank-you notes for giving them gold for pyrite. So maybe the problem isn't the time of year, the problem is our awful front office, ever think about that?

I agree that we should just enjoy winning while we're winning. But what's wrong with looking down the road a bit? Whatever trades we make could significantly impact our season this season, next season, and 5 seasons from now. You can't just ignore trade rumors because we're winning. But at least you can be hypocritical and whine about people who talk about trades, then talk about trades yourself. Listen, Bob. Just because you can talk freely about whatever you please doesn't mean you should. Why don't you try thinking before you speak, or type as the case may be.

--Jeremy

McCutcheon signs

2005-06-13T15:12:00.000-05:00

The Pirates signed first round pick Andrew McCutcheon today. Story Here. Looks like the kid stuck true to his word that he wants to play and he wants to play now. Let's hope that those calling him the second coming of Marquis Grissom are correct (hey, he wasn't a superstar but he was a very solid player for a long time.)

--Jeremy

Ron Cook turns in second consecutive article that isn't total crap

2005-06-13T11:27:00.000-05:00

Ron Cook has a writeup today about yesterday's abomination of a game. I suppose it's fairly easy to write an article in which all you have to do is include some stats and some quotes about Lloyd being pissed off. Regardless, I expect far less from Cook than to be able to do that. Mostly this article was pointing out the reasons we lost yesterday, which were numerous. It included a few gems of quotes from Lloyd, such as:
"Quite a few things led to this loss," McClendon said. "I don't have time to go into them all now. That would take into tomorrow's off day."

I can't say that there's anything disturbingly wrong or idiotic in this article, which is probably a first for Cook.

This doesn't mean I like him, though.

--Jeremy

Saturday night's game, as witnessed from 330 S 6

2005-06-13T08:37:00.000-05:00

A game late, I know, especially given our disgusting loss yesterday. I'll save you the pain of reading a rant about every great moment of the game, because there were too many to write about without making a 20 page post. That said, here's some of what went on:

Oliver Perez was amazing. This is the second time I've seen him pitch since coming back from his hiatus at the beginning of May (the first was against the Rockies a month ago.) Needless to say, he was way better Saturday night than against the Rockies, and he was pretty good against the Rockies. He wasn't doing his praying mantis "I'm about to K your ass" move very much, which was nice because usually when he does it he ends up walking the guy or something. The one time he did do it, Eduardo Perez got kinda pissed off and said something to Cota about it. Ollie then blew one right past him for strike 3. For the record, the walk, last 2 hits, and only run that Ollie gave up all came in the 7th when nobody particularly cared, so I don't hold them against him. Did I mention that he struck out 10 guys?

Obviously the offense was really clicking. I (in addition to most everybody else) was a little nervous about facing Scott Kazmir, but as it turns out he's mortal like everybody else. Just about everybody was piling on, and Cota was the last guy to get a hit (on his fourth AB, which probably came somewhere around the 2nd inning.) With Zach keeping a scorecard, it was pretty easy to follow one ridiculously amazing statistic: We were one batter shy of batting around THREE DIFFERENT TIMES in this game (8 batters in the 1st, 11 in the 5th, and 10 in the 8th.) In the 5th and 6th innings combined, we had 19 batters step into the box. 9 of them scored. It was one of those games where every hit just made it more ridiculous than the last. Definitely something fun to watch.

In the 8th, we met up with Dana (of news-breaking fame from WHYGAVS) and I got to hear the story of how she met Jack Wilson and Daryle Ward in the parking lot after Friday night's game. I was hoping that she possessed some sort of Pirates magnetic force that would bring them back again, but sadly such was not the case. Nice going Dana.

Regardless, it was a fun time. We managed to get in 3 hours of tailgating before the rains came, and the thunderstorm hit just as we entered the stadium. It was entirely too hot, and it was so humid you couldn't across the river very well. Got to see our Bucco's score the most runs they've scored since 1992. Got to see Perez pitch another beauty, and I got to see Doumit play which was nice.

For the record: Sanchez' 2-out RBI in the 5th was his 10th on the year. All 10 have come with two outs.

For what it's worth: Mackowiak hit fairly well against the lefties, and with Sunday's first AB he met the AB qualification for NL AVG. leaders. He's currently 2nd.

Worth mentioning again: Perez didn't walk anybody until the 7th, when it wasn't worth trying to throw strikes.

Also noteworthy: He (Ollie) was hitting 96 on the gun, which didn't seem to be dialed up a few MPH for once.

On the offensive side: Jose Castillo went 3-5 with 5 RBI (including a 3 run HR) after batting .147 over the first 10 days of June.

Back to defense: We turned 3 double plays, and going into Sunday's game we had 12 over our last 5 games. Looks like the defense is back in Pittsburgh.

--Jeremy

ESPN Power Rankings

2005-06-10T15:06:00.000-05:00

In the lastest power rankings on ESPN.com, we've managed to do something we probably haven't done in years: break into the teens.

That's right, we've ended our slump of being laughed at, in the bottom third of the league. Their comment on us from two weeks ago? "23. Pittsburgh Pirates: General manager Dave Littlefield is "very satisfied" with Lloyd McClendon as manager. Really. He wasn't kidding."

How'd we fair last week, you ask? More Sarcasm: "21. Pittsburgh Pirates: The Pirates rolled off six straight games from May 18-24, but finished the month losing six of their last seven. At least they had a winning streak."

But this week, we hit number 19. While our review wasn't raving with praise, it was certainly not sarcastic/demeaning: "19. Pittsburgh Pirates: On their current homestand, the Bucs are coming off consecutive series victories against the Marlins, Braves and Orioles. Next up: Tampa Bay."

Power rankings were brought up elsewhere earlier this week, the main focus of the discussion being media-biased rankings of the middle-of-the-pack teams. I'm inclined to agree; teams like the Yankees and Red Sux will eternally be placed ahead of the Pirates until the Pirates are winning games in the playoffs those other teams aren't in. However, we were ranked somewhere around 28 at the beginning of the year (I tried to find the old rankings, but they only archived back to week 6, when we were 23rd) so it's nice to see them giving us some legit upward mobility in the rankings. That said, I still agree with the sentiment that ESPN sucks.

--Jeremy

Ron Cook discusses Daryle Ward

2005-06-10T10:31:00.000-05:00

For once, I can say that Ron Cook wrote an article that doesn't totally suck. This one's about Daryle Ward and his contributions to the team this year. I will say that it's a bit cheeky, but overall it's not a bad piece of writing. It wasn't an extremely lengthy article, so there's not much sense in summarizing what you could read in 10 extra seconds, but I will highlight two paragraphs that I liked to read:

It helps that Ward is a top-shelf guy. He has been better in the clubhouse than even Virdon predicted. And get this: Ward wanted to stay with the Pirates after last season. How often, in the past quarter century or so, has anyone wanted to be here?
"If a guy like Mesa was willing to stay ..." Ward said.
"We felt good about the Pirates. We both believed we could make a difference on this ball team."

"I grew up with money my whole life," said Ward, the son of Gary Ward, who played 12 seasons in the big leagues. "It's not like I have to be the highest-paid guy on the team."

I almost hate to say it, but this makes me like Ward even more. He knows he could go get a lot more money from another team if he keeps his numbers where they are, but it seems like he wants to stick around. Which is admirable.

--Jeremy

Yes, there ARE Pirates fans (and other assorted comments)

2005-06-08T11:42:00.000-05:00

It was brought to my attention by Pat from Where Have You Gone Van Slyke that I never made a post discussing my experiences on Saturday night's game (the Redman/Davies beauty of a pitchers duel). As such, allow me to tell you a story.

It was in the low 60's and raining when I left Johnstown. Knowing I'd later regret it, but being to lazy/stubborn to care, I put on jeans anyway. Needless to say, it was an absolutely gorgeous day in Pittsburgh, upper 70's and bright, very hot sun. Between the weather and the fact that it was Craig Wilson bobblehead doll night, I knew we'd get a good number of people. When we first arrived at the stadium, I was disappointed by the crowd - sure were a lot of empty seats. We enjoyed a lovely view of the city from row X of section 330, the first time I've ever sat down the 3rd base line (I had enjoyed my previous games from everywhere else - first base line, behind home, in the outfield, in the bleachers, etc, but never 3rd.) They announced the starting lineups, and of course I was nervous, expecting a typical "so what if these guys are playing well, let's throw them on the bench" lineup from Lloyd. He came through, however, putting out a lineup that's among the better ones he's put out this year. On to the game.

Kyle Davies is a pitching machine, especially against a team that can't seem to score runners once they're on base. Mark Redman, of course, is pitching an absolute gem. He hasn't struck out many (3 in 8 IP) but he's also only walked one. The crowd isn't exactly on their feet at every out, but they're pretty into it. The nearby sections are starting our own cheers and chants, and it seems to be spreading. At one point, we do one of the popular PNC cheers, and then they play that same one over the broadcast system. Coincidence? Maybe, but it kept everybody pretty happy. We squander a few chances to score some runs, but the way Redman's pitching we know that we just need one or two good hits and we'll be golden. Then we get into the 8th inning. Davies has been slowing a bit. He walks Lawton, the crowd cheers loudly. He walks Bay, the crowd goes nuts. He's replaced by John Foster. Foster walks Mackowiak, the crowd is on their feet. They know what's going on, and they know how good of an opportunity this is. And, for once, they actually feel like we can take advantage of it. There was no "well, at least we got the bases loaded" feeling, it was nothing but hope, which has been missing for a long time in Pittsburgh. Ward comes up to the plate. Ward, who at any time can take a ball out of the park. We had just seen a Mackowiak grand slam a few nights before, would Daryle hit one? The crowd grows so loud that I can't even hear myself think. The last time I remember hearing a crowd like this was at a concert, and before that was the Pitt/VT game 2 years ago. Daryle swings and....grounds into a double play. Noise level down a few thousand levels. We're still not losing, we're still in the game and can win it in the next inning instead. Then there was the fielding mishap that eventually scored a run for the Braves. In the bottom of the ninth, with us down one, the crowd was still hopeful, but it was more pleading than cheering. Quick out, quick out, quick out, ballgame. One of the best I've ever seen, probably the best I've ever been to in terms of quality of play, though certainly not in terms of outcome.

The point, you ask? Baseball is back in Pittsburgh. That game had roughly 34,000 fans, and they were legitimately expecting a win. A win against the Braves, the best team in the NL East that has given us fits over the last dozen years. This wasn't a crowd that was disappointed that their team was bad, we were disappointed that we didn't play as well as we should have. Things are looking up, way up. Watching the game on TV last night, I could hear that same energy in the stands.

On to a few other notes:
1) Matt Lawton has gotten on base 14 times in his last 4 games. Slump? What slump? Now if only he could quit screwing up on the basepaths and in the field, I might even like the guy.
2) Welcome, Ryan Doumit. I'm not sure how we're going to handle having 3 catchers or how we're going to get this kid playing time, but he has a lot of promise and I'm excited to see what he can do.
3) Watching Jack Wilson play baseball is the most fun I can have right now. I mentioned this in the comments section of WHYGAVS and others seem to agree. The guy plays with such heart and emotion that it's almost impossible to not like him. After he hit that homer last night, he was like a little-leaguer who just won the game running around the bases. He was jumping up and down and smiling and yelling and cheering and carrying on. He really loves baseball, playing baseball, and making other people enjoy watching baseball. You can tell that he's playing to play, not for the money, and I hope he never goes anywhere. There were some nasty trade rumors about him early in the year. If this team trades Jack away, our owners, GM, manager, and all other members of the front office will be run out of town so fast it's not even funny.
4) As mentioned in the comments section of Honest Wagner, Daryle Ward has been destroying the ball lately. Unfortunately, he's always about 2 feet short of a homer. He's lined at least 4 balls off the wall in the last few days, most of which ended up being 320' singles. There's got to be somebody who keeps track of distance the ball travels per number of bases accumulated, and Daryle's gotta have one of the funniest ratios. Regardless, last night we all knew it was time for him to get that extra lift, and he sure did - 420 feet of pure, game-tying goodness.
5) Dave Williams needs his chops back. Ollie grew his and he's doing better, Dave got rid of his and he's doing worse. I don't see this as a coincidence, I see this as karma telling Dave to not get rid of his chops. In fact, I think Kip would look pretty mean with a set, as would Fogg and Redman.
6) Speaking of hair, was anybody else at the game Saturday? During one of the inning breaks, they took one of the Craig bobblehead dolls and put a fake beard on it, then put it up on the scoreboard. Only the highest of comedy. However, I was greatly disappointed with the Pierogi race, as the Parrot merely waved them on. No drop kicks or flying elbows or anything...where's the fun in that?!

I need to start making these things shorter.

--Jeremy

2005-06-06T17:23:00.000-05:00

The stat of the week in Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback, which allegedly focuses on football, makes me feel good. Too bad he had to be a dick and say "lowly Pittsburgh Pirates." This is the same guy who predicated Jake Plummer for MVP and was amazed at Vince Carter's "miraculous" midseason turnaround, completely missing the fact that Carter dogged it in Toronto to force a trade then started actually trying once he was on a team he liked. So as the stat of the week shows, the Yankees suck. Unfortunately Peter King had to go and be a dick about it.

Luckily he redeems himself with his "10 Things I think" section. Even a bandwagon-jumping Red Sux fan can realize that PNC is the best place on earth.

--Zach

A few comments on our lineup

2005-06-06T10:09:00.000-05:00

After seeing what kind of issues we're having at the plate over the weekend, I've decided it's time to discuss our lineup. For the record, this discussion will have no talk about Ryan Doumit for several reasons, which include but are not limited to: I have no idea what kind of hitter he is other than to look at his on-paper numbers; I have no idea where Lloyd will be playing him; I could do another post on him.

Item number one: Matt Lawton. After a bit of a May slump (as discussed briefly here) he seems to be back on track a bit. His BA dropped as low as .246, but is now back up to .267 after two solid games against the Braves. It's impressive that he has 25 RBI, given that he hasn't had people on base when he's come to the plate in something like 200 years. Might only have been 6 ABs, but we're not going to have him getting any RBI to increase his trade value - er, value to the team, if he comes up alone every time. Regardless, he's finally getting back into the swing of things (bad pun, I know.) Except on the base paths. He makes a little leaguer look like a genius when it comes to "paying attention" and "trying" when he's on base. He also sucks in the field...looking at what Arthur Rhodes has done this year, maybe it wasn't the best move to make on our part, but he's still getting the job done I suppose.

Item number two: The #2 slot in our order. Looks like it's been filled by Freddy Sanchez. I was happy about that at first, but then I looked at his numbers: .150/.171/.225/.396. Yes, that's right, an OBP of .396. I love this guy, his defense has been spectacular and he's provided a big spark to our team with his energy. But he's not hitting the ball right now. Here's an interesting fact though: all 9 of his RBI have come with 2 outs. So he's a good guy to have up at the end of innings, but not really the beginning of the order. A possible solution: how about Jose Castillo? He hits better with the bases empty than with somebody on (all numbers are higher in all catagories except OBP with bases loaded, in which its .391-.400, which is minimal.) That would also free up a spot closer to the bottom of the order, where Sanchez generally does much better. Sanchez's best numbers have come out of the 8 spot (.545/.615/.909/1.524) but his numbers from the 6 aren't bad either (.444/.500/.889/1.389). Given that Jack has been doing well in the 8, maybe we should put Sanchez into the 6.

Item number three: The aforementioned Jack Wilson hitting in the 8 spot. It's working out fantastically. While he's been struggling to hit anything from the other spots, his numbers from 8th: .367/.406/.550/.956. He's walked more than he's struck out from this spot (4 BB/2 K) and he's scored 70% as many runs in the 8th spot as he did from the 2nd spot, only he's done that in fewer than half as many ABs (126/60.) Having him 8th also gets a speedy guy on base so that we're less likely to ground into a DP (last night doesn't count, everybody thought that ball was going to drop.)

Item number four: The middle of our lineup needs to be shuffled. Saturday night was a killer watching Ward strand a few hundred guys on base because he bounced one right into the dirt. If Davies walked Ward to face Mackowiak, who is almost a guarantee to not GIDP, we have a much better chance to score at least one run and possibly win the game. PNC Park was going absolutely NUTS during that rally, and then Ward killed it and the crowd went dead for the rest of the game. That's not to say that Mack wouldn't have gotten out anyway, but the chances to at least keep the rally alive would have been better. I'd propose the middle of the order to be something like 4-Ward, 5-Mackowiak, 6-Sanchez. Especially given Sanchez's propensity to thrive with two outs.

Taking this all into account, here's what I'd like to see on the field every night:
Lawton, RF
Castillo, 2B
Bay, LF
Ward, 1B
Mackowiak, CF
Sanchez, 3B
Cota, C
Wilson, SS
(Pitcher)

Things are looking bright in Pittsburgh. The fans actually care about baseball again, which is something I haven't seen in years. Our attendance is up nicely, and not without good reason: this team is fun to watch. Our pitching has dominated two of the best teams in the NL, as well as just about everybody else of late. We're scoring some runs, although we're still stranding too many baserunners. But we're winning. If we can pull off a .500 run through the rest of the month, we'll have a good shot at making .500 for the all-star break.

My predictions for our upcoming series:
2-1 over the Orioles
2-1 over the Devil Rays
2-1 over the Yankees
1-2 against the Red Sox

Not because I think the Red Sox are that good, but I just feel like we're going to get real tired by the end of this run. We've been playing extremely good baseball against extremely good opposition and we've been winning, so there's no reason to expect us to really slow down anytime soon.

--Jeremy

Bob Smizik abuses his right to free speech...again

2005-06-04T08:47:00.000-05:00

Bob Smizik. He's nowhere bad as Ron Cook's worthless drivel, but he has occasionally put out a real stinker of an article. Today's story, however, wasn't 100% bad. Not exactly cutting-edge reporting, as a majority of it is stuff we all already know: The Pirates are playing well, we're hovering dangerously close to .500, the Braves are a good team, etc. He also lists his concerns, which include the obvious problems of Mesa not pitching well and Lawton not hitting nearly as well as he was earlier in the season (.311 in April, down to .246 now while in the midst of a .217 streak.)

Then he gets to his point that our offense (or lack thereof) is putting too much pressure on the pitchers. I wouldn't say that lately. In April, yes, absolutely. In April our offense was so inept that I was wondering when they were going to start calling for public tryouts for somebody who could hit. Lately though, we've been much better. Over our last 15 games, we've averaged 5 runs. In our first 15 games, we managed only 2.87 RPG. Not coincidentally, we were 4-11 in those first 15 games and 8-7 in our most recent 15. These aren't amazing numbers or anything, but I'd say our offense has been keeping us in games of late. Especially given that some of those games have come against very good pitching (Prior, Hudson, the Marlins (Leiter notwithstanding, he sucks), and the Cardinals' staff who dominates us despite not being top-tier pitchers.)

In fact, the Pirates were 6th in the NL in runs scored in May. Given that we actually lead the league in slugging, homers, and total bases, as well as second in OPS. I know we should have been higher than 6th in runs in light of this information, but our offense has not been the problem of late. In fact, if anything I'd say our usually stellar defense has been more to blame for some recent losses than anything. Our pitching has been fine, as mentioned by Gene Collier in an article yesterday. It's not that our pitching has HAD to be this good, it's highly likely that they ARE this good. It's not like they're up there throwing CG's every night and mowing down every batter they face, they're just pitching well and keeping us in games. Last time I checked, that was a pitchers' job - to keep the other team from scoring.

--Jeremy

Notes on Tim Hudson

2005-06-03T14:34:00.000-05:00

Having pitched his entire career in Oakland, Hudson has never faced a large number of the Pirates. The only current Pirate with any significant number of ABs against him is Matt Lawton, due to his time with Cleveland in the AL. In his career, Lawton is 9-32 (.281) with 2 doubles, 4 walks, and 7 strikeouts. It all equates to an OPS of .687, which is nothing spectacular but its just one guy and a fairly limited sample size, so it's hard to tell what that means other than that he's not totally awful against the guy. Mackowiak is 3-5 with 2 doubles and a walk, giving him an OPS of 1.167. He should play tonight, especially since Hudson is a righty. Yeah, I know, limited sample size and all that other junk, I just like Mackowiak and think he should play.

Hudson is in no way having a bad year, at 6-3 with an ERA of 3.00. That said, his numbers are all down slightly from his career averages. His walks, WHIP, and opp. BA are all higher than in the past, his K's are down. The key to beating him is to get to him early, as his early innings are typically his worst. The later into a game he pitches, the better he generally becomes. We'll need to have a solid top of the order tonight to get some pressure on him. Especially with Kip taking the mound, and even moreso because of his poor outing in his last start against the Reds. If we can build an early lead and let Kip get on cruise control, it'll make everyone breathe a little bit easier.

--Jeremy

That said, I do have some thoughts....

2005-06-03T13:38:00.000-05:00

I was halfway through typing out a rant in the comments section of Rowdy's blog when I decided that I should just make my own here. You know, since this technically is where I'm supposed to do such things.

Lloyd has been impressive of late, in terms of not totally ruining games for us. The lineups he had on the field at the beginning of the week were fantastic. I always get a little nervous when they go around the lineup, just waiting for them to include such curse words as "Tike Redman," "Ty Wigginton," and "Michael Restovich." All of these players are capable of having a good game, but they're more capable of ruining an otherwise perfectly fine lineup. These last few lineups (last night notwithstanding, as it unfathomably included all three of the aforementioned curses) have been lineups I was happy with, almost proud of. I thought, "Now THIS is a lineup we can win with." And what do you know, we did.

But then Lloyd decided that we're not allowed to have "winning streaks" and "series sweeps" and the like. He decided that no matter how bad Ty Wigginton is, Rob Mackowiak should sit on the bench because he doesn't hit as well against lefties as he does against righties. You'll note that he still hits better against lefties than Ty does against anybody, but that's another story for another day. Inexplicably, however, with Sanchez at third and Wigginton at first, Lloyd decides that Tike Redman is the solution to our mostly solid defense lately. Can't have error-free games now, can we? Of course Tike has to go and have a productive game, including a stand-up triple. This does nothing but solidify Lloyd's idea that he's a suitable platoon man with Mackowiak in center. An idea that frequently benches the man who was statistically the best hitter in the league in the month of May.

I'll admit, when we signed Restovich I was a little hesitant but I felt good about it. We were picking up a guy with proven power numbers, and with Craig on the DL, power was definitely something we needed. I figured he could surely prove wrong the 3 teams that had already cut him this year by showing up and crushing the ball into the river a few times. Needless to say, the only thing he's crushed up to this point is a rally, grounding into double plays several times. Last night he killed a major rally by popping up on the first pitch after Willis was showing signs of serious control issues (walked 2 in a row, including walking in a run.) But "fie on your 'patience,'" said Restovich. "I'd rather just get it over with now." (Note: that may or may not be an actual quote.)

*Out with the bad, in with the good*

Welcome back, Jack Wilson. Well, other than that error last night...does anybody know if that was his fault of Wigginton's? I'd guess Wigginton, but Jack has made an errant throw or two of late. However, the big picture is Jack's BA rising so far above the Mendoza line (now at .234) that I'm not even afraid he'll drop under it again. After batting only .163 in April, Jack responded with a .260 May. My only real concern with his game is the amount of walks he's drawing. Through his 192 ABs, he's walked only 9 times. Granted, pitchers aren't exactly pitching around him. Especially when he bats second and has Bay right behind him. However, as the guy who's allegedly our #2 hitter, he should be finding other ways to get on base than just getting hits. Did I mention that Jack's been playing pretty solid defense lately? His spirit and energy have been rivaled only by Freddy Sanchez's of late, and that's been a big boost to this team.

Welcome back, Soloman Torres (scroll down a bit.) After having some neck/back problems at the beginning of the year that limited his innings, Torres came back Wednesday night to pitch three strong innings. This team has a number of solid relievers, but Torres has been one of our better multi-inning relievers lately, so I'm glad to see him come back good and strong. The last thing I want to do is trust Brian Meadows to pitch 2 innings in a close game...yikes.

Congratulations, you made it the whole way to the end.

--Jeremy

Craig Wilson's Pending Return

2005-06-02T13:31:00.000-05:00

So finally a bit of sanity comes to the Pirates. As Dejan mentions, Freddy Sanchez has become the everyday third basemen. In addition to removing the useless Wigginton, it now moves the team's hottest hitter, Mackowiak, into center to replace the equally useless Tike Redman. Spectacular. Sanchez's potential was long-known and many of us wondered why Lloyd was so loath to play Sanchez and Hill. Part of the problem is that Lloyd has always favored players who had the same style he did--tough, scrappy players. Sadly, these are not the most successful players. Ty "Full Contact" Wigginton won over McClendon with his propensity for running over catchers really for no apparent reason. For Freddy and Bobby to crack the lineup, they had to prove that they were equally scrappy and tough. After Sanchez got nine stiches in his hand by trying to save a game despite a shard of bat flying at him as well, he suddenly becomes the starter. Has Sanchez done anything differently than he has all season as of late? No. Has Wigginton's performance dropped. No, in fact he's collected many garbage-time homers. It took such an injury to Sanchez to finally catch Lloyds eye and enter the starting lineup. Lets hope Tike doesn't run into any catchers otherwise he may continue to suck at-bats away from Mack in center.

Assuming Wigginton and Tike stay on the bench where they belong (or better, the waiver wire) the Pirates will have a nice problem when Craig Wilson gets back. Who sits? Does Craig push Bay to center and Mack to 3B and Freddy to the bench? Does Daryle get the bench or some goofy platoon with Craig? Honestly, I don't see this problem coming to fruition. Craig won't be even swinging a bat for weeks. He'll still need a minor league rehab stint. By the time he comes back, it could be mid-July, which is, of course, right before the trading deadline. I would not be surprised if Craig's return coincides with the trade of our most expendable and marketable piece--Matt Lawton. Craig could slide into right with Bay in left and Mack in center and Restovich as the 4th outfielder. Lawton is making around $7.75 million this year, however some of that is covered by the Indians. After this year Lawton is a free agent, so the Pirates will surely ship him off to the highest bidder, likely for nothing more than an AAA or AA prospect. Lawton has been a solid player for us this season (if a bit clueless on the basepaths and in the outfield), but he is nothing that a revitalized, non-slumping Craig Wilson can't cover.

Other possible trade prospects include Jose Mesa who has a $4.5million option for next season that the Pirates can buy out for considerably less. He'll likely be shipped for anything the Pirates can get. Holding him until the end of the season would not be awful either, because his contract is fairly low. The club should only trade him if the return is anything meaningful. Its a given he won't be back next year, so I don't see any problem with dealing him for whatever A or AA spare part we can find and then using the rest of the season to groom Gonzo as closer. If he won't be around next year, why not pick up whatever we can get at the deadline rather than nothing at the end of the year.

One person who I can almost guarantee won't be traded is Mark Redman. He's still under contract for next year at the same $4.5million that he's making this year. This is, realistically, a bargain for a veteran who has proven to be a solid, anchor-type pitcher. Next year the Pirates will have Kip and Fogg entering their second arbitration years, making them expendable if the trade could net a solid bat for the middle of the lineup. Although next year will see Duke, Snell, (possibly) Gorzellany and Bullington ready for the rotation as well as the returns of Burnett and VanB (who may never be the same again after labrum surgery) competition will be high for rotation spots. Torres will be in his second year of arbitration and Meadows in his third, making the return of one, if not both, unlikely. With Ollie, Redman, and DWilliams virtually guaranteed to return, the glut of pitching arriving next year likely spells the end for Torres and/or Meadows as a non-tender as well as one of Wells or Fogg in a trade. Such a trade could even occur this year at the deadline with Duke and Snell both having superb AAA seasons thus far.

Lawton and Wells for a solid hitter like a Victor Diaz, David Wright, etc? I see something like this happening.

--Zach

Individual accolades for our Buccos

2005-06-01T14:51:00.000-05:00

Just figured I'd take some time out from the normal griping to give credit where credit is due.

Freddy Sanchez: Best. kept. secret. from. Lloyd. ever. How he didn't see what everybody else saw months ago (or even last year, for those who watched carefully(this doesn't really include myself, I'll admit)) is beyond me, but he's playing him now. And Sanchez is making sure everybody knows it, with his passion and energy unmatched by anybody else on a baseball field right now. With his gutsy defense, clutch hitting, and being a big motivator in the dugout, you'd think he was a seasoned veteran or a big star. I can't credit him alone for our wins lately, but I feel like he's been a big help.

Jason Bay: I know, he's always been good. But as recently as last week, I was griping about his performance dropping off. He's picked it back up over the last 10 games, getting at least one hit in 8 of them. His average had dropped to .277, but now is back up to .292. Thanks in part to 3 walks on Monday night, his OBP is up to .368, its highest point in almost 2 weeks. His OPS is .927, which is 12th in the NL and 6th among #3 hitters. He's on pace to hit 36 HRs this year, which would be mighty fine by me.

Daryle Ward: Also has a hit in 8 of his last 10 games, including one in each of his last 5. Last night's homer was huge. Not just because it won the game, but also because of its importance to the team and the morale of the team and the fans. I won't bore you with a rant on our need to win close games, but we've won two consecutive 1-run games, both at home. Both of those are the types of games in which we've struggled of late, and Ward smacking the come-from-behind game-winner was a big lift.

Rob Mackowiak: Guy is awesome. Hits a lot. Screws up minimally. Has been discussed in great detail in just about all of the links over there <--- so I'll leave it at this: the guy needs to play. A lot.

Lloyd McClendon: Yes, I know what you're thinking. I like him personally, dislike him as a manager, but lately he's made a few good decisions. One of them is playing Sanchez a lot. Another is playing Mackowiak a lot. Even more than that, he's NOT been playing Tike "ground into DP" Redman and Ty "haha you got screwed in that trade" Wigginton. Other than those two games against Cincy where he decided that Ty should try first base when he doesn't even have his own first base glove, he's done some OK thinking lately.

Pirates fans: Have been going to games. And enjoying them. Yes, some of them are rather aloof when it comes to knowing whats going on and not doing the wave. But if the stands are full, it'll just push this team to try even harder. And with a team where one or two hits per game changes the outcome drastically, that extra push might be the difference between 23-27 and 27-23. Let's keep it coming, give them something (and someone) to play for.

Oliver Perez: Yeah, he's given up a lot of homers since his return. 5, to be exact, in 16.1 innings. But that's ALL he's given up. He's struck out 22 in those 16.1 innings. Last night he showed outstanding command of his location, at least relative to the strike zone. He didn't always hit his exact spot, but he didn't walk a single batter and threw 60 of his 85 pitches for strikes. He also managed to throw only 85 pitches in 6 innings, so he was efficient enough that he could have gone a little deeper had we needed/wanted him to.

Yeah, I'm excited about this team right now. We have a rough schedule coming up, but as we've shown in the last few days, we're able to rise to the occasion when need be. I just hope that we can keep up this level of excitement. I can't help but to smile when I watch the video of Jack scoring Monday night's winning run then chasing Sanchez down to give him a big hug. Good times in Pittsburgh.

--Jeremy

Ollie's pitch count

2005-05-31T19:07:00.000-05:00

Just got back from playing some basketball and was a little peeved to find the game not on TV, so I turned on the webcast. Nice to see Jack get a hit, especially one that then scored him. Say what you want about him making excuses or being weak or whatever, I like the guy. He'll come around soon.

Important things I've noticed:
1) Ollie's thrown 68 pitches through 5 innings, which screams "efficient pitching" to me. Especially given that, unfortunately, he also gave up back-to-back homers in the 4th.
2) He's yet to walk ANYBODY. After walking nearly 1 batter/inning in his last few starts, it's very refreshing to see an apparent command of his pitches come back.

Not sure what his velocity is like, anybody there to see it/hear about it?

--Jeremy

20 reasons why we should beat Al Leiter

2005-05-30T09:24:00.000-05:00

1) Because if we don't win, I just might cry.
2) Because he's 2-5.
3) Because his ERA is 6.91.
4) Because Mark Redman is pitching.
5) Because Redman is 3-4.
6) Because Redman's ERA is 3.15.
7) Because Leiter walks more people than he strikes out.
8) Because his opp. BA is higher against lefties than it is against righties (.314/.270) despite being a lefty himself.
9) Because the guy who is undeniably our best bat right now is a lefty, ergo giving him a favorable matchup.
10) Because Leiter's ERA is even higher in day games than it is in night games (7.36/6.75).
11) Because he's managed to have 0 scoreless outings and has yet to strike out more than 4.
12) Because he's also managed to give up 8 runs twice, much like our pal from Saturday, Eric "no really, I WANT you to hit it out" Milton
13) Because Leiter has walked as many as 6 batters in a single outing, and has yet to walk none.
14) Because Jason Bay is the man, and has found his swing again.
15) Because Leiter used to be a Yankee, and the Yankees suck.
16) Because over the course of his career, Leiter's ERA has been higher in May than in all other months but October (when he's pitched only 4 games.)
17) In fact, May is by and large his worst month of the season throughout his entire career.
18) Because he dominated Jason Kendall, who sucks and is now gone, giving us a better chance at hitting him.
19) Because we've been bouncing back and forth between big games and games where we can't score at all, and after yesterday we're due for a big game.
20) Because if we don't win, I just might cry.

--Jeremy

Worthless blathering about how we should beat Eric Milton tonight

2005-05-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I wrote up my summary of Ramon Ortiz and essentially came to the conclusion that we should be able to hit up and down the field. Suffice to say, such was not the case and really only Mackowiak got to him with the 3-run homer in the third. Of course this wasn't enough for Fogg, and he had to go and blow the game, and well....don't get me started on the rest, it makes me feel bad for Freddy Sanchez.

Tonight we're going against Eric Milton, the NL leader in homers allowed. We faced Milton on April 21, and Bay hit his first homer off of him. We put up 3 runs on 5 hits in 5 innings, walking twice and striking out once. I'm going to say this here and now, a bold prediction if you will: we WILL score at least 2 runs off of Milton. There, I said it. So far this year, he's yet to manage a scoreless outing, and has given up only 1 run once (technically if you go by EARNED runs he's done it 3 times.) He gives up an average of 4 runs/start, and his ERA for the season is 6.32. He tends to fair better against lefties than righties (.256/.302 opp. BA, respectively) and neither of those numbers indicates that we'll be getting tons of hits. He has a pretty good K/BB ratio of 33/14, so I'd expect a few whiffs from the likes of Bay and Ward since they'll be reaching for the longball against him.

On a mildly related side note, Milton is from State College, which only makes me want to beat him more. GO PANTHERS!

--Jeremy

Lloyd says something shocking

2005-05-28T08:18:00.000-05:00

I was reading Dejan's article for today and about fell out of my chair...Lloyd publicly acknowledged that Bobby Hill is indeed on the roster. He even (and this is amazing, I know) said that he might try to start him sometime soon. Lloyd's brilliant managerial mind (see, this is why we can't be managers, we don't understand how to run a team like this):
"Having gotten Sanchez a start for the first time since May 13, McClendon next wants to get one for Bobby Hill, perhaps this weekend. Hill has not started since May 4. "You can't expect those guys to just sit on the bench, then come up and get big hits for us," McClendon said."
I know what you're thinking - 'what, you can't keep guys on the bench for 3 weeks and then expect them to be your best batter? I never knew that!' Well, join the club, because I always thought that the longer they sat, the better they became.

At least he's admitting that they need to play and he's actually playing them, I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

--Jeremy

Ramon Ortiz: A brief overview of tonight's opposing pitcher

2005-05-27T14:40:00.000-05:00

Tonight we match Josh Fogg against Ramon Ortiz. A righty with 6 years in the league, at quick glance his stats provide little to be afraid of. So far this year he's compiled a 1-3 record, and has made it out of the 6th inning only once. I don't know if his longevity is poor or if he just keeps getting pulled because he sucks, but his highest pitch count on the year is 100. His ERA this year is 5.40, but don't be fooled - after his first game it was 1.80, and its been awful ever since. After that first game, he has given up one home run and at least two games every time he's pitched, which is a total of 25 innings in 5 starts. Not exactly overpowering or a master of control, his K/BB ratio this year is 14/11. He's pretty easy to hit, giving up 5 or more hits in each of his 6 starts this year, and his split against right/left handed batters is .383/.328. So he doesn't fair quite as well against righties, but I'm really hoping that that doesn't keep Lloyd from playing Mackowiak. If we were talking about a difference of 150 points, I would understand, but .328 is nothing to sneeze at in terms of opponent BA, and given that Mackowiak has the hottest bat in baseball this month (see the Dejan link below) I see no reason to not play him. Of course I, along with many other people, have felt that way for a year and a half now, so who knows. If Tike and Ty are going to keep hitting the ball like they have been of late, I suppose I can't really complain about them being in the lineup. Although that doesn't mean that I have to like them.

--Jeremy

Pirates 8, Reds 4

2005-05-27T08:04:00.000-05:00

Last night was refreshing. It felt good to know that we didn't have to worry about blowing a close game, and it felt better to see Ollie pitching (fairly) well. His outing last night was almost identical to his start last Saturday:
Yesterday: 5.1 IP, 3 H (1 HR), 2 ER, 5 BB, 8K, 109 pitches, groundout/flyout ratio of 1/7
Saturday: 5 IP, 2 H (1 HR), 2 ER, 4 BB, 8K, 96 pitches, GO/FO ration of 1/6
Last night was only the third time he went over 100 pitches this year. The first time was against the Cubs (101 in 6 innings, 5 ER, 4 BB, 6K) and the second time was his masterpiece in Houston (121 in 7.2, 0, 2, 9.) He hasn't had to be a highly durable pitcher thusfar, but that's mostly because he hasn't pitched well enough to keep him in the game. Hopefully as the season progresses his performance will continue to get better and his IP will go up. One stat that concerns me a bit is his groundout/flyout ratio, which on the year is 30/64. Obviously guys are getting under the ball (12 HR allowed in 47.1 IP) and a lower number of groundballs means a lower number of DPs. This is fine since when he's pitching well he isn't allowing many hits, but if he starts letting people on base runs will start piling up on him. Although with the way our infielders have been playing lately, maybe he's on to something.

Looks like all Bay and Lawton needed was a little tough love. Bay was 1-3 (an RBI double,) had 2 walks, and scored twice. Lawton had a chat with McClendon before the game in which Lloyd told him to relax at the plate and not put so much pressure on himself. It seemed to work, as he went 3-4 with a walk, 3 runs scored, and 2 RBI, finishing a triple shy of the cycle. Lloyd decided to shuffle up the batting order a bit, switching Jack and Tike at the 2 and 7 spots. Both went 1-5 with a double and a run scored. He also switched Mackowiak and Castillo at the 5 and 6 spots. Mackowiak continued his ridiculous hitting in May (good Dejan Kovacevic article here) going 3-4 with a walk and 3 RBI. Guy's been straight up ridiculous this month, and fortunately Lloyd has decided to start playing him against all righties we face. A sound decision if you ask me, although I'd play him every day if given the opportunity. Castillo, on the other hand, went 0-5, and is in a 3-17 slump that has dropped his average from .314 to .301. After hitting 2 homers in his first 6 games back from injury, he hasn't hit one in the 13 games since. He's also still not drawing any walks, with 3 in his 79 ABs this season. Why has this guy not gotten a day off since coming back? Unless I'm forgetting something, he's played in every game since he got off the DL. I'm not saying to bench him because of poor performance, I'm just saying that we should give him a day off and give Sanchez or Hill a chance to play for a while.

--Jeremy

Pirates/Reds story on Page2

2005-05-26T15:09:00.000-05:00

As is my afternoon tradition, I was killing time at work by reading Page2 of ESPN.com and saw an article about how the Sox-Yankees rivalry wasn't the best of all time. Figuring it'd be some whiney Mets article but also bored senseless, I read it anyway. This is what I found there, much to my delight. It's not really about the current Pirates, but its nice to see our team get onto Page2 for something good. Well, if you can call it good...its better than getting on there because we're being made fun of, which is more typical.

--Jeremy

Tonight's game

2005-05-26T13:21:00.000-05:00

Tonight we find out if Ollie is really on his way back or if last Saturday night was just another fluke in what's really been a terrible season. Saturday he was wild at times, walking 4, but also had moments of brilliance as he struck out 8 in 5 innings. His only mistake was giving up a 2-run homer to Matt Holliday, but other than that one pitch he kept himself fairly safe and out of trouble. He also brought his ERA down from 8.03 to 7.50, which looks less painful but is still probably triple what everybody was expecting it to be.

The Reds haven't had the best May, going 8-15 so far. However, they're just getting off a 3 game sweep of the Nationals, a team that isn't overwhelmingly good but has been pretty decent throughout the year. We, of course started off hot and have since cooled down, going 2-6 over our last 8 games. Mind you had one or two plays in each game gone in our favor, we would have been 7-1, with last night's beating really being the only game that we didn't have a good chance to win.

Ollie's opposition tonight is Elizardo Ramirez, a fairly young right-hander who went to Cincy as part of the Cory Lidle deal with the Phillies last season. His numers aren't overwhelming by any means, and so far this year he's 0-2 with a 4.80 ERA. He doesn't pitch as well against lefties (.278 opp. BA vs. .250 for righties,) so hopefully we'll see Mackowiak in the lineup tonight. Last season he pitched as a reliever a few times. In 15 innings, he gave up 17 hits (including 3 HRs) and 8 runs while walking 5 and striking out 9. As I said, nothing overwhelming, but not like he's somebody to look past, especially since he's still young. The way the Pirates have been playing at this point, I think we need to take every AB as seriously as we can until we start winning a few games again. It's not that we aren't hitting, we're just not getting runs. Hopefully we'll be able to rough up a youngster like we did when we faced Houston's Ezequiel Astacio to start our last winning surge.

--Jeremy

Growing concerns as we head to Cincinnati

2005-05-26T10:31:00.000-05:00

Yes, we've lost 4 in a row and 6 of our last 8. After a streak in which it looked like we were going to hit .500 and start to turn the corner from "potentially decent team" to "actually decent team," we've started to suck. Hard. Problems include things like Mesa totally dropping off, Bay and Lawton's averages tanking, and our inability to hold a lead.

Yes, I said HOLD a lead and not GAIN a lead. Last night was the first time in our last 16 games that we haven't had the lead at some point. In that stretch we've gone 8-8, which wouldn't be terribly awful except that we started out 6-2. So apparently having the lead at one point means little about our chances of actually winning the game. Might this have something to do with our bullpen? You don't suppose..... I'll spare you the ranting about Mesa, because we all know that he's decided to suck lately, allowing tons of walks, hits, runs, and what have you. I'm more concerned about Torres. He had a pretty good start to the season, getting his ERA as low as 1.17. Obviously ERA isn't the best indicator of a reliever's performance, but thats low enough that its indicative of good work. He allowed 1 run in his first 8 appearances, totalling 7.2 innings. He's allowed 6 runs in his last 4 appearances (though only 3 were earned.) In his 8 appearances in the month of May, he's walked 6 batters and struck out only 1. His K/BB ratio is now 4/11. Did I mention that 2 of those last 4 appearances were against the ROCKIES? We can't survive this coming month with one of our better relievers giving a clinic on how to throw balls (against the Rockies, he got Barmes to ground out on the 2nd pitch, then threw 9 straight balls and 12 in 13 pitches to walk the bases loaded before getting pulled.) Does anybody know why we haven't been using Grabow more often? He's been doing pretty well this season, so I'm hoping its just because we don't utilize our lefties very often (and when we do, we have no reason to not use Gonzalez.)

I'd like to formally invite Jason Bay to quit oggling the balls as they come to the plate and hit them instead. Less Peeping Tom and more Michael Pitman please. He has great potential, but if he keeps striking out this much (11 times in the last 7 games, with only 5 hits) we're going nowhere but down. Matt Lawton could also use to find his swing (4 K's and 4 hits in the same 7-game span.) His OPS has dropped from .823 through the first month of the season to .747 now. And obviously Jack isn't hitting anything at all except the fan sitting in the 3rd row when he tries to turn a DP or throw someone out on a slow roller. When the top 3 batters in your lineup aren't getting any hits, it doesn't give you much hope for winning the game.

--Jeremy

Bucs/Cards game 3 preview

2005-05-25T15:53:00.000-05:00

So we're going back for one more beating tonight. Not the "we got whooped 20-0" kind of beating, the "hey look, we've got a chance....we've got a chance....we've got a chance.....hey look, we'll screw up and blow it at the last second" kind of beating.

Mark Redman vs. Mark Mulder. A battle of ex-Oakland Marks. Should be a pitching duel much like the last two games have been (granted that's only because our offense hasn't been able to knock runs in.) Redman has been pretty fantastic over his last few starts. His K/BB ratio isn't exactly overpowering, but he just isn't letting people on base. Fortunately for us, he's also been running deep into games (2 CG's in his last 4 starts, 12.1 innings in the other 2,) so that means our bullpen won't have to handle much work. If our offense can manage to string a few hits together to get us a few runs, that'd be fantastic. There's no reason we couldn't have won both of the last 2 games, so it's about time for us to take one. As long as we're not subject to any more Lloydmanagement then I won't even feel the urge to hurt/mame anybody. No more trying to bunt people over with Tike, no more hit-and-runs with high-percentage strikeout guys batting, no more bizarre lineups (Wigs should be in tonight, sadly).

As soon as Jack gets his game together, this team is going places. Oh, and as soon as Tike forgets to look both ways crossing the street and gets nailed by a vehicle in the bus lane. Then we're golden.

--Jeremy

The rantings of a frustrated Pirates fan before 9 AM

2005-05-25T07:55:00.000-05:00

Last night's game was a fantastic kick in the groin...thank you Lloyd.

Yeah, that's right, I'm blaming that on Lloyd. Was it all his fault? No, obviously not, since we couldn't get a clutch hit to save our lives. However, he did manage to, well, manage our way out of the game. I like Lloyd...he's a good guy, he motivates the players to try hard, but I think he lacks the capacity to think sometimes. We seem to enjoy giving the Cardinals extra chances to beat us, it's almost like its a game for him to see how many chances we can give them before they make us pay for it. Last night we got our leadoff runner on several times, yet managed to score him....never. When Mackowiak got on base in the 11th, we had a good shot at scoring him, but not to worry, Lloyd was there to have Tike try to bunt. This was probably one of the worst bunts I've seen in recent memory. Not only did he hit it right down the third base line, but he also managed to hit it hard enough that they got to it on one hop and easily threw Mackowiak out. Then telling Tike to run on the 3-2....I can't even fathom how hard he must try to lose games sometimes. Instead of pinch hitting Restovich for Cota, couldn't we have put him in for Tike? Of course I would have done that in the first place, because for some reason I feel like Restovich is a little better than Tike. But enough bitching about Tike and Lloyd.

What's going on with Jack? I know his early season slump was because of his slow recovery from an appendectomy. I had no real problem with this, while it was frustrating it's not like I could blame him for a slow start. As recently as last week it looked like he was starting to turn the corner with 2 consecutive 3-hit games. Then all of a sudden, he drops off the map. He's got 3 hits in his last 17 ABs with one official game-blowing error (last night) and 2 bad plays that essentially cost the game the night before. It's not even an issue of recovering from surgery anymore, he's just flat-out not playing well. He's not playing up to par defense, and he isn't seeing the ball at the plate at all. This year he has 8 walks and 17 K's in 158 ABs. He hasn't walked in a week. He has looked better in May than April, certainly, but even a huge improvement would still put him with average numbers. I'm not going to call for his head or say that he should be sent to Indianapolis or anything, but I do feel like once in a while he should sit a game or two and let Sanchez get some chanecs. Jack's best quality is his heart and love for the game, which would make him a great teammate from the bench, someone to rally the troops.

Other lineup notes: As much as I (and everyone else, for that matter) have hated Ward in the past, he's been one of our most consistant hitters this year. He flirted with .300 for a while (I know, not exactly amazing stuff but c'mon...its Daryle,) and he's been drawing walks lately. Yeah he struck out 3 times on Monday...everyone has a bad game here and there. Point is, in the last week he's walked 5 times. He walked only once before that all month. He's not going to be our best contact hitter or anything, but he's been driving in runs and getting himself on base lately, which is something that can't be said for the better part of our lineup.

--Jeremy

The Craig Wilson Treatment

2005-05-24T20:26:00.000-05:00

So what exactly was the point of trading for Mike Restovich? So that he could sit on the bench and watch Tike Redman be utterly AWFUL at the plate? Why are we sequestering Ryan Doumit at AAA and allowing Dave "Mendoza" Ross to suck up at-bats. Why have Freddy Sanchez and Bobby Hill's appearances dropped of faster than Ja Rule? Why does Mackowiak continue to get appearances only at second and barely ever third?

It's the Lloyd McClendon-patented "Craig Wilson Treatment," named for the first victim.

This treatment is reserved for so-called "players without a position." The Pirates organization has an unhealthy obsession with defense. Tike, Wigginton, etc get the majority of starts because they seem to be built to play the position. The Pirates, however, can't afford to keep superior offensive players on the bench to to average or mediocre defensive skills at such a position. Restovich has better career stats and has the build of a power hitter, but he is not a natural centerfielder so the Pirates keep him on the bench except for select scenarios. Mackowiak has power and has improved his obp this year; Bobby Hill is an obp machine; but they are not natural third basemen so they get the bench in favor of Wigginton. Jack has been slumping for the entire year, but he's a "proven veteran" so obp/ops machine Sanchez gets the bench. Doumit has the talent to hit major league pitchers, but he is below average in defense--so he has to stay at AAA.

If these players looked like naturals at their positions, then they would be our starters. An offensively-challenged team like the Pirates can't afford to let defense take precedent over the offense. It's time for Restovich in center, Mackowiak at third, and significant Sanchez at SS. Don't keep them on the bench for too long like you did to Craig, Lloyd.

--Zach