* Jake tips hat to Ian Snell *
Man, I expected Snell to get hammered worse than Youman, but it never came. I waited patiently inning, after inning, after inning. Nothing. Oh, a stiff wind that knocked down some of the deep fly balls helped, but overall Snell pitched a pretty good game against a white hot lineup.
Considering the Phillies scored their only run on a passed ball by Paulino through the first two innings, I was actually getting excited into the third until Snell walked Ryan Howard after Iguchi had singled. Rollins then crushed a sharp ground ball almost right over the third base bag and into the left field corner to score Iguchi and Howard had to hold at third.
When Snell stranded Howard, I started thinking maybe we had a chance if we could figure out rookie Kendrick, but it really never came. McLouth went yard on a line drive in the 6th, Castillo led off with a double in the 7th and was ultimately stranded at third, and Nady led off the 9th with a double and was stranded.
The Pirates actually looked like a baseball team on the field today defensively. Bay had a nice throw to the plate, Castillo made several highlight reel plays at third (plus went 2-4 to boot), and even Wilson made a nice play.
Paulino’s passed ball in the 1st was a blow and Nate McLouth, for the second day in a row (don’t our coaches inform these players of their errors anymore?), heaved a rainbow throw over the cut off man’s head allowing a batter to take an extra base, but overall we looked pretty good.
But ulitmately, you aren’t going to win many games putting up just six hits and one run against a AA pitcher, so we lost – again – for the 13th time in the last 15 games.
But is that so unusual? I mean, look at this lineup we fielded – what can we expect BUT to lose?
| AVG | |
| McLouth, CF | 0.236 |
| Sanchez, 2B | 0.292 |
| LaRoche, 1B | 0.244 |
| Bay, LF | 0.254 |
| Nady, RF | 0.283 |
| Castillo, 3B | 0.246 |
| Paulino, C | 0.241 |
| Izturis, SS | 0.248 |
A .256 median.. now that’s brutal.
Speaking of losses, when the Pirates score three runs or less we have won just 26 of the last 127 games. Opps.. wait a minute.. make it 26 of the last 128 games going back to the start of play in 2006.
That’s a .203 winning percentage.
But hold on to your trousers.. in 2007 the Pirates have won just 9 of 50 when scoring three runs or less for a .180 win rate. Sadly, we’ve only scored three or less in 49% of our games.
Ouch.
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Morgan Ensberg DFA’d? He sure beats Kata if we can get him for nothing. Oh boy, the things we look forward to as Pirates fans.
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Trade rumors – I’m guessing the only players possibly flying off the shelf will be Marte and Torres if Littlefield drops his price some, which is exactly what he typically does hours before the deadline draws to an end.
Who knows this year since Littlefield seems to be fighting the world. Flip a coin.
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Matt Capps and Salomon Torres have pitched a total of 16.2 innings since June 15th and allowed just 10 hits and 2 earned runs.
I still like the idea of a tandem rotation scheme in Pittsburgh.
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Here’s hoping Shelby Ford gets to feeling better. He’s been out with lower back stiffness the last few games and has been hitting over .300 his last 30+ games.
Pearce? I just don’t know.. he’s wailing the ball in Altoona but I just don’t see him in our future plans. Perhaps if he keeps it up through next year as he was promoted today to AAA.
McCutchen? Hammering the ball last 10 at a .308 clip and hitting near .300 for July. He’s still having some problems against right hand pitchers but considering the age difference between him and the league, I think that’s pretty normal.
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Pearce has put up great numbers the last 2 years. Why would he not be in the Pirates’ future plans? What am I missing?
Pearce has always hit, that I agree with. But the last time I checked which was a couple of weeks ago, he was still a dead pull hitter with only 15% of his balls in play going away to RF.
There’s no way he’ll ever survive hitting advanced pitching as dead pull hitter. Think Brad Eldred.
That being said, since he has been promoted today, we’ll watch and see how he does over the next year. The next few months he’ll probably be fine but let’s wait and see next year.
For me, I want to see him driving the outside off speed stuff into right field consistently then I’ll start believing he’s more than an Eldred.
Looking at the Pirates organization one name is moving up the organization – OF- Jason Delaney AA Altoona- .337 at last count, .345 in A power numbers increasing by moving up the organization. Mccutchen, Neal Walker, Luis Munoz, Matt Peterson as your other prospects. BA had the Pirates ranked 19th in their early season issue which had to be a misprint cause from what i see they are probably anywhere from 26 to 30th.
Littlefield needed to be fired about a month ago we cant trust him to deal off Marte, Chacon and Torres for anything of importance. We have several needs CF,3B,SS,2B,1B,C,#3 thru #5, and bullpen help. So with all these needs maybe Jason Bay like Jake has said should be dealt to fill a couple of these holes or some of the youngsters should be brought up.