Where to start… rough fundamentals? Anemic offense? Poor managing? Defensive errors/miscues? Morris’ roster replacement?

How about this…

We lost a one-run game in the 11th inning after getting to Billy Wagner for a run two innings earlier. Now if that isn’t a bone-numbing, confidence blowing event, I’m not sure what would ever qualify.

But perhaps these events do?

Five innings the Pirates had at least their leadoff man on base and five times the next batter failed to move the runner into scoring position.  In fact, John Russell didn’t even call for a sacrifice bunt other than asking Nyjer Morgan – who we all know is an extremely poor bunter – to try and move both Bautista and Paulino over in the seventh with no outs.  As you might expect, Morgan failed. 

Of the five batters who failed, Bay is the only one I would excuse Russell for, but Bautista, Morgan, Gomez, and McLouth are all bat men who could/should have been asked to sacrifice, and got the simple job done.

That’s poor managing, and a poor AB by Morgan.

Or how about Russell using Doumit to pinch hit in the 9th leaving the Pirates without a backup catcher? Mientkiewicz was also used in the 11th leaving just Rivas on the bench, although it didn’t much matter after we saw…

Russell bat Mientkiewicz for Osoria leading off the 11th after he had recorded six outs in the seven batters faced on just 17 pitches.  Curiously, Osoria had only thrown 39 pitches the last nine days.  With Russell pulling Osoria, that only left recent callup Van Benschoten to come in and pitch who had been warming up in the pen for the last three innings. And, as you might expect…

JvB recorded just one out in the five batters faced and ended up losing the game having thrown just 17 pitches himself.  He was also called for a balk that was marginal at best, but he did balk all the same. The balk wasn’t the problem – JvB’s lack of MLB quality stuff and being thrust into a ridiculous position by his manager was the real problem.

Now why Russell would set JvB up to fail like that is anyone’s guess. No manager in his right mind puts JvB into a high leverage situation like that in his first game back (5th appearance as an MLB reliever since 2004 – ERA around 15), much less on the road at God forsaken Shea Stadium with a noise level higher than 10 on your boom box and an overwhelming atmosphere.

Very, very poor managing decisions.

And hey let’s be honest, JvB is essentially the Morris/Dumatrait replacement player so chock one loss up, not to mention a 27.00 ERA, to the “let’s release Morris” saga which is yet another bizarre tale we won’t go into here and now.

Fundamentally, we executed a few plays very nicely.  Bixler ran for Doumit who reached on an error starting the 9th with the Pirates down a run and he took second on a wild pitch by Wagner which he anticipated well. After McLouth struck out, Gomez ground to short and Bixler took off for third and would have been dead meat if Reyes decided to make a play on him, but he didn’t.  Sanchez then mashed a liner into right center to score Bixler and the game was tied. As I mentioned, it was the first run scored off Wagner this year and you could see the Pirates with a little extra step in their walk after that happened.

But other fundamental mistakes/miscues cost us runs. Snell threw hitter’s count watermelons several times up to the plate like a 3-1 pitch to Ryan Church (one HR last 78 at bats) who crushed it over the left field wall to put the Mets up 2-0 in the 4th.

Then there was a bizarre 3-2 change thrown to Castillo in the 5th which missed the plate walking Castillo and putting men at first and third with one out.  You would have to suspect Snell was thinking he wanted to setup a double play possibility if he did walk Castillo but, funny thing, Castillo was 1-9 career vs. Snell so you have to wonder why Snell didn’t attack Castillo and get the out? Especially considering David Wright was on deck who was also 1-9 career vs Snell.

Well as you might expect, it backfired. Wright hit a groundball to Gomez at short who made a perfect toss to Sanchez for what should have been a tailor-made double play, but Sanchez dropped the ball, a run scored, and men were left at first and second with one out.

Sanchez was charged with an error of course but he played it fundamentally wrong by waiting for the toss from Gomez while standing on the bag instead of holding his position and timing his run to the bag to catch Gomez’s toss and relay to first. It’s a play we see Sanchez routinely make at second and numerous times he’s failed to get the double play because of it and, for some bizarre reason, the Pirates refuse to make him, or teach him, how to adjust and play the position properly.

Snell was beside himself after the Sanchez error and ended up walking Beltran to load the bases when Russell went out and pulled him at the 92 pitch mark with the bases now loaded.

Marte came in and got Church to strikeout looking on an obvious ball four pitch home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt just totally blew the call on, and that cost the Mets a run. Then while Delgado was at the plate, Gomez came in to talk to Marte and Paulino telling them that David Wright was tipping location by the direction he bounced as Marte wound up (all the Mets were tipping when parked at 2B), so Paulino changed the signs and told Marte what to throw on the next pitch.

Hilariously, Paulino faked setting up inside, Wright bounced back toward second to tip Delgado, and then Paulino shot outside as Marte released a slider away and Delgado weakly swung through it for strike three. Delgado just sat and looked at Wright as Marte walked off the mound bouncing and skipping. It was great.

Two innings later in the seventh, Bautista singled leading off, Paulino walked, Morgan couldn’t execute the bunt then popped out to short left failing to advance the runners, and Schoeneweis replaced Santana getting McLouth to ground weakly to second which Castillo bobbled, but they got the force of Paulino leaving Bautista at third with two outs.

Schoeneweis threw a wild pitch with Gomez at the plate and Bautista broke for home. Mets catcher Casanova played it well and tossed back to Schoeneweis who was covering and Bautista slid under the tag scoring.

But remember Hunter Wendelstedt who took a run from the Mets in the 5th? Yep, he took one from the Pirates too by calling Bautista out. I suppose that’s what you call an-eye-for-an-eye umpiring lesson. The Mets announcers tried to play it off by saying Bautista’s hand slid above the plate not touching it but I looked at it in slow mo and you can see his hand on the plate dragging dirt with it. Still, it was bang-bang and we didn’t get the call.

I can’t say the unconventional managing style of John Russell lost us this game (as well as many others so far this year), but it sure didn’t help. His lack of small ball play, bizarre in-game roster management, and poor timing all helped to remind me of his days as our third base coach when we used to say things like “why in the heck did Russell send him there?” The saga continues.

Plus, our anemic offense – what were we, 1-7 with runners in scoring position leaving us hitting something like a puky .250 now for the year? – didn’t help matters much. Gomez at short was a welcomed surprise, and watching Paulino get call after call out of the zone was also sweet, but the Gomez flip to Sanchez error reminded me too much of the way Wilson started becoming error-prone with Castillo. That’s a bad nightmare.

Jason Bay made a couple of nice catches, LaRoche made a gold glove-type stop at first, Paulino threw out Reyes in the first, and McLouth ranged a good 50 yards to the warning track to make a good catch in the second.  So there were some positives too.

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With the rainout, Neal Huntington has the opportunity to skip Tom Gorzelanny in the rotation to rest his arm but it looks like he’s not going to do it. If he had, Gorzy would have had the 30th off then pitch the 3rd, 8th, and 13th and been eligible to be skipped again the 19th as an off day.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Huntington is going to make a move to do that.

I think he should reconsider.

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“Nutting is known as a man who closely watches his dollars. So — in the name of accountability and to put the Matt Morris deal behind us — please tell us, Mr. Nutting, what was it that persuaded you to give Dave Littlefield permission to throw about $14 million down the sewer?” — Bob Smizik, April 30, 2008

Good stuff there but it should be expanded to include the reality of 2008 – Nutting/Coonelly/Huntington also just threw the money down the sewer because nobody knows for sure if Morris might have come around. Nobody.

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Wow, watching Heilman struggle on the mound against us, I’m sure glad our pro scouts didn’t do a Nady deal with him in the package. He’s not the same guy I remember. Yuck.

And what’s up with Tyler Yates and the Mets? This cat walks the first two batters he sees, goes to 3-2 on Wright who then swings thru ball four, Beltran popped out to Bay who made a nice catch to save Yates, and then Church is first pitch swinging for the fence, but flied out harmlessly.  Yates was very lucky.

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Let’s see, that’s now a career 22 earned runs for JvB on the road in 21 innings?

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Asking Bay to swing long in the four hole is just ridiculous. He’s a #5 guy. You have to wonder why the Pirates refuse to move Nady to the three hole? If they want to keep batting Doumit #4 (why they do that should be the subject of another story one day), put Nady #3, Doumit, Bay, and LaRoche and watch LaRoche take off. If Doumit isn’t in, bat Nady fourth right now and let Mientz hit third.

Just some random thoughts.

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The Pirates have now lost 10 of their last 13.

I’m traveling so this will be short.

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Glad to see the rain out because I would have missed most of the live game anyway since half the East Coast flights are delayed.  Honestly, our staff needs a day off anyway so this is a good thing. However, now we’re expecting to see a pretty brisk wind Tuesday with cooler temps at game time so it’s going to be a fun game to watch, to be sure.

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I swear I don’t know who all is buying the new Bucco Blog apparel but the new ownership says thanks!  I’m not supposed to tell you this but someone might win a considerable prize this year if caught at the game by Baseball Interactive Media with one on.  

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The Pirates have indicated live game blogs are allowed as long as we aren’t doing play-by-play so we’ll try one out in May.

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I had a chance to watch Buster Posey Sunday against NC and will see him three days straight at Clemson the first week of May.  I’m going to withhold my comments for now until I see the Clemson series but, man, there’s not much to like.

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Remember these interesting Jeff Andrews tidbits from last season:

– Sean Burnett- May 30th; 39 pitches, 2nd inning, 37 pitches, 3rd inning -DL two days later;

– Shane Youman one 40 pitch inning;

– JvB numerous 35+ pitch count innings;

– Brian Bullington- May 20th; 37 pitches, 4th inning, had to pitch 5th and 6th innings -DL on June 10th;

Boy, did we need a complete game shutout, or what?

Maholm was a little wild at times, certainly hittable other times, but the Phillies just kept trying to go yard and that was obviously the wrong game plan. But what an outstanding outing by Bucco Blog’s #1 Sleeper pick.

How about Nate coming out of his slump? Man that dude can turn on upstairs heat. Sanchez is now mired in an 8 for 45 slump (.178), Nady took a deserving day off at the plate but added some good D, Rivas showed up to play which was somewhat surprising to see, and even LaRoche hit the ball. I mean, hey, we’re on a roll.

Right?

Put those thoughts away real fast.

Monday we face Santana, Tuesday Ollie, and Wednesday Pelfrey. If we don’t strike out 20 times those first two games I’ll be shocked, and I won’t be shocked if we’re shut out at least once – if not both.

Then it’s on to Washington where we can look like a 100 win club again. Yeah!

As for the Mets series for those that want to know, the longest odds I’ve seen in quite some time are on Santana and the Mets Monday against the Pirates.  I think Pinnacle has the line at -236 for the Mets as I write this along with the over/under at 7.5 runs.

This game is hard to call. The Mets aren’t exactly hitting the ball right now and Snell isn’t exactly pitching too good, so put them together and who knows what you get. I suspect Snell might handcuff them the first time or two through the order. But wait a minute, Snell has to start with either a rookie in Bixler at short making his first start at Shea (overwhelmed might be a good word to put here) or Rivas who was Santana’s teammate and good friend with the Twins (how do you spell a possible giveaway day?).

Santana is simply filthy when he’s on and Pirates haven’t exactly been hitting anybody lately either so we could be in serious trouble.

But I’m going out on a limb in this one. Take the over since Santana will be out there in a drizzle, although I think the Mets end up on top if the game is even played. Right now it looks like it has a chance to be rained out. 

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“X” returns to Shea will be the highlight of this series. Look for him to get some fat pitches and have a great series.  The question might be, will he be on the charter to Washington or putting on a Mets uniform?  Let’s hope Huntington keeps his ears, and mind, open.

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I created the table above last winter showing the historical breakdown for the Pirates against their scheduled opponents over the last five years, except where noted. History says we’ll win at least one of the next three games (Wednesday’s?) and then come out dealing the first few weeks of May. Then things turn ugly. Real ugly – pretty much all the way to the end of July with just a few bright spots in early July.

So right now this team is tracking on a 93 loss year.  Hardball Times, however, suggests the Pirates have played well enough to lose 110. 

Ouch.

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Bucco Blog readers know I’ve always been high on JvB and, even through his miserable 2007 season, I still found myself thinking he’s got what it takes.  Unfortunately, the more I watched JvB’s stuff last year, the more obvious it was he didn’t have good enough stuff to get MLB batters out and I doubt that’s going to change much this year.

He’s opened the year pitching well in Indy but the offensive firepower in the IL this year generally isn’t the same as in recent previous years so I think the fans are a bit more optimistic than they should be.  Still, he’s a guy who builds off his confidence much like McCutchen so if he gets on a roll, who knows where it will go. If he never gets on a roll, well, we all know where it’ll go.

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You have to wonder if the Pirates are going to start stretching out Burnett’s arm now? Or, will they keep him around as a reliever as most think they should?  And what about JvB? He’s coming in with a starter’s arm going to the pen. I’m guessing Huntington already knows what my senses tell me about Dumatrait – he’s going to get hammered, so I’m betting they will keep JvB’s arm ready to take his place. Probably after his outing in Washington, as a guess. Perhaps they will tandem the two of them?

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We’ve now lost 9 of the last 11 and have very little to look forward to.

Matt Morris fell victim to some very shoddy first inning defense after Ryan Howard took him yard with a runner on. To be fair to Morris, and all things being equal, he should have walked off the mound down 2-0 having thrown 24 pitches when Jenkins lined to Nady with Burrell on first, but it went off his glove. Yet, even if Nady doesn’t make the tough catch, if he had thrown a better relay to Sanchez, Burrell, who was running from first, would have easily been gunned down at the plate for the third out.

And the score would still have been 2-0 Phillies.

But Morris lost his patience on the mound on that play, then lost the zone and his concentration.  He hit Coste on a 1-2 count, Bruntlett ground sharply back through the box and that scored Jenkins, a ground ball to Bixler off Phillies pitcher Kendick’s bat was dropped allowing Coste to score, and then Werth flied out.

Four hits, two errors, five runs, and 49 pitches later, Morris finally walked off the mound in the first.

As if wanting to add to Morris’ agony, the first three Pirates batters were retired on just ten pitches 1-2-3 and Morris was right back on the mound for the second where he threw another 22 pitches, allowed a walk and two singles, and one more run crossed the plate.

Morris’ final line: 1.2 IP, 6 H, 6 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, and 71 pitches thrown.

Considering MLB pitching coaches and managers have allowed a line like that to occur just seven times to starters in the game since 1956 (1.2 IP or less and 71 pitches or more as a starter), I think what happened says more about Jeff Andrews, John Russell, and Neal Huntington than it says about Morris.  And not surprisingly, Morris’ start was worse of the group when you look at the ER/R ratio.

It’s worth noting that Cam Bonifay was fired the day after twenty-eight-year-old Jason Schmidt was forced to throw 63 pitches in 1.2 innings in 2001 by then pitching coach Spin Williams. 

It’s also worth noting that the only other time the Pirates ever allowed a starter to throw more than 60 pitches in 1.2 innings or less since 1956 was to Jose Silva in 2000 by then pitching coach Pete Vukovich. 

In the 2.5 years prior to Silva’s start as a twenty-six-year-old, he had a 3.34 ERA (136 ER, 366 IP).  After that July 15th, 2000, start he made just 13 more starts in his career with a 7.89 ERA and then went to the bullpen the next two years and managed just 55 innings. He never pitched again in the majors.

And Vukovich, of course, was replaced a few months after Silva’s start.  It’s also interesting that just 103 times in over a quarter of a million games since 1956 a starter has been asked to throw 60 pitches or more in 1.2 innings or less.  Both times it happened in Pittsburgh, there was accountability – Vukovich was replaced and Bonifay fired. They were both out the door anyway, but these events certainly didn’t help their cause.

Also interesting is the fact both Spin Williams and Pete Vukovich had the exact same credentials at the major league level as a pitching coach when they took their position in Pittsburgh – none.  Zilch.  Just like Jeff Andrews, who is now joined at the hip with them.

Now are we going to see accountability in Pittsburgh with Andrews?  Hell no.  Accountability with Huntington?  Hell no.  Instead, it seems we are going to continue watching the systematic destruction of our starters. 

Sure, I know, it was only Matt Morris.  If you said that, you missed the entire point.

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“We’ve been losing two of every three games — that’s not acceptable. We haven’t been performing relative to our talent level.  It became evident we needed to try something different.  It wasn’t working. … We were underperforming.”  — Dave Littlefield,  September 6, 2005, when he fired Lloyd McClendon.

Underperforming.  Wow, a broken record being played every year last three.

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Dejan said in a recent article:

“On the statistics sheet, too, there is no more than modest separation in most metrics, offensively and defensively [between Paulino and Doumit].”

He was fortunate to use the word “most.”

Doumit vs. Paulino last five games for each catcher through April 25, 2008.  I think the easiest way to see how each catcher is doing getting calls from the umpires is to look at pitches that were either put in play or called strikes that were not in the strike zone from our more stable starters.

The table below shows the number of pitches thrown by each pitcher to each catcher as identified by Pitchf/x.  As you can see in the top chart, about 450 total pitches each. 

The lower chart shows how many strikes were obtained across the board by each catcher that were not in the strike zone as identified by Pitchf/x when the ball first crossed home plate.  Strikes could be obtained by the batter putting a pitch in play that was not in the zone (column #1) or a strike call received by the home plate umpire for a pitch that was not in the Pitchf/x zone (column #2). 

The location column identifies either the “Z” vertical plane of the batter’s box (pitches too high or low in the zone) and the “X” horizontal plane (pitches too far inside or outside of the zone).

For instance, Doumit and his battery mate saw 13 pitches put in play that were not in the batter’s “Z” plane strike zone (1), and 26 that were called a strike by the ump despite being outside the zone as the ball crossed the plate (2) and, combined, that was 8.4% of all pitches he received. Paulino’s total was 9.6% and that represented 1.2% more than Doumit.

Clearly, Doumit is not getting the same strike zone Paulino is. In fact, almost 6% fewer strikes as a whole. When you consider that 6% over 23,000 pitches in a year, that’s about a 45 run difference (about -5 wins) based on league averages the last few years.  That’s a serious difference.

When I went back and looked at all pitches (all pitchers) thrown using 2007 and 2008 Pitchf/x data (more than 3,000), the difference is even more significant – 9.4%.  And with some relievers it’s even higher.

I did look at the value of the balls in play from those pitches out of the zone and there was little to no difference in the number of outs between catchers.  But the sample size on that is too small yet.

Now I think it’s more than fair to ask, is Ryan Doumit a +45 run offensive machine over Ronny Paulino?  Hardly.  In fact when it’s all said and done in September, Doumit won’t be a quarter of that IF he’s even healthy and playing.  Right now he’s just seven runs better.  So every game Doumit catches the Pirates start the game off in a probabalistic runs allowed hole.

And that’s one reason why we’re not keeping games close – we’re losing the equivalent of almost two outs per game in our choice of catcher. 

We’re simply not making good competitive baseball decisions in the front office lately.  But they might be making a good financial decision in regard to Doumit.  We’ll have to watch and see where that goes.

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The Post-Gazette is attempting to lay out an argument for Morris to retire saving the team part of the $10.5M owed him.  He’s a damn fool if he does.  A damn fool.

He’s sitting around a 5 – 6 xERA which is about where Duke is at.  If I’m Morris, I certainly wouldn’t throw in the towel.  I’d first ask the Pirates to send me to Birmingham and run through the motions with ASMI’s lab just to see if there is anything obvious (arm slot, arm speed, etc).  Then I’d throw away Jeff Andrews ridiculous downhill tweaks, take a week off, and go find the best professional pitching coach in the game I had a relationship with and sit down with him over some video.

Then I’d come back hoping the Pirates could field a reasonably competitive fielding team behind me. 

Morris doesn’t just go from a 4.00 xERA pitcher in SF last year to a 6.00 in Pittsburgh without defense being the issue, and he can’t control that.

Stay on Matty.  Don’t let the media get you down.  This team isn’t going anywhere anyway so stick to your guns.  Force them to pay you if they won’t work with you.

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Phillies 6, Pirates 5.

If you had to pick one play that put the Phillies over the top, I suppose you would look at Sanchez being out of position in the third on Burrell’s two-out line drive single to Bay. Burrell started to hold up after he rounded first and then looked at second and found that Sanchez had vacated the bag – so he basically walked to second. It was Bixler’s relay to get and he was in proper position but, for whatever reason, Sanchez ran all the way over to position himself between Bixler and third.

Coste then smoked a sharp ground ball to Bixler that went off his glove and Burrell scored. To be fair to Bixler, I doubt Wilson even makes that play. But the point is, all things being equal, Burrell would have been stranded at third if Sanchez had held the bag on Burrell’s single.  Unfortunately for Duke, he was charged with an earned run that obviously wasn’t a credible earned run.

The tempo of this game was established in the first inning when Duke wasn’t getting his away paints called strikes from home plate ump Paul Nauert. Duke ended up walking both Werth and Utley before Doumit and Duke got on the same page as Nauert, but that was too late.

Coste then hammered a line drive double to left center, Werth scored, and the Bay-to-Bixler-to-Doumit relay to get Utley at the plate was missed by Doumit on a close play. If Doumit holds the ball, Utley would have probably been out as Bixler’s throw was perfect. But like I mentioned last year with Paulino, a ball bouncing ten feet in front of the plate with a big man coming down the line at full speed at you is a very hard play to make for any catcher – but it’s one that needs to be made consistently. We didn’t execute and that may have cost a run. I say may because it would have been bang-bang.

But make no mistake about it, Duke was hammered all day as he usually is. Doumit’s dropped relay, Bixler’s dropped sharp ground ball, Mientz got eaten up with a hammered ground ball he should have got a glove on, Sanchez out of position allowing Burrell a bag, and the early walks learning the umpire’s zone, all hurt us.

What a day Nady had at the plate – 2 for 4 with three rbis. He is aggressively attacking the zone early this year and hitting offspeed stuff as well as heaters. It’s a remarkable change from what we have seen from the X-man the last year or two where he sat on only heaters and drove them.

Doumit and Bixler also went 2 for 3 but it was Nady’s 5th inning two-out two rbi single that got the Bucs within one run. But John Russell and the Pirates failed to execute when they had opportunities from that point on and it hurt.

McLouth led off the 7th with a walk and Sanchez attempted to bunt on the first pitch but didn’t get it down, then ended up flying out to center leaving McLouth at first. It was Sanchez’s job to move McLouth there but he didn’t get it done. Bay flied out as well but he’s our big bat so it’s hard to fault him for driving a pitch he liked that didn’t move the runner.  McLouth may never have scored had Sanchez executed but, then again, who knows. It was a fundamental mistake by Russell not ordering the bunt, imo.

In the 8th Bautista walked with two outs and I immediately wondered if Morgan was going to run for him because Romero was on the mound who has an exaggerated leg kick in the stretch. This was the time to use speed to, not only to upset Romero’s thinking on the mound, but to try and get to second with a steal. At least, that’s what I thought but Russell kept Bautista out there for some reason.

Bixler then hit a slow grounder to third he hustled down the line and beat out that left Bautista at second, and Paulino ground out to short to end the threat.

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It was nice to see the Bucs battle back but it was too little, too late – they were too far in the hole. The Phillies pen has been lights out this year but many of the guys in their pen are very hittable (Durbin, Romero, Lidge, etc).

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Gorzy, Morris, Snell, and now Duke have all had problems with strike zone calls the last few games resulting in a lot of walks.  Part of that problem is unquestionably the way Ryan Doumit receives the ball – he stabs to catch it instead of letting the ball come to him some of the time. He also has a bad habit of having his glove upside down when he receives some pitches and I think that’s throwing off the umpires as well.

You have to wonder if Duke got the paints in the first inning with Werth and Utley if this game might have had a lot different tone?

And I think it’s fair to ask if Paulino had caught 95% of the games so far if our rotation would still be the worst in baseball?  It’s true our better relievers (Yates, Grabow, Capps, Marte) aren’t being influenced by either catcher, but they are primarily heat throwers which typically aren’t influenced by a catcher’s ability.

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MLB Rules 10.12 “An error is a statistic charged against a fielder whose action has assisted the team on offense…”

Obviously Sanchez couldn’t be called for an error on Burrell’s hit under the MLB Rules as we know them, but he should have been.

I assume long time Pittsburgh Pirates official scorer Tony Krizmanich is still in the box this year and I’m starting to wonder, perhaps much like Clint Hurdle last year, if Krizmanich is going blind.

Another interesting note is the number of called errors against the Pirates that have been later changed. For instance, in the first inning Doumit was charged with an error on dropping Bixler’s relay that allowed Coste to go second to third. But after Coste was stranded, Krizmanich removed the error.

An error is an error is an error.

If you remember last year, we had so many errors on the diamond that weren’t called it started to become a running joke by July. Even simple errors weren’t called like a ground ball right to Jack Wilson who flubbed it and the hitter was given a single on a sure out.

If indeed Krizmanich is still the official scorer, he’s making a mockery of the game in Pittsburgh, imo. It was obvious Hurdle had enough of him last year when Krizmanich charged Helton with two errors in one game – the first time in Hurdles six year managerial career an official scorer wouldn’t even talk to him – and, as you might expect, MLB reversed both of Krizmanich’s decisions.

Too much bias, not enough objectivity. He’s throwing the game off.

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What is it now, 36 walks allowed last seven games and 16 of them have scored?  That’s a .47 base run state on walks allowed that is usually around .32 in Pittsburgh. It will come down over time, but still, that’s very, very high.

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Andrew McCutchen is on fire having gone 16 for his last 44 (.364) with ten of the sixteen hits going for extra bases, has a career high 13 game hitting streak, and readers keep asking me why he isn’t in Pittsburgh.

Out of all of McCutchen’s tools, his bat has never been questioned.  He’ll hit MLB pitching – you can go to the bank on that. 

But Pittsburgh isn’t the place for the young man right now – for several reasons.  One, Cutch still has a lot of vulnerability at the plate he needs to work through; and two, he’s learning how to run better routes which, if he has had any faults in his young career, that would be it.  He’s simply not up to speed defensively for Pittsburgh’s center field yet and probably won’t be for quite awhile. I’m guessing unless the Pirates get desperate, he’ll probably get a September call up but that’s about it.

I mean, why start his clock in a meaningless year?  Throw in the fact even Huntington doesn’t know the kind of stock he’ll get in return for some of his trades (1A? 2A? MLB ready?) as the year goes on and, well, the timing just isn’t right.

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Speaking of timing, if Huntington was ever going to deal Nady, NOW is the time considering his injury history and the fact he’s on fire.

Now would also be a great time to drop a “an undisclosed team is interested in Nady” trade rumor in the press since he’s got the attention of a few clubs.

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We saw Jeff Andrews and John Russell execute what is uncommonly called a ’quick hook on a reliever’ with Marte the other night and Thursday night we witnessed what is uncommonly called a ‘butchering long hook’ of Tom Gorzelanny.

Hung out to dry doesn’t come close to what the Pirates did to Gorzy.  Murder is probably a better term because they are close to ending this man’s professional career.  But as Bucco Blog readers know all to well, that is life with Jeff Andrews. 

Just ask Shane Youman who was handed a 40 pitch inning by Jeff Andrews in 2007 – and then made to come back out the next inning. He was cut by the Phillies and sent to the farm this spring because he issued a walk per inning – his arm was toast. Yet he had a pro career of almost 500 innings in the farm with just a 3.6 BB/9.  And I won’t even go into the abuse JvB, Burnett, and Bullington took at Indy last year – it’s amazing all of them still have their arms attached.

In Gorzy’s last start April 19th, he left after throwing a 39 pitch inning (after a 23) not including pick off throws. That’s extremely high for a healthy pitcher, but off the charts for a guy with known shoulder discomfort. Then Thursday he threw a 25 pitch fourth and then hung out to throw a thirty-one pitch fifth.

Now I understand the fans probably can’t get a feel for how extreme all that is so let me show you a different way:

that’s 174 pitches in Gorzy’s last 7.2 innings of work…

and 172 pitches in his first 8.2 innings of work.

Jeff Andrews is a butcher, imo – always has been.  But more importantly to me is the fact Neal Huntington and John Russell are allowing all this. Perhaps Russell believes Andrews knows the players well enough to make these kind of decisions?  I can’t even come up with an excuse for Huntington. There is none.

During one of the half-innings when Gorzy was on the bench talking with Andrews, Gorzy lit up talking with him and Bob Walk mentioned he seemed to be indicating the strike zone was small. But Gorzy was just showing his frustration – he wasn’t even close to the plate most of the night and could have easily issued five more walks on top of the seven he did.

Gorzy was even so frustrated he was throwing things around the dugout and punching things.  The young man doesn’t seem to understand that when a pitcher’s arm is unhealthy, he can’t control the ball. It isn’t his fault… he just needs to rest the arm. And it seems he needs to understand he has a right under the Player’s Agreement to seek his doctor’s advice. Perhaps he should do that and force the issue since the Pirates don’t seem to understand.

There’s just no excuse for the Pirates to waste long-term value like this, especially in a meaningless year. Huntington’s acts are no different than David Littlefield last year when he ran the kid out there every 5th day or so in September knowing he was far exceeding healthy yearly pitch count limits.

As a fan, I pray I see accountability. I know I’m not the only one wanting to see it.

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Gorzy had a no-no going through four innings but that was the result of the Cardinals taking the field seemingly with very little conviction in their game and hacking away. Gorzy was far from sharp and couldn’t repeat.

But a hat tip to Gorzelanny for keeping his wits on the mound despite being pushed over the edge.

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The Pirates pretty much folded after they witnessed Gorzy’s tantrum in front of Andrews after the top of the 5th.  Cardinals pitchers faced one over the minimum the 5th – 8th and in the 9th we scored another run on a few hits and a walk.

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I’m starting to believe the Pirates don’t have anyone upstairs who understands about the implications of pitch counts, either per inning, per game, game-to-game, or year-to-year. Under Littlefield and Graham, they certainly didn’t seem to care much and we all know what the end result of that was over the years.

Or maybe the Pirates just want to decrease the value of guys like Gorzelanny?  You know, toss him on the mound with a fatigued arm for a year, pray he doesn’t break, then come at him with a low costing five year deal next year showing him his garbage stats for the year? 

Here’s a good one. Maybe Nutting took out an insurance contract on Gorzy for the value of his contract for the year and then tacked on a risk management rider for $10M+/- the franchise would lose in gate proceeds, etc, if Gorzy was to go down under the knife and be gone for two years? Now that one sounds more logical than any of the others, but it’s still out there.

Maybe the real out-there reason is the not so obvious reason – they can’t use the “R” word without justifying to the fans their season is indeed history. You know, if Gorzy goes under the knife and comes back in 2010, he’d still have some service time left and be meeting Lincoln and Moskos coming up. Look at John Russell’s lame excuse for Gorzy not throwing strikes in the PG today:

‘”It’s just a matter of consistency in the zone,” manager John Russell said beforehand. “He needs to challenge hitters with quality pitches, and he needs to have life down in the zone. That’s how he pitches when he’s effective.”‘

Right. When he can feel the ball in his hand, that is.  I mean, Russell puts the blame square on Gorzy as if he’s completely clueless to the entire pitch count process.

Perhaps he is? 

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I’m actually starting to get to like Bixler. The kid’s come a long way in a short period of time. He’ll never be a useful defensive middle infielder but, for being thrown to the fire like he was, he’s handling himself pretty well. Tip of the hat to him.

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Did anyone else drool over Molina’s blocking skills during the Cards series? Square shoulders, guards slammed to the dirt, hunched toward the ground deadening every pitch in the dirt straight off his protector down in front of him. Now if we could get just 50% of that from either of our catchers…

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Looks like my prediction of 12 wins in March/April is going to be pretty close. The Phillies are scoring a lot of runs these days but not as many as the Cubs were.

So what if the Pirates have lost Duke’s last seven Friday night starts. Who cares if the Phillies come in favorites. Or that the Pirates are hitting near the Mendoza line at home against right-handers.

This series boils down to early mashing – the team that does is going to win the games.

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When I saw Jeff Andrews talking and walking with Ian Snell from the bullpen area to the dugout before the game, I has an uneasy feeling.  Something just didn’t look right.

A few minutes later I saw the reason - everything Snell was throwing was flat and his slider had so little spin it didn’t even move. Twenty-seven pitches later, Snell was down 4-0 in the first after giving up three singles, a double, a sac fly, and two walks.

Over the next five innings Snell struggled to find the plate throwing primarily fastballs and changeups but was able to change speeds enough to keep Cards batters guessing. With a little help from his defense, Snell put up five zeros.

With the score 4-0 still in the 4th, and the Pirates yet to have a hit, Sanchez led off with a single and then Bay lined a single to right putting men at first and second. Doumit then hammered a line drive into right center and Sanchez scored with Bay holding at third. Nady hit a sac fly to score Bay and LaRoche flaired one to center for a single putting men at first and second, then Bautista was hit by a pitch to load the bases with one out. But Bixler struckout on three straight sliders and Snell struckout looking ending the rally.

The score was now 4-2 Cards into the 5th when, with one out, Sanchez singled. When Bay came to the plate I swear I could hear the entire Pirate Nation screaming “wail that first pitch Jason.”  Obviously the Cards need MGL more than they realize because that’s exactly what Bay did – he hammered the first pitch to left and Duncan tracked it to the wall for the second out.

But wait a minute – somehow Duncan got twisted at the wall and the ball landed in the first row of seats for a home run. For the second night in a row, a bungled play by the left fielder allowed us runs to tie or go ahead in the game.

Still 4-4 into the 8th and Doumit singled, and then Nady hit a sure double play tapper to Reyes on the mound but he got his signals crossed with his infielders and threw to the wrong man covering second. Still, they were able to get Nady at first.

So instead of two outs and nobody on, Doumit sat at second when LaRoche flew out to center that should have ended the inning. But we still had life and Bautista flaired one into right scoring Doumit, Bixler ground one over the third base bag for a double putting men at second and third, and Mientz came to the plate and slashed a single line drive to left scoring both Bautista and Bixler and was gunned down at second trying to stretch it to a double.

And then Mientz put on the best show since Lloyd McClendon days arguing that he was never tagged. It was a bit dramatic and animated, but good for the player’s souls, to be sure. I know I loved it.

Capps came out in the 9th and sealed the deal and, for the second night in a row, the Pirates took home a gift wrapped win.

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That’s now nine of our last fourteen runs scored (last 3) handed to us from bungled opposition plays.

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You have to wonder what is going on in the Pirates pen warming up pre-game. Not one of our starters has been sharp in the last 9 days. Not one.

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Here’s a lesson to be learned- if you go to a Braves baseball game and wear a Pirates hat then get sucker punched by some punk cheeseball, just return to where you were sitting because chances are the guy probably dropped his cell phone. 

But you have to wonder why this dude didn’t punch the obviously chickensh*t lamer back?  I mean, I would have put my hat on my fist and run it through his front teeth myself.  Then I’d tell my friend to take a hike for not backing me up.

Ok kids, now don’t try that at home.

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There’s a lot of noise coming out of New York right now for the Mets to acquire Nady. 

I told Matthew Cerrone (Metsblog.com) who was doing some research for his SNY television pre-game show today that I saw Nady as a 2 to 2.5 WAR guy, that Huntington is using him to protect Bay and LaRoche with right now, and it would be hard for him to deal Nady because of that.  As I explained to Matthew, the Pirates are in “build value” mode and any replacement for Nady in our system couldn’t achieve what Nady is currently offering.

But I also suggested an impact talent package from 1A/2A might get the job done if the right deal is offered.  The problem is, the Mets really don’t have the talent so they would need a third team it seems. 

We’ll see where this goes. The fans seem to be all over Minaya to get a deal done asap. But I doubt Minaya would pay the price he would have to pay (3+ WAR trending up).

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