By Jake, on April 21, 2009, at 10:29 pm | Comments are closed
Holy moley, the Bucs have now won eight games including four of their last five which happened to be against NLED clubs. Tuesday’s win came in forty-something degree temps and a stiff wind blowing in from right against the Marlins, not to mention against a very good right-hander in Anibal Sanchez.
The Bucs went right after the Marlins hearts after crushing them the night before – Morgan led off the 1st with a line drive single to left, Sanchez ground a seeing eye ball through the right side (man I love it when we actually do something right), McLouth flew out to center with Morgan tagging and going to third, and LaRoche lined a single in to center to score Morgan.
1-0 Bucs.
After Karstens shut them down in the top of the second, we continued to get good wood on Sanchez – Andy LaRoche doubled down the left field line, Wilson squibbed one to third and LaRoche advanced to third on the throw to first, and Jason “Who-needs-Doumit-in-the-lineup-because-I’m-clutch” Jaramillo doubled high off the Clemente wall scoring LaRoche (nasty hanging slider up and in).
2-0 Bucs.
Karstens started to get challenged in the third.. he walked Baker the leadoff man and then Ramirez doubled into the left center field gap to score him later in the inning. No walk, no run there.
2-1 Bucs.
Not to be outdone, the Bucs answered right back when Sanchez pulled a 91 mph Sanchez heater that was up out of the zone and in over the left field wall.
3-1 Bucs.
All the while Karstens kept throwing strikes and his defenders turned outs including a nifty dropped third in the 5th with Maybin at first who took off and Jaramillo was quick to the ball and threw him out at second. Shades of Chavez last year – good stuff.
Still 3-1 Bucs after 6 and one-half.
With two outs in the bottom of the 6th, Andy LaRoche walked and Jack Freaking Wilson tried to bunt his way on (remember me yesterday wondering when we were going to see the Wilson bunt with men on the corners? Here it was with a sloooow man at first to boot.) Anyway, Sanchez fielded the ball and then threw a 100 mph fastball to first that was too high to handle and both runners advanced. Jaramillo was handed a four-pitch walk to load the bases and then Hinske came to the plate amid the loudest cheer/clapping/noise making all night long. It even startled him as he backed out of the box a second with a little grin on his face. He ground out weakly to first to end the threat, and the inning, but the fans didn’t care – they kept clapping. Unbelievable.
3-1 Bucs after 6.
Yates relieved Karstens (3 hits, 1 ER, 2 BB, 87 pitches, and a crap load of time on the mound he’s so slow) and worked out of a one out jam after walking Hermida by getting Cody Ross to ground to Wilson for a double play. In the 8th, he wasn’t so lucky – he opened against Maybin with a heater, then threw him another 95 mph watermellon inside, belt high and Maybin wasted no time taking it yard. And Russell wasted no time getting Yates out of there with Grabow tossing the rest of the inning laboring on every pitch (no velocity, no touch and feel, but getting outs around a single and a walk), but shutting down a Marlins threat to tie the game.
3-2 Bucs after 8.
Capps came out to close it out but, without a great defensive play from Wilson on Uggla’s leadoff grounder headed up the middle, it could have gotten ugly as Hermida then lined one into right for a single but Ross ground to LaRoche for a a double play to end the inning. Thank you Laaaaaady Luck.
Bucs win, 3-2.
Thank gosh the wind was blowing in because a couple of Marlins blasts would have left the yard on Karstens, but that was about the only thing the young man did wrong. He stayed tall with a nice downward plane driving his pitches much better than I’ve seen from him. Now don’t get me wrong, he still telegraphs his pitches and is very hittable, but he looked better.. looked better.
I’m telling you, we’re seeing an enormous amount of luck in our games so far. From winds blowing in in games we need them to, to clubs coming in banged up, to little to no concentration on the mound from opposing pitchers, to a lack of intensity in other teams, balls dropping in for us inches inside lines, Adam LaRoche tearing it up, movement on the base paths going undetected, and on, and on, and on.. it’s simply uncanny, and it can’t possibly last.
Or, can it?
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The news of the day wasn’t the Pirates win – it was about Ryan Doumit being placed on the 15-day DL for a fractured wrist and expected to be out 8 – 10 weeks. You can read about his injury type from this article at Medscape. There have been a lot of professional sports players that have had the injury and Doumit’s expected to bounce back just fine, but it’s hard to pinpoint a return it seems. Where one player is back in action in 6 weeks, another player had their cast come off and still in pain requiring a new cast to be put back on. Mayo Clinic says 6 weeks to 6 months, so make your own guess.
A few things come quickly to mind — one, his being out drops +3 wins from the roster which can’t be replaced; two, it allows the younger catchers to get some experience which is a good thing for a rebuilding club; three, it signals to every GM in the game that anyone on our roster can be had earlier than the expected July time frame which is exactly what our front office needed to have happen; four, it puts yet another straight left hand bat in the lineup; and five, you can’t help wondering how major league umpires are going to take to the rookie Jaramillo.
Probably more important is that it forces the Pirates front office to rethink their long-term plan with Doumit. He can certainly go back behind the dish but let’s be blunt, he’s going to get paid about a million dollars while sitting on the DL this year which is not only retarding his growth behind the plate, but reinforcing the concept that he’s so injury prone the club can’t continue to take needless risks with him looking forward. To that end, I hope they have him shagging fly balls in Bradenton while rehabbing and he eventually comes back later in the year as our right fielder.
But that’s not going to happen, of course.
In the meantime, we’ll run with Jaramillo and Diaz and probably continue to seek a trade for a youthful defensive catcher, although that hasn’t exactly been Huntington’s MO.
And yeah, I’ll pat myself on the back. I called out his new contract as too risky, and two I called him hitting the DL early when I put him on my 2009 Fooler list. Ironically, I also put Diaz on my Sleeper list calling his glove the sleeper, not his bat. I’m going to eat crow on his glove after having watched more of him now, but he can rake and I hope it translates against major league pitching and he keeps an average glove around.
Still, we badly need a young defensive catcher in our system. And you can’t help wondering if Huntington and Stark had put Walker back behind the plate and left him there if that young man might be our catcher today?
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Did anyone watch the Indy game tonight with Gorzelanny on the mound? LOL 40 degree temps, a 20 mph wind, and he had pitched to two over the minimum until the 6th (struckout 7) when Bixler booted a grounder allowing Worth a double. Then he walked two straight to load the bases, Searage went out to discuss things with him and we all know what that leads to with Gorzy, and yup, he gave up a granny as if he was trying to make a statement. Gotta love the guy.
Altoona (2-9) lost again. I think Lincoln pitches Wednesday.
Justin Wilson won again in Lynchburg — three-hit shutout over 5.
By Jake, on April 20, 2009, at 11:30 pm | Comments are closed
I thought I was watching Oliver Perez for a moment. Honestly, I did. Ok, it was a fleeting moment, but it’s obvious Andrew Miller is going to be a very special pitcher although he took the mound in cold weather with below average stuff Monday night and took a beating. To his credit, he only jumped back into the rotation a start or two ago so I expected he might show some arm fatigue. And he did.
Miller’s control was all over the place and on top of that his defense was putrid behind him. Add those two problems up and you have a recipe for disaster. A couple of plays struck me as game changers – two times Emilio Bonifacio had a chance to swipe-tag runners at third and both times he was lazy on the swipe.
The first time came in the 4th in a 1-0 Pirates game after Adam LaRoche doubled over Ross’ head in right. Andy LaRoche then hit a fly ball to Ross medium depth and Adam tagged and took off for third. He was out by more than a country mile as Ross’ throw was a one-hopper just to the left side of the bag, he gloved the ball with Adam starting his slide a few feet from the bag, but he was so slow on the swipe and LaRoche was safe. Had he been tagged out, the wild pitch later in the inning wouldn’t have scored LaRoche, all things being equal.
The second time was after Andy LaRoche’s fly ball in the 4th. Wilson walked, advanced to second on the wild pitch Adam LaRoche scored on, and then stole third with Jaramillo still at the plate and the throw was in time, and on the money by Baker, but once again Bonifacio was late with the swipe and Wilson was safe. Jaramillo grounded out sharply to second holding Wilson and Ohlendorf ground out to short so Wilson never scored, but those two plays helped define the game, imo.
Still a 2-0 game in the 5th, Miller walked McLouth after getting two quick outs and you could tell he was purposely being careful to McLouth. But then Monroe came up and he couldn’t find the plate trying to be too fine and ended up walking him too. So back-to-back walks and Marlins pitching coach Mark Wiley made a visit to the mound with the young man at the 94 pitch mark laboring a bit but not wanting to do a double-switch for one batter with two outs. That was the third defining moment in the game – leaving Miller in.
He went to 3-2 on Adam LaRoche and, with the runners off on the pitch, LaRoche lined one into left and Hermida didn’t even challenge Monroe who was rounding third and heading home from first.. he threw to second instead. I don’t know how good Hermida’s arm is but even if he has a Nyjer Moragn arm, he’s got Monroe DOA at the plate. But no throw. Andy LaRoche then came up and, get this – with Adam LaRoche taking off on first movement (yup, you read that right), Ramirez broke to the bag to cover and Andy ground one through into left to Hermida who, get this one, threw a rainbow to second instead of nailing Adam LaRoche who made the turn and was headed to third.
Unbelievable. If I didn’t know better I would have said the Marlins were laying down intentionally. It looked that bad.
The Marlins then brought out Logan Kensing (think Matt Capps) who threw 16 straight fastballs mostly down the heart of the plate with one slider mixed in to Sanchez, all to six batters and obtained two outs – Wilson in the 5th and Ohlendorf in the sixth, three hammered singles, a walk, and then the big blow, a watermellon - belt high, middle of the plate, first pitch fastball running just 92 mph to Nate McLouth who crushed it 433′ over the right field wall for a three-run shot. Yep, in the river on a hop or two.
I mean, if you want to lose a game, that’s the way to do it.. show up with a pitcher with a dead arm, play poor defense behind him, and then relieve that pitcher with a guy throwing straight gas caring less about location. Wham- Bam- Thank-You-Mam.
Ohlendorf took the mound and it became obvious four batters in he had a little more advance work on the Marlins than he had last game out. In fact, I’d say there was an extra detail on pitch types and locations in Kerrigan’s plan that I haven’t seen the level of in quite some time in Pittsburgh. Perhaps Mr. Perry Hill had something to do with it? See what happens when you piss off Bones, Mike Hill? Just kidding..
Anyway, Ohlendorf hit his spots well, Jaramillo called a very solid game, and let’s be honest, Marlins batters were back on their heels some too. I mean, third time through the lineup and they were still trying to pull his changeup or slider into the ground instead of wailing his two-seamer. They deserved to lose.
Maybe it was just too cold for the South Florida boys?
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Ryan Doumit out with a reported right wrist problem. What a potential major blow. I went back and watched every pitch of Sunday’s game for any body language of Doumit’s that suggested he was hurting and couldn’t find a thing. The only thing I did notice was that in the top of the 7th he was hiding his right hand behind his right leg in an effort to protect it from fouls. He didn’t do it every pitch but significantly more than he routinely does. And, of course, he was removed from the game after that half inning.
In the second at bat where he claimed he heard a pop, I didn’t see anything. I even blew the video up and ran it in slo-slo motion but saw absolutely nothing to indicate his swing produced any pain or discomfort. Since the Pirates claim he didn’t report the discomfort until Monday, we have to assume he wasn’t bothered by it until after the game anyway.
But I’m telling you, he took a major blow off the right hand thumb when Lee’s foul ball ripped into his open hand against the Astros last Monday. Here’s the image:
Coincidental that a week later he’s complaining of a problem in that same wrist? Perhaps. But I doubt it.. his hand took some whiplash on the foul but it didn’t appear to be severe. I watched his hand close in the games after that and never saw any hint of a problem from the center field camera advantage point I have.
But let’s make one thing perfectly clear, this should be a huge red flag to the Pirates no matter if he’s back on the field in a couple of days or next year. Ryan Doumit is an offensive threat who has a significant history of health related problems and we just signed him to an expensive contract. Ryan Doumit needs to be removed from behind the plate and put at first or in right so that we can expect to see him play 150 games per year and where he can concentrate on nothing but his swing. This should have been a no-brainer decision back in 2008 and we can only hope it’s not too late to still make the move.
Let’s hope for the best but I’d guess it’s nothing more than a sprain.
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Question from Jonathan in yesterday’s thread:
“What’s your take on Donovan Tate, OF (Cartersville (Ga.))??? Looks to have legit 5 tool potential. He swings the bat alot like Chris Young of the Dbacks. (Atleast from my amateur eye).”
Power-speed youngster who is in the first-tier of high school players this draft. I haven’t seen any video on him yet because I don’t expect him to take stupid money and play baseball. Look for him to be taken a few rounds down by someone hoping they can swing him into their stable. Tools are evident, whether or not the full package will ever develop is what has some scouts questioning about him.
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Someone said there were more scouts in attendence than fans. Shoot, no wonder Adam LaRoche was hustling so much. BTW, Mr. LaRoche has a lot of explaining to do to Pirate fans.
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Ohlendorf throws a two hit shutout against the fish.
By Jake, on April 19, 2009, at 10:09 pm | Comments are closed
I admit, I played hooky today. Duke on the mound against Vazquez.. no brainer – I spent the day at the park flying a kite with my son. I’m glad I did.
I watched a little of the game later – Duke pitched just like he did the last two times out.. falling behind batters and then drilling pitches hoping his defense made a play (think Maholm and Ohlendorf). He got away with it last two – he didn’t get away with it Sunday. Plus, it was good to see ole’ Jack Crap back on the diamond.. I’ve missed all the throwing errors and balls floating under his glove. I hope he stays healthy because he single-handedly defines Nutting baseball to me. All that is missing is his two out bunts with men on the corners.
Vazquez shut us down as expected. He’s tough when he’s on.
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I got handed my shirt in yesterday’s thread by all the optimists who evidently didn’t like the fact we didn’t sweep then came here to complain, but hey, I think I advanced the Braves series pretty good for an arm chair GM.. every single game played out as expected although Maholm had a bit more luck on his side than I counted on in game one.
For the Marlins series, that’s easy. Take your crying towel to the park with you, it will be that ugly. Kidding aside, I didn’t even take the time to advance this series because they are throwing Miller, Sanchez, and Nolasco at us and if you know anything about those pitchers then you know the Sanchez vs Karstens matchup is a joke, Miller vs Ohlendorf is tough to call since Miller just jumped to the rotation and will either have arm fatigue or throw a no-hitter over five frames, and Maholm vs Nolasco is easily Maholm’s game if he pitches instead of throwing. But will we score enough runs?
We wail heat and the Marlins arms will bring bring lots of it. So look for some good games with quite a few strikeouts on both sides, a lot of speed burners, and quite a few errors. Flip-a-coin any game except the middle one but don’t forget that we have something like 4 wins in our last 20 games against southpaws. On the flip side, the Marlins rarely win at PNC but this Marlins team isn’t anything like the ones that have come to town before. Too bad we don’t have a couple more southpaws around to throw at them.
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Remember me begging Neal Huntington to grab Kiko Calero from the A’s before he was released? He’s now with the Marlins and he’s throwing very well. I don’t know how his body will hold up but so far he’s doing good. I’m sure we’ll see him this series.
Oh, and we’ll probably see Paulino too. Show him a little love for me. LOL
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As per BP, the Texas Rangers are looking for a PROGRAMMER to assist them with upgrades and new development for their application that is used by the player development and baseball operations departments to maintain player evaluations, reports, schedules, contract info, trade negotiations . . . basically all of the information the front office needs to make decisions. The ability to not only program, but to help in the design of the application and extending its value and usability is highly desired.
Required Skills:
• Microsoft Visual Studio, especially with C# and the .NET infrastructure.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 on a DBA level.
• Passion for the game, statistical analysis ability is a big plus.
If you think you have the chops, and you are willing to re-locate to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area, send a cover letter and resume to jobs@texasrangers.com with the words “Baseball Operations Programmer” in the subject.
Some kewl stats — we’re playing .583 baseball using runs squared logic (down from .705 before Sunday’s game). And take a wild guess who our best sabermetric reliever is? Craig Hansen.
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Josh Phegley.. he’s no Matt Weiters but he’s quietly making a name for himself.
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Remember the name Michael Main? I liked him in the draft but recognized he was a tier or two below Porcello’s group. Well, here’s a short video of him throwing against San Jose on the 15th including a monster HR by Buster Posey at the 9:30 mark.
By Jake, on April 18, 2009, at 10:37 pm | Comments are closed
I watched the game until Monroe put us ahead 5-0 and then walked away feeling pretty positive we were in for another win. Snell continued to flash his better stuff that we first saw late in the third inning of his last outing against the Reds and I don’t mean he found his missing velocity because that’s still MIA. No, what he’s doing is staying out of the middle of the zone and throwing more changeups mixed in with his slider. The changes are below average offerings, and typically high in the zone, but they set up his offspeed stuff away and when he can get painted calls as he has his last two games, he’s tough to get good wood on.
Plus let’s be honest, the Braves are really hurting – Jones and Escobar are on the pine, McMann looks about 80% (what’s with his left eye???), and they have some kid named Schafer pretending he can play at the ML level. They are really in trouble right now and it shows all over the diamond. But even if they had their bats and were all healthy, I had believed this was going to be Snell’s game anyway and he delivered as expected.
Offensively we’re seeing Andy LaRoche starting to break into a streaky little run.. he hit .308 over 8 games with us late in August into September, then popped off an 0-21 run, then went 5-19 the next five games, so you never know what you’re going to get from him. He opened this year, what, 0-18 or so, and now he’s on a 5-10 run, including getting plated the game winning run in Saturday’s game with an rbi double in the 2cd.
And if you haven’t noticed all the weird things happening in our games lately, you need eye glasses. Did you see McLouth overrun Francouer’s fly ball to right center in the 4th with two on? Not only did he overrun it, he cut his angle to the ball so short that the liner started tailing up as it got to him and he reached at the last second to grab it as if it was a normal play. Of course, for him that’s normal I suppose but in any other month, that ball is over his head for a triple or an inside the park.
And how about the 6th, with the score 1-0 Sanchez lined an opening single to Schafer in center and it hit a divot in the grass bouncing away from Schafer and allowing Sanchez a triple. Come on now, how many times have you seen that the last five years at PNC? LOL, like never.
Then McLouth drilled a grounder that went off the pitcher’s foot into center but if it had hit the foot one inch either way from where it did, Sanchez was probably dead meat at the plate. Then McLouth stole second taking the bat away from Doumit who was intentionally walked after the steal, Adam LaRoche struck out waving at ball four, and then Monroe came to the plate sitting dead red and got a hanging change up right down the middle of the plate which he deposited over the center field wall scoring McLouth and Doumit. Had it been a fastball, Monroe probablly would have missed it.
And, why did Cox walk Doumit? I haven’t the faintest other than the matchups which suggest he’d clean Reyes clock (which he did all day) but to be honest, he came in hitting a buck seventy-six last seven. I’d have to pitch to him there even knowing he can be clutch. You get the second out there and Monroe probably isn’t swinging first pitch with two outs and a runner at third and the entire game might change. I think Cox over dealt his hand, and it showed it’s ugly head again later when he intentionally walked Adam LaRoche to get to Monroe again, who then hit another home run.
Ah, but what do I know?
It’s tough to measure anything by this series though – the Braves came in with no glue to hold them togther missing many of their key parts and then had to bring up Reyes who, by his own mark, pitched very well until he ran out of gas and Cox hung him out to dry. He had no business starting the sixth.. he was exhausted and panting on the mound in the fifth as it was.
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The fans don’t realize it yet but what we are witnessing is the first dividends of “the front office processes” taking root. I especially like the fact our starters are buying into Kerrigan’s plans because we didn’t see a whole lot of that with Andrews on the job last year. I happened to be right in the middle of looking at Snell’s zone work since March 2008 when this game began and it was obvious Snell wasn’t following the traditional batting charts we had been using the last couple of years. I suspect he was using Kerrigan’s charts (where he’s getting them I haven’t a clue but I’d bet they aren’t coming from our front office).
It was interesting to see Snell work away from traditional opposing batter power zones but yet pitch into their strength with his best pitches, and that put them on their heels not expecting it. I suppose that doesn’t make a lot of sense to most of you but think about it like this — there are few ‘true’ batter power zones (within the strike zone) for right hand batters at PNC so you can pitch into their strength (not down the middle or hanging offspeed stuff, I mean location that traditionally you might not use in other parks) and force them to hit your pitch even if the count is 2-1 or 3-1. You might walk a few more batters along the way, but the end result will always be a lower batting average against.
And one comment in the thread to yesterday’s post here got me thinking – he suggested that perhaps what we are seeing isn’t so much luck at all. Now I’m here to tell you we have been riding Lady Luck’s back for several of these wins but I think he has a point too. We are seeing better positioning of our middle infielders with men on base, and that’s resulted in quite a few outs that last year we wouldn’t have seen.
But it’s deeper than that – even though we field a below average defense in our outfield, we’re getting away with it because a) we’re playing back a bit more this year in left and center, b) we’re seeing our pitchers throw to the glove more and that’s resulting in balls in play heading toward our defenders more often than not, and c) we’ve seen an unbelieveable drop in the number of line drives because we’re pitching away from power zones. And another early trend is a higher number of ground balls (reduction in line drives has been split pretty equally in fly balls and grounders) which typically result in more outs if you advance well. I haven’t checked this yet but my early gut feeling is we’re getting more calls on the black than we typically get too, but that’s just a guess and it’s going to be awhile before I dig for that answer.
What I’m saying is, the commentor was right – it hasn’t been all luck by any means. But you keep watching the way the ball bounces – when you see it start to straighten up, and it will, we’re going to be in for a long, hard ride back to reality.
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So, with Sanchez needing a day off and Wilson still out, will we see Delwyn Young make his first start at second base Sunday? With Duke on the mound? Come on JR – get some guts. Let’s see what the kid is made of.
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And no! I haven’t heard any rumors about Jack Wilson. Nothing. Zip. Stop emailing. What I said yesterday came as a gut feeling knowing Bob Nutting probably needs cash to pay for the upcoming draft. Seriously, I suspect Wilson is out because he’s hurt and, you know, that sort of thing happens to Jackie every time he thinks there is a possibility he might get divorced from Freddy.
– PITCHf/x has tracked ten home runs hit by left-hand batters against Snell since the start of play in 2008. Take a wild guess where the location was for the majority of those hit?
—- he threw only nine pitches in the upper right hand third of the plate above the strike zone (looking at the batter from the mound) and three of them left the yard. Funny thing about those three home runs outside the zone, they went for six runs allowed (12% of his total allowed to left hand batters) which was more runs than Snell allowed in seven of the nine zones (think a 3 x 3 grid) of the strike zone.
By Jake, on April 17, 2009, at 10:08 pm | Comments are closed
I’m not sure how to lable this game other than to say, we won. Maholm wasn’t sharp and routinely found himself praying his defense would get him out of jams, but they did just that. Every inning except the first and sixth the Braves had at least one runner in scoring position but failed to do any damage. And even with the bases loaded with no outs in the second, Maholm walked away thanks to an infield pop up that Doumit dropped with the infield fly rule and a grounder to Maholm for a double play. Pure, unadulterated, luck all game.
But we’ll take it.
And funny thing about his game – we booted balls, we dropped infield pop ups, we threw wildly to bases, we allowed infield singles with late throws, hit a couple of batters, and walked even more, but every time we needed an out the Braves either crushed a line drive right to one of our defenders or we ran extremely late or bad routes on fly balls but had time to recover to make the out.
Ugly, ugly, baseball.
And how about this act of weirdness.. 7th inning, 2 outs, Jurrgens just beat out a grounder to Sanchez and was at first, and with a 2-2 count on Johnson, Maholm stepped off the rubber and then threw to the plate. The pitch was initially called a ball and not until Bobby Cox started letting the umpire crew have a few choice words did they get together and declare the pitch to be a balk.
Bizarre stuff.. first time in my life I’ve ever seen that before. Maholm balk
In the 8th with the Bucs up 1-0, Grabow relieved Maholm. Infante reached on yet another infield hit, Diaz fouled out to Adam LaRoche, McCann struckout, Francouer singled to left with Infante stopping at first, and then John Russell went out to get Grabow. After talking a minute, Russell walked back to the dugout without Grabow. More weirdness, but it worked out because Prado crushed a line drive that Vasquez picked off the dirt somehow.
Unbelieveable luck, all game long.
Offensively it was no different, but can be explained a bit easier. Moss hit a fly ball to deep left center that Schafer misplayed off the wall allowing Moss to turn a double into a triple (Sanchez hit one over Schafer’s head in the first he played too close to the wall on too and allowing Sanchez a triple instead of a double but he was stranded). Andy LaRoche then ground one sharply to second and Moss scored.
That was our only run, until the 8th that is. Mike Gonzalez came out to pitch and made Morgan look like chump change striking him out, Sanchez then drilled a line drive back through the box for a single, and then we got to see one of Gonzo’s old traits we used to hate so much – when he has to pitch out of the stretch, he typically gives up the farm. And boy, did he.
The first pitch to McLouth missed the plate and then the second pitch was a letter high fastball right down broadway and, with McLouth looking fastball all the way, he pulled it into the right field seats for a two-run blast. Weirdness again because McLouth was chasing changeups all over the plate all night long he couldn’t get a handle on and then Gonzo drilled a fat one right down the plate.
Yep, the once-a-week meal plan for McLouth.. a mistake pitch put over the fence.
Capps came out and finished the game off and Maholm walked away with his second win of the year and only his third over his last ten quality starts (going back to August) with an ERA under 2.60. Talk about dealing.
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Game of inches.. Casey Kotchman up with the bases full in the second and he lined a Maholm low and away offspeed pitch down the third base line that was foul by about three inches and would have cleared the bases for sure. Instead, he popped up harmlessly and you could tell right there Lady Luck was running with us. BTW, Kotch’s kid doesn’t look anything like he did three years ago.. all the illness and family problems have obviously taken quite a toll on him over the years.
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The Braves badly need a center fielder and they should talk to the Bucs to get Morgan or McLouth.
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Vasquez in for Wilson who was a late scratch.. bruised left middle finger is what they are telling us, but I’m not so sure. Me ‘tinks ‘der might be som’ting happenin’ with Jackie Flashy, although I haven’t heard any rumor at all. Just a gut feeling thing.
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Paul Maholm has the second lowest ERA in the game as a southpaw since May 8, 2008, behind Santana. He’s also in the top ten of all pitchers.
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Base stealers are 6 for 6 against us so far this year.
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The Bucs picked up Michael Dubee for Andy Phillips today. He’s got an intriguing arm and is still young, but isn’t expected to be much more than 3A fodder.
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Hey, so what happened to all the Neil Walker love now that his batting average is heading toward Mendoza’ville? LOL The true rakers we have in 3A, Salazaar, McCutchen, and Diaz, are all around .300 or better. Ford will get there too but we’ll have to let him heal before he’s going to start putting up some good numbers.
Oh yeah, and they lost yet again in Indy.
And so did Altoona (that’s what, three or four hits last 17 innings or so down there?).
Lynchburg won behind a strong outing by Chen and it appears all that league is going to do is walk Pedro Alvarez every at bat. I’m not sure he’s ever going to amount to anything walking all the time.
And in West Virginia where we have piled all our pure hitters so Ogden Nutting can go watch the show, we won again behind the youngster Alvarado.
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Here’s a little video on Delwyn Young playing second base:
I watched all 90+ plate appearances that he played second at and only found two of them where he embarrassed himself. He made almost all routine plays but I should stress his range was not that great (less than Sanchez) and his instincts raw, but Perry Hill can certainly help there. The Dodgers knew not to expose him too much so he started just one game.
Simply put, he’s not around to be a middle infielder without a considerable amount of polish. Actually, I don’t have a clue why he’s around unless we’re close to dealing someone. There’s been better names on the wire we’ve passed over for some reason.
By Jake, on April 16, 2009, at 10:19 pm | Comments are closed
I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t even bother to watch the game today after looking at the lineup and knowing Randy Marsh was behind the plate. Karstens on the mound, Doumit sitting, Burnett scheduled for innings.. just not the kind of game that warranted a lot of attention.
But I did like the way Russell and Huntington shuffled Wilson to the two-hole, Sanchez three, and Adam LaRoche fifth with McLouth ahead of him to try and get him thinking about baseball after his big money deal jump started. That almost had a sabermetric feel to it. Too bad it didn’t work since Sanchez and Wilson seemed to take the day off at the plate. And you know, as much as Morgan has gotten on base this year it sure hasn’t helped much in the runs department. So much for OBP in the one-hole when there’s a burnt out clutch in two, three, and four.
Karstens with five walks. That’s a frikin’ joke with Gorzelanny down in 3A. Yeah, the joke’s on the fans. Oh, and Gorzelanny too. Expect Gorzo back up around, oh… May 6th or 7th against St. Louis. Anybody wanna bet? And Burnett gave up the farm.. that’s what happens when he gets exposed to right hand batters.
Our pen is a disaster.
So we ended up winning the first game and losing the next two as I stated would probably happen last weekend. Talk about luck, huh? I mean, we’re so hard to figure out it’s almost getting too easy.
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Now the Braves come to town after facing the Marlins starters and getting spanked three straight. Don’t expect them to roll over but their pitching hasn’t exactly been worth a hoot lately either.
Maholm vs Jurrgens is a tough game to call. Vegas gives the edge to Atlanta, but barely. I don’t see it that way – I think we get blown out. Here’s why..
Jurrgens has been getting crushed by left hand batters so I suspect we’ll score a few runs on him but the way the Pirates have been executing their offensive game plans has been by looking at when a pitcher is typically the most vulverable and then going to work. The problem with Jurrgens is, that’s not until the third time through the order or around the 70 pitch mark so we’re most likely going to be on our heels the first few innings and then try to ramp it up third time through.
But that’s going to be too late, I’m afraid.. Maholm was a lot more vulnerable in his last two starts than the fans realize and the Braves scouting system has had time to adjust to his video – and habits – that wasn’t the case early on. He’s due to get rocked because, unfortunately, we don’t adjust until it’s too late. So look for Maholm to give up a few early runs and Jurrgens to settle in after giving up a bomb and a couple of his own. Then as the game gets later, our pen will get exposed as Maholm leaves about the 6th with a high pitch count and, well, we’ll get buried.
That’s how I see game one.
Reyes agaianst Snell will probably go to the Bucs.. I think Snell will pitch well in this game, and then Sunday’s game is Duke against Javier Vazquez who is all but certain to throw a good game but Duke will take a hit. That gives us another 1 of 3 series with a very strong possibility of being swept at home for the first time this year. (now watch us win all three. LOL)
I can’t wait to see Boom Boom (Mike Gonzalez) pitch again.
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Remember me begging the front office to deal McLouth over the winter when he was at the highest perceived value? Then we inked him to too much money, imo, now what do we have? And Snell?? Doumit’s been at least holding up but I gave him 60 days before he’d be on the DL. We’ll see.
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Donnie who? What a waste of a roster spot.
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Brad Lincoln pitched five innings allowing one run on five hits while striking out six. Unfortunately, the Curve were no-hit until the bottom of the ninth when “Jose Tobata hustled out what could have been a game ending double to play to keep the Curve alive. Jamie Romak then broke up the no hitter with a double down the left field line before closer Brett Jensen closed the door on the Curve’s rally.”
The quotes are from the Curve’s media relations team.
The Curve dropped to 0-7 and they continue their “worst season start to date and now has its longest losing streak since a 10 game skid back in May of 2007. The Curve will try to get its elusive first win on Friday night against the SeaWolves, who improved to 5-0 against the Curve this season, when 6’7 right hander Jared Hughes takes the mound for his second start of the season. Hughes has yet to allow a hit this season, with six innings pitched and only one walk. Erie will throw right hander Brooks Brown who has one start on the year and also sports a 0.00 ERA.”
Brian Friday is hitting around .500 – the rest of their starters are all at .250 or less with five of the eight position players below the Mendoza line.
What a disaster.
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The Indians won just their third game of the year behind Tom Gorzelanny (5 innings, 8 hits with 1 HR, 2 earned runs, 3 strikeouts, 3 walks, 89 pitches) who tossed against a pretty limited Louisville lineup. Neil Walker’s two-run blast in the 6th gave them the win even though Meek decided he wanted to walk a third of the batters he faced in two frames. Home plate ump was Justin Vogel who I saw in the Florida State League a couple of years ago and had a pitcher’s zone then but who knows now. I didn’t see the game so I don’t know if our problems were related to him, Diaz, or just poor command. Maybe a touch of all three.
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Ok, so who gets jettisoned off the 25-man so we can add the one, the only, Delwyn Young? My-oh-my. I suppose we’ll pull a “put someone on the DL” trick for the short-term. Just a guess.
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I’m not getting a good feel on this year’s draft.. everything’s running together after the first tier which will be long depleted by the time we pick. I was on Crow last year and it could be that if he comes on strong in May and June he’s be the one to grab but, of course, we won’t go that route. Tough, tough decisions this year. Not a lot of true tooly talent.
By Jake, on April 16, 2009, at 8:28 am | Comments are closed
Hard drive crash last night – sorry for the delay posting.
Evidently the Astros closed door meeting after Monday’s game helped because they rocked Ohlendorf yesterday. Even though the end result was just eight hits and four runs, it could have been sixteen hits and eight runs just as easy because even the outs were crushed off him. Yet, without two errors (no calls), the Astros would have only scored two runs.
Bourn led off the game with a four-pitch walk and then Tejada bounced a slow roller down the third base line that Andy LaRoche was slow to and, even though he made a nice play on it and threw a rocket to his bro at first, Adam didn’t stretch out for the throw and Tejada was called safe in a bang-bang play. He should have been out if we weren’t going through the motions. Berkman then hammered a line drive to Morgan in left that he was quick to and that loaded the bases. Lee drove a hanging sinker to the fence in left missing a granny by about ten feet but good enough to bring in Bourne and all the other runners to advance a base, and then Pence hit a fly ball to McLouth that he dang near misplayed but handled allowing another run to score.
In the second Rodriguez absolutely crushed a line drive at LaRoche at third he picked about a foot off the ground, Kepplinger hammered a line drive straight at Morgan who broke in a few feet, then back and the ball went over his head for a double (those kind of plays should be called errors), and Hampton came up and put the first rather easy ball in play that went to Andy LaRoche who gloved it and threw low to Adam who had to take it off the dirt for the out. In Hampton’s at bat, Ohlendorf bounced one in front of Doumit who attempted to block it but didn’t, the ball went through his legs headed for the backstop but he got lucky in that it hit off the heel of his foot and bounced back in front of him which froze Kepplinger, or he would have moved up to third. Thankfully, Braun struckout to end the threat.
The third was much the same — it opened with Tejada smoking one down to LaRoche at third that went off his glove into left for a single (a ball he has to make a play on), Berkman then just missed a home run to right with his double high off the chain fence wall that moved Tejada to third, and then Lee hammered lined one off the left field wall bringing them both home.
Kerrigan must have finally figured out Ohlendorf wasn’t staying in long enough thereby leaving his fastball and all his offspeed pitches hanging up in the zone, so he walked out to give his tweak and then walked back and the net result was three straight groundballs, one that had eyes but the third that went for a double play. Same thing in the fourth, a 1-2-3 inning.
The fifth opened with Ohlendorf back up in the zone - Tejada hit a line drive to right center McLouth left his feet for (why, I have no idea because he was fifteen or twenty feet from the ball running a side-to-side route instead of going back to cut the ball off), the ball ran to the wall, and Tejada ended up with a double. Berkman hit a sharp grounder to Sanchez that he booted and then recovered on to get him, and then more weirdness – Lee’s second strike was so high and outside Doumit had to extend his glove hand up and away for but home plate ump James Hoye, after a solid second to a second and one-half delay, called the pitch a strike and Lee became irate and walked off. Ohlendorf bounced the next pitch to the plate with Lee swinging in desperation and struck out. Very strange at bat.. very strange. The inning ended when Pence made an out.
The rest of the game was more of the same - balls in play off our relievers were mostly hammered but went for outs. Despite not having the best day in left, Morgan did lay out making a nice catch in the 9th on Rodriguez’s line drive that was tailing away from him. I suspect that will be on a highlight reel somewhere.
Hampton pitched a nice game as I suspected he would against us. We had opportunities but no clutch. I suspect today’s game will be more of the same. Chock this loss up to Ohlendorf’s poor mechanics coming out of the pen to open and adjusting too late, and no bats.
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Monroe had a single in the game but he also had a couple of ugly at bats. The last one got me – he took two pitches down the heart of the plate belt high and then had to put a slider away in play which he ground into a double play. Where’s Moss?
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Jack Wilson was a late scratch with an index finger problem and not because it was drizzling with a 43 degree temp.
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Andy LaRoche was spelled by Vasquez in a double switch when Chavez came in. Unless the young man is hurt, which certainly didn’t look the case, then I just don’t get the benching in favor of the aging, overpriced, veteran player even with LaRoche playing poor.
Let him play, let him play, let him play.
Wins are not important – getting good looks are so we can start to think about wins next year. Remember Ramirez that we all boo’d so bad when he came up and booted everything? We’ve got the exact same thing going on now expect LaRoche isn’t gettng consecutive innings like Ramirez got.
Let him play – we’ll suck it up as fans.
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Speaking of no bats, the Pirates have scored 29% of all runs this year (10 of 35) in the 9th inning — four of them were comeback runs against Motte in St. Louis and the rest scored in games one team had in control - five against Lincoln and the Reds and one against Velverde yesterday (LaRoche’s home run). Also, of the 71 innings played so far we’ve scored at least one run in 16, and more than one run in 60% of those (9 of 16). That means we’ve been blanked in 55 of the 71 innings.
Ironically, every other game we are getting shut down — just two runs in those last three games (opposing ERA of 0.67) and five runs in those last four (opposing ERA of 1.25). The rest of the time we are mauling some pretty suspect pitching (opposing ERA of 7.71).
So if that keeps up we should end the year at around .500, right? Don’t hold your breath.
Oh, and after we torched Moehler the other day for five or six runs, he was put on the DL.
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Man, do we have a pitching depth problem in our system.
By Jake, on April 14, 2009, at 7:16 pm | Comments are closed
So let’s take a look how we’re doing so far against my projected ’09 record:
We’re projected to win 9 games in April and have already won 4 and that was based on 22 games being played with a winning percentage of .410 for the month. Since one game was cancelled, we’re still expected to win 8.6 games so we’ll just keep our projected 9.
Last three years we have a .416 winning percentage against the three teams we’ve played so by the end of Thursday’s game I expected us to have 3.2 wins, but we’ve already passed that. So very early in we are +1 win based on our expected record and could go to +3 if we sweep the Astros.
Then we play the Braves, Marlins, Padres, and Brewers for 12 games who we have a .364 winning percentage last three against which suggests another possible 4 wins.
So let’s assume we split the remaining two games with the Astros, win 4 of the next 12, and combine that with our first 4 wins, that would give us 9 wins on the month – exactly what we expect. So knowing we are +1 win now, but we’re on pace to be -0 wins by the end of the month, you probably get a good feel for how hard the next four series will be for us.
And how important they are.
I don’t have to tell you the Braves are a vastly improved club this year, or that we were swept every series in Milwaukee last year, or how hard it is to play the Padres in their home park. That’s not an easy schedule by any means, but there is some light. The Brewers pitching is suspect and the Padres don’t have all the wonderful arms they have had, so perhaps we can sneak by with a .500 record the next 14 games to close the month?
That’s pretty optimistic, you say? Sure it is. But don’t look now – we’ve allowed the fewest runs in the NL so far even though we’ve played one team on their heels, another on their back, and the Cards who we happened to hit at the right time. We’ve been pretty fortunate so far.
Let’s hope Lady Luck remains with us awhile longer.
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Jo-Jo Reyes will pitch for Glavine Saturday against the Pirates.
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Neil Walker could be only days away from his MLB debut. Easily the most heralded Pirate in more than a decade Walker has started the season strong in “AAA” Indianapolis.
Something I thought was pretty neat.. as of Monday morning before the games, there had been 1,721 pitches right down the heart of the plate in baseball so far this year. 629 were put in play resulting in a .331 batting average (208-629) and 370 total bases (.588 SLG) from 32 home runs, 5 triples, 56 doubles, and 115 singles.
Now if you think about that a second you might come to the conclusion that that’s about 2 HR per 9 innings and one in three batters getting a hit.
But that’s also two outs every three at bats too. Think about it.
Coonelly: I think it’s deeper than that. Look, the Steelers are a given here, whether they’ve just won the Super Bowl or not. Their fans are showing up for every game, they’re going to have their sponsors who’ve been with them for years. The fact that they just won the Super Bowl doesn’t mean they’re suddenly swooping in and taking a bunch of our fans. Their fans are heavily invested in following the Steelers, win, lose, or draw.
Page 2: But I’m not suggesting that you and the Steelers are competing for the same customer in a zero-sum situation. I don’t mean that if they gain a fan, you have to lose one. I see it more as an attitudinal thing, where a fan gets used to a certain level of performance — good in their case, bad in yours — and how that can affect sales.
DePaoli:I don’t hear that: “How come you’re not as good as the Steelers?” We don’t see that.
Puh-lease.
The only reason they may not hear it is because the other 1MM fans who would be saying it are long gone.
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Baseball Fans Give Back is a movement calling for the boycotting of all professional baseball games this Friday calling awareness to the steroids issue. Their goal is worthy – take the $13 bucks you would have spent at a game and give it to a charity and donate the two hours you would have been at the game to a cause in your community.
Unfortunately they state they are doing this in honor of Roberto Clemente, but I found that ‘honor’ to be tasteless and rather offensive as a Pirates fan.
By Jake, on April 14, 2009, at 1:46 am | Comments are closed
And I thought the Reds had some problems. Wow. Well, Mr. Duke pitched a nice game in front of a fired up opening day crowd.. a four-hit shutout. That’s the kind of game I expect from him when he’s pitching at PNC Park where he can throw with confidence. And he did just that – he worked both sides of the plate, he mixed his pitches well, and kept Astros batters off balanced using different speeds and arm slots.
Zach Duke pitched well.
Brian Moehler didn’t. He took the mound looking like he didn’t want to be there, perhaps drawn out some by the length of the opening day festivities. Several times he looked in at home plate ump Mike Winters in disbelief, and one time stood looking at him square for a couple of seconds before walking slowly around the mound shaking his head. He felt he was getting pinched but it didn’t matter – anything he threw close to the plate got hammered. This was not the Brian Moehler of old.
But it was classical Astros poor early year play.
It had to be more than a decade ago when I first started noticing the Astros breaking camp and losing three-quarters of their games over the first month. It doesn’t happen every year but they are a slow starting club and have been for years. 2009 is no different. They looked pathetic on the field, in the box, and even in the dugout. Honestly, they looked worse than our late-year 2005 club laying out on McClendon, and that was pretty ugly.
Duke pitched well but I have to tell you, he was also very hittable. Not only hittable, but early on he was very predictable. Somehow it got past Astros coaches because they never picked up on his patterns. Next time they face him watch them come hacking at that middle-middle first pitch fastball he frequently left over the heart of the plate. Sure, Duke’s quickened his arm speed throwing his four-seamer but the pitch was right there, flat as can be.
Ask Tejata – he was the only one able to see find (time?) it.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say Ed Wade is about to become unemployed. The signs are all there. But back to the game – in the first, Doumit’s seeing eye ground ball (crushed thru the right side) scored Sanchez from third who had doubled off the right centerfield wall and moved to third on McLouth’s deep fly to Michaels in center.
Then in the third we went like horses do – all going together as streaky teams do. Sanchez pulled a goundball down the third base line for a double, McLouth pulled one down the first base line for a single scoring Sanchez, Doumit field out, LaRoche hit a home run to right a few rows in, Moss lined a single off the right field wall, and then the Astros went out and got Moehler who was complaining of a knee problem.
Byrdak came in but it wouldn’t have mattered if it was Nolan Ryan at that point – two consecutive walks later and the bases full, Duke ground out to third forcing Moss out at home, and then Morgan hit his first ground ball on the day right to Tejata who decided not to glove it allowing two more runs to score. Sanchez then made the third out.
So with a new five-spot on the board to go with the one run in the first, and knowing their pen was already depleted entering the game, the Astros simply packed it in from that point forward just wanting to get out of the park.
Oh – and so did we, for the most part. While we streaked together in the third, we did little else the rest of the game except for Doumit’s bomb in the 8th. I mean, we were not getting good at bats against some pretty poor relievers. Perhaps that’s expected since hitters usually take a dump a week or two after breaking camp.
Folks will call this a blowout – and it was on paper, but it really wasn’t a quality game. Nice result, though.. we’ll take it.
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Andy LaRoche not in the lineup opening day was totally unacceptable. I saw the report he’s receiving treatment for his back but the report in spring training said that will continue the rest of his baseball days, so big deal. We can’t write LaRoche off as a platoon player – that’s insane. He’s GOT to play, and he’s got to play now.
Very poor decision by the front office.
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Doumit took a Lee foul off his throwing hand thumb that might be a little worse than it looked:
We’ll have to see if he’s in Wednesday’s lineup because it was quite a shot and he was still stinging two innings later. Gotta love his mechanics, huh?
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Nate McLouth received his Gold Glove on opening day..
Oh, and misplayed yet another fly ball this season over his head. Nope, no E called on this one either but he did hit the wall hard so everyone could feel sorry that he dropped it. Keeping track Mr. Dewan?
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Remember Jack Wilson’s good glovework the other day when he laid out and glove flipped a double play relay to Sanchez? Unless you were watching the replay real close you might have missed Perry Hill walking over to Wilson, removing his hat, and then shaking Wilson’s hand.
Now that’s old school respect. Very kewl stuff.
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I didn’t mention that Nyjer Morgan ran into two Reds running the basepaths in Cinci and then was hit by Harang on the last day. When he ran over Hernandez at the plate I thought that was a bit much since there wasn’t a play on him and Hernandez was standing around.. all he had to do was slide like any normal player. But he didn’t. I wasn’t impressed.
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Why is Zach Duke told to bunt with men on base almost every at bat when he’s 17-89 (.191) last two? Yeah, he’s raking up the outs stranding runners left and right, huh?
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Time to move McLouth to the eight hole and Jack “I love to bunt but I really suck at it” Wilson up to two? Yeah – you’re right.. Wilson has to stay where he is because we need to keep him happy and building value so we can at least try to get a rookie ball player in return for him this July.
We’re way too rigid with our lineups and have too many agendas to ever win consistently.
“Morris’ right shoulder injury, diagnosed as having significantly restricted range of motion though without structural damage…”
Yep, he’s probably going under the knife – you can bet on that. It’s just a matter of when. Anybody else think Mr. Moskos will be following him?
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Have we really won just one game from 2A up???? In fact, every single minor league affiliate is in last place except the Hillcats at 3-2. Yes that’s right, they have more wins in Lynchburg than our entire minor league system has from low 1A up.. combined!
Wow.
Maybe GI Joe (my symbol for our “new and improved” drill sergeant minor league development system) needs to meet an early death before the entire system collapses under the weight (if it hasn’t already)? Folks aren’t happy, players are getting hurt, nobody is responding, and now there’s talk about some brand spankin’ new field staff that may not hang around too long (much like we saw last year)..
BTW – true story being laughed talked about all over the circuit. The Pirates took a minor league locker during spring camp and placed it in the middle of the clubhouse and proceeded to tell every player where they had to put their personal items, their clothes including how to hang them, their tolietries, and so on and so forth. You know, like a toddler at summer camp is told? Ok, that’s a bit rough, but you get the idea.
