Lethargic Cubs can't get to Ohlendorf, Bucs win

Nice win for Ohlendorf.  He took advantage of having never been seen by Cubs batters and the fact they are down and out mentally right now and kept the ball down, all of which helped him to cruise.  His stuff wasn’t that good in my book mainly because of the number of mistake pitches up in the zone, but Cubs batters had very little patience at the plate and were swinging wildly at everything and anything he threw.   Funny thing, the Cubs came into Saturday night’s game with a .670 OPS last seven with only Soriano hitting well, but Ohlendorf plunked him second time up.  Plus, if the Cubs had not run themselves into outs the last two nights, I wonder how many runs they might have scored so far?

We are starting to witness why I didn’t want to see McCutchen brought up.  I mentioned earlier this year in my sleepers and foolers, and I mentioned it again when he was promoted, he has a hole the size of the grand canyon in his swing and now the league has started to adjust to it.  The Braves found it on June 8th late in the game and they held him 2-13 for the rest of the series, and I believe that is the video other clubs are looking at.  In his last 31 AB’s he’s gone 5-31 (.161) with a putrid .513 OPS and just one extra base hit and what makes that even more concerning is the fact all those AB’s have been at spacious PNC.  And it’s not like he’s hitting the ball well and they aren’t falling in, he’s simply not getting wood for the most part and now looks to be starting to guess too much.

Considering Huntington’s immediate plan is to continue to increase Sanchez’s value, I doubt we’ll see Cutch moved from the leadoff spot, but he should be.  Maybe 7th in front of Wilson while Long works on his ability to recognize and then hit offspeed stuff away.  Since we know that won’t happen, maybe sit him Thursday before he heads off to Miami where family will be watching because he has a very hard road trip coming up to have to adjust to.  Fortunately three of the games are against younger Marlins pitchers who probably don’t watch too much film, and another three against tougher Phillies pitching seemingly incapable of winning in their home park.  Houston will not be fun for him.

And it looks like Huntington tipped his hand on how left field defense will play out in the immediate short-term.  It seems Moss will get most starts with Salazar getting the balance.  I assume Milledge is destined for Indy until he is pronounced 100% (after the break?).  Since we’ll be playing in Florida, Houston, and Philly parks until the break, Moss should be ok for the most part since all those left fields are about 14% smaller than PNC’s.  Then after the break I’m guessing Milledge will take over in right. 

It’s an ugly outfield defensive scheme which relies too much on fly ball pitching, so don’t be too surprised if you see more yard balls given up in their attempt to difuse the lack of fielding ability behind the pitchers.

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I was speaking with someone familiar with our player development system tonight who brought up a perspective on the Morgan trade I hadn’t considered.  Neal Huntington and Frank Coonelly have released, traded away, or demoted 40-man roster players who had developed makeup issues, they have released or traded away prospects who couldn’t/didn’t conform, and they have prided themselves in stocking plus-makeup prospects to no end.  In other words, they have refused to deal with anyone who doesn’t buy in.  End of story, see you later. 

So if the Gorzelanny vs Kerrigan issue represented tote bag size baggage, and Snell represents a duffel bag size problem, then Milledge represents a five-piece Samsonite set on steroids.  Think about it – if Snell and his 100+ starts was run out of town for his whimpering, how the hell does Milledge even make it to Pittsburgh, much less stay there? 

He was right, the deal doesn’t make any sense in that regard.  So he wonders, is Milledge going to be turned around and packaged off as an throw-in here shortly?  He thinks so and I think he has a point, although I wonder how much of a PR hit the Pirates will take if they do that now? 

As for Hanrahan, I’m told by several sources the Pirates better run an MRI on him because they will be shocked if his labrum looks any better than what they passed up with Scheppers.  If Huntington is getting calls for him, then he better not hesitate to make a deal.

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Did we really pay $1.1M for 106 at bats and 11 rbis from Eric Hinske and two minor league fillers in Casey Erickson and Eric Fryer ???!!??  Good gosh, I had no idea we paid $400k to the Yankees in that deal.  Did we get screwed or what?  Oh wait, Nutting actually pocketed $400k since Hinske was due $1.5M.  Now I get it.

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So, Alvarez was sidelined with tendinitis in his knee after a little collision?  Hmm.. remember when he didn’t sign last year until well past the deadline and I kept wondering if he had an injury which he might be trying to cover up with the drawn out negotiations?  That knee couldn’t have been in too good of shape to bark so easily so I wonder, is it possible he hasn’t been 100% since day 1?  Maybe that’s why he reported to ST overweight - so he had an excuse to fall back on?

Sure, all of this is way out there but things just aren’t adding up with Alvarez.

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FWIW,  David Pinto at Baseball Musings questions the Pirates making the Morgan trade;  Dave Cameron at Fan Graphs/Wall Street Journal/USS Mariner questions us in the Morgan deal;  Dan Szymborski at Baseball Think Factory wonders if Pittsburgh is the right stopping ground for Milledge much like my source above;  Rob Neyer questions the deal on makeup issues as well;  even RJ Anderson over at Beyond the Boxscore says what Neyer purports to say, that Morgan is already better than Milledge but he likes the deal because of Hanrahan; and as you might expect, John Perrotto (who is paid indirectly by Robert Nutting) is pleasantly surprised by the talent the Pirates acquired.

Those are some pretty talented baseball bloggers and writers talking, so I’m not the only one in the ‘this wasn’t exactly a smart trade’ camp.  Bottom line appears to be for all of us, if Milledge pans out (or is ultimately dealt for something better) and Hanrahan’s shoulder remains attached, then the Bucs win.  Until that happens, the Bucs lose.  And let’s not lose focus on cost – is Bob Nutting going to pay Milledge the equivalent of about $14M over the next three years for a .261 BA, .726 OPS corner who is stuck playing right field carrying more baggage than a JetBlue flight has in its holds these days? 

And let us also not forget that, once again, Pittsburgh Pirates players came out in the national media crying foul over this recent trade.  Considering we are still trying to sign draft picks and still working to get potential Latin signees under wrap, that’s not a good sign.  Throw in yet another player agent coming out in defense of his client (Joe Sroba in defense of Snell), and folks, we have the makings of a daytime soap opera going on around this club. 

We HAVE to stabilize things.

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The Pirates had their first winning June since 1996.  That’s a major plus but not unexpected considering the number of series we had against some unexpected poor teams this month.  Pitching has been excellent, as has defense.

So let’s see where we are.

Historically we were expected to be at 31-48 through June but we are actually 36-41, or +5 wins with two games to be made up.  That puts us on a 72 win season pace based on historical expectations.

But based on our current winning percentage, we’re on pace to win about 75 games which is about where I thought we would end up.  Huntington mentioned the other day that the schedule gets harder from here on out but I disagree with him some.. I think it gets easier overall.