What a pitcher’s duel at Miller Park Wednesday.  Snell pitched very well but Gallardo was better.  I didn’t expect Snell to pitch as well as he did – I admit that.  In fact, I thought he’d get crushed because the last game he pitched he was back up in the zone and unwilling to bury his slider in the dirt.  That didn’t happen – he was low in the zone and consistently bounced a very tight slider on the dirt all day.  And I don’t just mean a tight slider, but one of those 60 to 65 type of pitches you hear scouts rave about.  It was on.  His fastball command wasn’t on, and his change up is still a little league offering he’s throwing way too much, but his slider was sweet.

But so was Gallardo’s stuff.  Man was Gallardo on.  He has one of the hardest hooks (power slurve?) to pick up I’ve ever seen.  His arm and body action makes it look like a fastball until you see the ball tumbling softly out of his hand and by that time it’s too late – it freezes you as it bends five feet. Tough stuff.  If he commands that pitch all year and spots his fastball like he did today, he’s going to be a 15 game winner – easily. 

All you can do is tip your hat to him.  But be sure to tip it Snell’s way too – he pitched an excellent game.

Not more than three innings into this game I started receiving e-mails about the strike zone being called by Marty Foster.  And after Adam LaRoche made some comments to the media after the game about Foster seemingly favoring Gallardo, my in-box lit up.  

My response to everyone is this – Karstens set the tone for this series when he threw under Looper’s chin twice Monday when trying to bunt, then hit Braun in the numbers on his back.  If you are going to play old school baseball, then you better expect the umpires to play that way too and the fact is, they don’t like being placed in the middle of it all.  Brush batters back, make them move their feet, even toss some high heat, but don’t intentionally throw at the body.  If you do, don’t expect the man in blue to come to your rescue. 

And he didn’t all series long.

But, you know, who cares where the strike zone was anyway?  There was probably only two guys in our lineup who even saw Gallardo’s pitches well enough to know when to swing, much less where to swing.  You can’t win games with bats on your shoulder so I have a hard time giving any sympathy to our guys because they think Gallardo’s  zone was huge.  They failed to make an adjustment – you know, like swing the bat.  LOL

Oh, and we see Gallardo again next Monday in Pittsburgh.  Will we have a new excuse then?

The e-mails I received also questioned Snell being allowed to throw 131 pitches.  You know I’m a pitch count freak and I agree, Snell throwing +39 pitches over his last outing is a bit much, but I watched the game close and I never saw him give any signs he was in trouble so I don’t have any issue with Kerrigan taking him that deep.  Plus, Snell is well beyond my personal pitch count red flag area of less than 500 professional innings.. it’s about time he goes deeper.

For those wondering, here’s a quick snapshot of his velocity over the 7 frames.  As you can see, he threw 65 fastballs, 28 sliders, and the rest change ups.  The chart simply shows velocity over time based on the per pitch type thrown.

You’ll also notice he was still throwing mid-90′s late so it’s hard to fault Kerrigan for letting him go so long.  Perhaps an argument could be made that when he overthrew his pitches (early and late) he didn’t find the plate as well as he did in the middle, but perhaps the speed changes were also intended? 

Would I have pushed him that long?  Yes, if our goal is to deal Snell for some youth this year which it should be.  No, if Huntington’s goal is to keep him around a few more years, regardless of being outside my red flag innings.  And, let’s not forget he has a history of back and elbow problems so it’s not what happened today that makes a difference, it’s what happens down the road that matters.

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I suppose I should take a minute to talk about Snell and Diaz not communicating very well in the first inning.  It got so bad that Snell pointed his finger at his head looking at Diaz which really upset me as a fan.  Diaz is a rookie and if he was making rookie mistakes, who does Snell think he is to call him out in front of everyone like that instead of asking him to come to the mound and speaking to him privately?  That was bush league.

I hope John Russell or Neal Huntington put a foot up Snell’s – well, gives Snell a little boot where it counts because he had no business to treat the young man like that.  In fact, if Diaz’s glovework hadn’t been as slick as it was, Snell would never have had the great game he did because Diaz bailed him numerous times blocking sliders in the dirt well in front of home plate. 

Man we have some selfish players on our roster.

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Tabata out four to six weeks, they are saying.  Well, the negative to that is that his injury is something that can flare up all his professional days (think Nady), so that’s not good.  The positive to this is that it probably happened at a good time because with all the legal issues around him right now, he needs some space.  Say a prayer for him.

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I really don’t like talking about this article because I believe it was written only to incite links back to the newspaper (thus you won’t see one here), but Bob Smizik’s latest article “In defense of Bob Nutting” is so far out there, it deserves an award for the biggest piece of crap written by a professional newspaper blogger of all time.

Smizik attempts to pursuade Pirates’ fans that Bob Nutting had nothing to do with the downfall of the Pirates.  In defense he states:

“He officially has been the principal owner of the Pirates since January of 2007. Prior to that, he had some influence since his family was a major stockholder in the team. But as best can be determined he was not making major baseball-related decisions.”  emphasis added here

Now don’t let Smizik’s double-talk take you off the beaten path.  He wants you to focus on the fact Nutting didn’t make baseball-related decisions, but nowhere in his article did he tell you Bob Nutting has been Chairman of the Board of the Pirates since 2003.  Nor did Smizik tell you that the Nutting family held voting control of the Board after Kevin McClatchy ‘pawned’ one of his two votes to the Nuttings. 

Kevin McClatchy was, in essence, the president of the corporation and until the fans are ever provided documentation of anything to the contrary, McClatchy then served at the pleasure of the Board (that the Nuttings controlled).  That means anything McClatchy did was done with Nutting approval since Bob and Ogden Nutting could have just pushed Kevin aside any time they wanted.

And they did just that in other areas like, oh, we saw employees fired among other things like refusing to input their own cash when the franchise needed it the most – (ie: see the dumping of Ramirez and all the drafts subsequent to that).

Then Smizik gives his personal laundry list of reasons to like Bob Nutting.  Puh-lease Bobby, save your breath.  We can list twice as many negative things about the Nutting clan in Pirates circles than you’ll ever be able to dream up on the positive side. 

Smizik then says:

“As near as I can tell, Nutting is running what amount to something close to a textbook operation for low-revenue teams. “

Agreed.  The Nuttings are raking hand-over-fist.. it’s textbook. 

“Rant if you want, but the Pirates have been awful for any number or reasons but nowhere chief among them is the failures of Bob Nutting.”

The Pirates failure has been the direct result of the Nutting family’s unwillingness to act.  Here’s a little corporation law 101 for you Mr. Smizik: 15 Pa.C.S.A. § 515:

 § 515. Exercise of powers generally  

(a) General rule.–In discharging the duties of their respective positions, the board of directors, committees of the board and individual directors of a domestic corporation may, in considering the best interests of the corporation, consider to the extent they deem appropriate:

  (1) The effects of any action upon any or all groups affected by such action, including shareholders, members, employees, suppliers, customers and creditors of the corporation, and upon communities in which offices or other establishments of the corporation are located.  

End of one very biased written story.

BTW, hey Mr. Smizik, does your newspaper still have a free luxury suite at PNC???  You go Bob. You go.