I was only able to see the last few innings of the game Thursday night so I didn’t see LaRoche’s one hop throw Doumit wasn’t able to glove, wasn’t able to see the home runs we gave up early in the game, and wasn’t able to see Doumit swing the bat to see if his right wrist looks to be ailing. What I did see was Doumit scoop up a Crosby throw that was in the dirt thrown off his wrong foot, Donnelly give up a home run late, and some pathetic swings in the box by our guys.

Oh, and I saw the stat that said this was the first Nats series sweep of the year. That was ugly to read. We’ve won just 3 of our last 14 for what has to be a record-low .214 winning percentage over 9% of the schedule this year under this regime.

We play 12 of the next 18 on the road to close out June. Now remember, we have a .227 winning percentage on the road over our last 75 road games so if we assume 3 wins out of the next 12 on the road, and we assume we play .500 ball in the remaining 6 at home for another 3 wins, that will give as 29 wins to close out the month of June and one win short of where I expected them to be. Big picture? We play 18 of our next 28 on the road and all of them either inter-league or division rivals.

It’s not a pretty picture.

And look closer at the second-half of our schedule – it gets easier and easier as time goes by so you would expect the Pirates front office to hold back Alvarez until after the All-Star break, if they bring him up at all before September. That may not happen since they already jumped started Lincoln in typical Bob Nutting sell-tickets-knee-jerk-fashion, so there you go.

Now we head to Detroit and have to face Verlander in game one. That’s going to seem like a piece of cake after facing Strasburg, huh? The good news is Verlander hasn’t exactly been on top of his game lately, the Tigers have been having a hard time seeing the ball from right-hand pitchers, and the biggest fault in this Tigers roster has been letting down in what appears to be an easy contest.

The line in Vegas in this game is off the charts but it might be a good game to take a little risk with the Pirates.. hint-hint. I better also tell you that as many meatballs Ohlendorf threw over the plate in his last few starts you could eat for an entire year, but somehow batters didn’t find them so who knows – he either gets absolutely hammered or he keeps us close. Flip-a-coin.. but before you flip know that the Bucs are 1-11 in Ohlendorf’s last 12 road starts despite many of them being close games. Ouch.

We face Bonderman Saturday night and we should hit him a little harder but the bad thing about it is, Maholm is his mound opponent and about the only thing the Tigers are doing consistently this year is crushing southpaws. And I mean crushing, especially lately. Then Karstens against Galarraga who, as you surely have heard, has been lights out recently. Funny thing, the Tigers will probably field a “B” lineup Sunday so if you were to take another risk in Vegas..

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The Curve were no-hit by the Harrisburg Senators Friday night. Rudy Owens took the loss. The only batter to reach base was Chase d’Arnaud and he was immediately erased when Hernandez hit into a double play. Chuck James started that game off for the Senators.

The Curve send Bryan Morris to face off against Kyle Gibson Friday night. Now that should be a good game.

Alvarez continued his hitting way against the suspect Pawtucket pitching staff by going 2-3 Thursday. He should continue to wail the ball over the next nine games before he finally sees some better pitching.

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I had an interesting e-mail from a reader who is probably related to Bryan Morris somehow but I really liked the aggressive thinking they suggested. They were wondering if Morris should be promoted to make Sunday’s start against the Tigers. Not because they believe he’s 100% ready, not because he matches up pretty good in that slot over the next few games before the break, but because the Pirates took the liberty of moving Lincoln when they did and Morris is arguably throwing better than Lincoln was. Besides, they went on to say, before the Pirates trade Maholm and/or Duke as speculated this July, why not give this rotation a chance before pulling the plug.

My initial reaction was – that’s insane.. I’m not an advocate of starting clocks for players who don’t have a support system around or behind them. Then I asked three scouts who have watched Morris throw this year – all of them previously affiliated – if he could survive and all three were quick to say his stuff is better than any of the starters in Pittsburgh. Bar none. He’s raw, but he’s a competitor they said. When I questioned his lack of a workload the last few years, one (good) scout suggested that the Pirates will probably take him to 150 innings this year anyway as long as he stays healthy.

I went back to thinking – how far off is Morris in the Pirates FO eyes? A June 2011 call up would probably be a good guess, as long as he continues to dominate at each level and remains healthy. So I asked the scouts to crosscheck the Eastern League Morris will likely face over the next few months and they all believe he’s going to dominate the talent he’ll see. His real challenge will come at triple-A and even then it’s not like there is a lot of talent.

Hmm.. unquestionably there is a lot more stress throwing at the major league level, and unquestionably Morris will have to be shut down later in the year, so if he’s really not going to be challenged in double-A and the Pirates main concern of starting his clock too early as a possible super-two candidate could be resolved by shutting him down in September and having him spend April in triple-A in 2011 (thereby getting the additional year as well), heck, why not bring him up?

I mean, the Pirates already went off the roadmap by adding Lincoln so surely Alvarez is days away in their mind,and since I can’t get my personal fan wish of a wave building in triple-A over the next year or more, bringing up Morris makes about as much sense as everything else they are doing right now.

So, bring up Morris. Let’s get him off the irregular mounds and busses in the minors and let him spend the next few months finishing his craft under the watchful eye of Joe Kerrigan. What the heck do we have to lose?

Tip of the hat to the writer for the thought. While the probability of Morris being brought out of double-A right now is about zilch, I have to admit you made some good points. In the scheme of things, I wouldn’t even consider it but neither would I have brought Lincoln out either.

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“Our scouts have consistently projected Clement to be an everyday major league contributor with the power to hit 20-plus home runs,” Pirates GM Neal Huntington said.” — ESPN, August 2009

Clement, of course, was just optioned to triple-A.

I was 100% behind the dumping of Jack Wilson last year, I was 100% behind the dumping of Ian Snell as well, and I was 100% behind bringing in Clement as a catcher. As a fan I didn’t know the extent of Clement’s injuries, plus I never got to see him play on the other coast and was in the dark on his true skill set, so I had to trust Huntington’s decision just like you when Clement was brought in as the main piece of the Wilson/Snell trade.

It was clear to see that Jeff Clement had a lot more problems than was advertised and the remaining pieces we picked up in that deal are basically org fillers down the road, so Huntington and his scouts who projected Clement need new evaluator licenses. Now it’s not like there was a huge market for Wilson and Snell but looking back today it’s pretty obvious that deal was a 100% salary dump and nothing more. Wilson had to go – the clubhouse demanded it. But I’m not in the camp that believes we couldn’t have received one serviceable player in return for both Snell and Wilson. Nor am I in the camp that believes Clement has any future with this club other than as a 4A player – his problems are too significant.

We took a beating on that trade even with Snell and Wilson floundering in Seattle because we don’t know what they would have done if they stayed in Pittsburgh. I mean, Snell was pitching better than Morton and Wilson was playing about as good as Cedeno. Would Wilson have got hurt with us? I don’t know. And to be brutally honest, even with Wilson’s junk year he’s doing better than Aki and Crosby and Wilson has as many rbi’s and extra base hits as Walker does (75 AB to 59 for Walker). Pea size sample alert, but there you go all the same. 

Were they worth keeping for $10MM? Obviously not – if anything, the Mariners took a bigger hit than we did since they had to pick up the money owed. But while Bob Nutting walked away with about $5MM in book savings, he very well might have lost more than $5MM in local trade considering all the Wilson fans, considering how poor Clement has done which has to have hurt his attendance figures a tick, and now with everyone questioning Coonelly’s ‘team’ and the evaluators we have, who knows what is in store down the road if this team doesn’t start winning some games.

Sometimes the obvious deals probably aren’t the ones that should be made. It’s a humbling game.

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Who is this guy named Joel Hanrahan? Oh my.. where did he come from? Stay tuned.

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You think there is any coincidence between Doumit starting at first one game before inter-league action? LOL.. talk about having a neon sign over him that says “I’m available – look me over!”