Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

The Pirates went to bed a happy bunch early Sunday morning, having scored a stirring 18-inning victory over the Houston Astros. A little more than 12 hours later, the joy of morning had turned into the gloom of afternoon with perhaps the most painful loss of this star-crossed season, 5-4 in 10 innings. The loss prevented the team's first series sweep in two years.

Oh, any one-run, extra-inning loss is tough to take, especially for a team 18 games under .500 that has an abysmal record in one-run games. But this one heaped an extra dollop of indignity on our bealeaguered bunch. The Pirates entered the ninth inning with a four-run lead, courtesy of two of the heroes from the previous night's marathon, Jason Bay (10th homer in 10 games) and Jose Bautista (three-run shot). Best of all, they had gotten eight dominant, shutout innings from the suddenly resurgent Oliver Perez, who had turned in his third straight strong performance. To top it off, the Astros were a reeling bunch, ready to rack up their sixth consecutive loss.

But this is the Pirates, a team that rarely finds success and seems to run from it when they are in danger of doing so. Perez had thrown 120 pitches, but manager Jim Tracy inexplicably decided to send him out for the ninth. Seven pitches later, two men were on, Perez was gone, and Mike Gonzales was brought in. Minutes later, two runs were in, Gonzales was gone, and it was left to the overused Salomon Torres to give up the remainder of the lead and then to post the loss in the tenth.

The Buccin' Ear noted in yesterday's post that one should resist the foolish temptation to view the victory on Saturday/Sunday as season turning. Just so with the Sunday afternoon defeat. It probably won't, as Bay said, "suck the life out of the team." After all, if 33 losses in 49 games hadn't done that, it's unlikely that one more would. Games like this happen to most teams once or twice during a season and as painful as they are, professionals move on to the next game. Baseball doesn't allow a lot of time for reflection, which is probably a good thing.

Still, Sunday's game focused the Buccin' Ear's attention anew on the managing of Jim Tracy. Several nights earlier this week, Tracy had withdrawn Perez after six shutout innings against Arizona, citing his high pitch count of 97. The Buccin' Ear then and now had no problem with that decision, even though the Pirates bullpen failed to hold that lead also. Perez is on his way back from a terrible first month and a half of the season, and his velocity has only slowly been coming back. Why risk a setback?

So what was Perez doing going back out after 120 pitches? Tracy noted that he had handled Mike Lamb and Morgan Ensberg throughout the previous eight innings, which was true. But Lamb and Ensberg are currently the Astros two best hitters, and it stands to reason that after seeing Perez three times each and with the pitcher probably losing a bit of his stuff, the odds of a hit or two weresignificantly higher than they were earlier in the game.

But that's second-guessing. What bothers the Buccin' Ear is Tracy's criticism of Gonzales, who wasn't sharp, after the game, and his statement to the effect that "you saw what happened," as if the fact that Gonzales didn't perform justified Tracy's decision not to bring him in to start the inning.

That's circular logic. Anybody can look back on what happened and then use it to justify his decision to do something else. Tracy used a variation of this approach a week or so ago when he sent Jose Hernandez to the plate to bunt. When JH couldn't advance the runner, Tracy received some questions on why he was sent up to bunt and said basically, "well, what if he had hit into a double play?" Well, what if? The point is you send your players in to do what they do best. Even if they fail, you used them in the role they should be in. Hernandez can't hit a lick this year, but that doesn't mean you ask even an aging power hitter to bunt the runners along. Similarly, Gonzales is the closer and he should have been out there to open the ninth. The fact that he had a bad outing can't be used to justify the decision not to use him the way he is supposed to be used.

Tracy also did not do himself proud in criticizing Gonzales for his poor performance, which included two walks. Gonzales was already beating himself up over letting Perez's win get away. And it's not as if he's been a big part of the Pirates failure to perform this year. He has six saves and a 2.79 ERA for a bad team. He had been especially good in the games leading up to yesterday's, posting an ERA of just over 1.00 in the previous 16 innings. What he deserved was the support of his manager.

As for Perez, his brief response to a question posed by the Post Gazette spoke volumes. When asked how his arm felt for the ninth, Perez answered, "Sometimes you have to find your strength." The attitude is admirable. The translation probably is, "I was damn tired."

If Tracy is to play a part in turning this team around, he'll have to reevaluate in his own role in the current abyss in which it finds itself. He has decisions upcoming on the status of Freddie Sanchez and Craig Wilson when injured starters Joe Randa and Sean Casey return to the lineup. He will need to show a bit more leadership than he did after yesterday's game.