Somebody Bring Me Some Water

The Pirates headed to the deserts of Arizona Monday, a strange place to search for an oasis of victory. Not surprisingly, they have come up dry in their first two contests with the Diamondbacks.

Monday was a game featured by the waste of a superb pitching effort by Oliver Perez, who hurled six scoreless innings, but was denied a decision by a bad bullpen effort. The Buccos went down 4-3 when a last-inning rally fell short. With one out and two on, Jose Hernandez inexplicably made a plate appearance. Surpisingly, he made contact. Not surprisingly, he made out, and shortly thereafter, the Pirates were done. No comment about Hernandez other than those made in a previous post by the Buccin' Ear are necessary. The problem isn't Hernandez. The problem is a team that sees fit to carry a sub-.150 hitter on their roster and use him in a game situation.

Tuesday's loss featured a contribution from another Pirate killer, Ryan Doumit. After going hitless in four trips, Doumit has joined the sub-.200 club. As the Buccin' Ear noted earlier, Doumit's lack of offense was summed up in Cleveland when he served as designated hitter and was asked to bunt. In Monday's game, Jim Tracy for some reason wanted Doumit up to pinch hit for Perez with two on in the seventh. (No argument with removing Perez; he'd thrown nearly 100 pitches.) Doumit fulfilled his role on the team by popping out.

Wanting to keep Doumit's bat in the lineup, Tracy moved the defensively challenged backstop to first base on Tuesday, a position that, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette promptly pointed out, he has hardly played, and never on the Diamondback's field. Not surprisingly, then, he made a key error in the fifth that led to three unearned runs and doomed the Pirates to a 7-3 loss.

Tracy declared after the game that he wanted Doumit's lefthanded bat in the lineup for "pop." Excuse me? If Tracy isn't careful, he's going to be asked to guest-perform on Comedy Central. And isn't the job of a manager to put his best players on the field in the spots that they have the best chance to perform well? If so, what was he doing putting Doumit in that spot?

Pardon the Arizona pun, but Tracy seems snakebit, just as so many other managers have seemed in trying to run their talent-thin Pirates teams. Every decision he makes seems to backfire. It's easy for the Buccin' Ear to take these shots at his decisions, but in the final analysis, Tracy is trying to fight a war with broom handles.

Well, there is an up note: Jason Bay continued his hot hitting Tuesday with two home runs. The catch? He hits for the Pirates, and of course the bases were empty both times.