Eye of the Tiger

Stop the presses! The Pirates lost a one-run game tonight, 7-6, to the Detroit Tigers, the team with the best record in the overwhelmingly best league in baseball, the so-called Junior Circuit, the American League.

Enough with the surpassingly bad record of the Pirates in one-run games. Who cares? They are 27 games under .500 at the halfway point, which projects to 108 losses, in case anyone cares, and it is unclear that anyone does. One-run losses or ten-run losses, it all amounts to a crap team. As Bill Parcells, a realist from another sport is fond of saying, you are what your record says you are.

Besides, the pattern is nearly always the same, and tonight's loss was no exception. Bad pitching (Kip Wells gave up all seven runs, lasted only into the third and ballooned his ERA to a ridiculous 15.09 -- why isn't Oliver Perez and his sensational 6.63 ERA at least in the bullpen instead of waiting to toil away in Naptown?), a late rally, followed by a closeout by a bad closer, Todd Jones, he of the 6+ ERA).

The Pirates can gaze on the Tigers and wonder what it takes to succeed. Here is a franchise that has, like the Buccos, been mired in mediocrity for well over a decade. Last post-season appearance? 1987, five years farther back than our heroes. Hitting? Not that great. Close to three times as many strikeouts (598) as walks (214) and 11 players with on-base percentages below the pedestrian level of .330.

The differences between the two teams? Well, let's leave aside managing. The last manager to take the Pirates to the post-season, Jim Leyland, now manages the Tigers. When asked about his decision to join the Tigers, when the Pirates were looking for a manager, Leyland replied that he felt the Pirates were going in a different direction. The Pirates hired on Resident Genius (RG) Jim Tracy, who has never stopped reminding all of us of his one post-season trip in five years with the Dodgers, who outspent the Tigers and the Pirates combined during those years.

But let's forget all that and the numerous delicious ironies of Leyland's hirings of ex-Pirates, including Lloyd McClendon, dispatched by the Pirates front office for his handling of an underachieving team that couldn't win one-run games. Whew! Sure glad RG has taken care of all that!

Oh, yes. We're going to forget on-the-field "leadership." OK, let's look at pitching. Surely, therein lies the success of the Tigers. Strikeouts, going into tonight's game: 496. Walks: 231. Hits allowed: 644. The Pirates staff: Strikeouts: 522. Walks: 304. Hits allowed: 791. That is 22o additional baserunners for the Pirates staff, or nearly three per game. Now take three late-inning contributors for the Tigers and the gaudy numbers of their starters become clear: Jamie Walker, Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney: 104 strikeouts, 40 walks.

Of course, those numbers don't tell the whole story, because extra baserunners change the complexion of the game and the strategy of each at-bat. The Post Gazette recently ran a well-argued article on the poor fielding of the Pirates, particularly at second base (Jose Castillo), but that doesn't account for an average of four walks per game. It also doesn't account for the relentless record of bad early innings by Zach Duke. Is the fielding bad in the early innings, only to recover later, as Duke's pattern seems to be? And conversely, do the early-inning successes and later-inning collapses of Ian Snell all fall on the doorstep of the defense?

Part of the problem for the Pirates lately, of course, is that the AL is just plain better than the NL. But then that might be easier to accept had the team not lost three straight to the worst team in the AL, the Kansas City Royals. It's hard to reach any conclusion other than that the Pirates are the worst of the worst.

So for this July 4 weekend, Pirates fans, fire up a Worsewurst.

Reason to Believe

Let's review. When we last checked in our heroes, they had lost one game to the Kansas City Royals, and had blown a 4-0 lead in the second game of the series. The outcome? The Pirates went on to lose that game, were humiliated by the Chiefs in the series finale, 15-7 and have moved on to Los Angeles where, blinded by the Hollywood lights, they fell once again on Friday, 10-4. They have lost nine in a row, bringing their record to 26-49.

Want variety? Well, the team used to specialize in losing one-run games. No more. Over the nine games of the current losing streak, they have been outscored 69-37 and have lost just two of the nine games by one run. A season needs variety, after all.

The Post Gazette pointed out, correctly in my opinion, that the three-game sweep in Kansas City officially makes the Pirates the worst team in baseball, overall record notwithstanding. Against a terrible Royals team, the Pirates held four-run leads in each of the first two games of the series.

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Truth be told, following the aborted posting above from one week ago, the Buccin' Ear has been at a loss to comment on the play of the Pirates, who last night (June 29) finally brought an end to the historic losing streak that reached an unlucky 13 before Freddie Sanchez, that brave light shining in the darkness, sent a pitch over the fence in the ninth for a 7-6 win over Baseball Super Power the Chicago White Sox. The scene of Sanchez being mobbed at the plate was, sadly, pathetic. It felt like what we would see if a high school team won a game from a Triple A club. Every once in a while a pig flies, the Buccin' Ear supposes.

Of course, the once-in-a-fortnight win couldn't have been completed without the usual heroic efforts by the Pirates to lose the game. They scored six runs off undefeated Jose Contreras, but still led only 6-4 in the eighth, thanks to another subpar performance by slow-starting Zach Duke, who might want to get a new alarm clock. The former Wonder Boy once again snoozed through the early innings, giving up four runs in the first two before settling down and throwing four shutout innings to post what passes for a "decent" start by a Pirates starter these days.

Roberto Hernandez, who has been a bullpen standout, was handed the ball. Facing Jim "Paul Bunyan" Thome with one on, Hernandez was left in by Resident Genius (RG) Jim Tracy, despite the fact that four lefthanders lounged in the bullpen. Before one could say "blown lead," Thome had plunked the ball into the Allegheny River. As usual, Tracy refused to second-guess himself, leaving it to Hernandez to berate himself for throwing a bad pitch. Whatever happened to the idea that a manager's job is to put his players in the position in which they have the best chance to succeed? Don't look for that from RG, who always makes the right decisions, but sadly doesn't have the players who can bring out his brilliance.

And please, RG, spare us the chocolate brown snow you blew after Sanchez (a guy you resisted putting in the lineup) bailed you out. On and on RG blathered about how close the Pirates are. To what? one might reasonably inquire. Moving to Siberia to play in the Gulag League?

So the team lists to the midway point, belatedly cleaning house by sending Oliver Perez to the minors and jettisoning dead wood Ryan Vogelsong. Saturday they get a start from Tom Gorzelanny, who has shown great promise at Triple A. Welcome to Pittsburgh, Tom. The Buccin' Ear wishes you well, but you might want to catch that next plane to Siberia. You might prefer the conditions.

Kicked-Ass Royal

At the risk of melodrama, the Buccin' Ear feels it is appropriate to quote the Doors after Monday night's dispiriting 10-6 loss to the Kansas City Royals, supposedly the worst team in baseball. The Pirates, having fallen to 26-46, and effectively banishing any hope for the season produced between mid-May and mid-June, are giving the hapless Royals hope that they may not be, after all, the team that baseball forgot. To describe the MISERY visit of the Pirates to KC, however, as "bleak" would be to lavish it with undeserved praise.

To return to the Doors and their departed frontman, Jim Morrison (not the one who played for the Pirates, however, from 1983 to 1987 -- two 's's), a verse from "The End," a classic from the first album, seems perfectly suited to the Bucs' season:

"This is the end/beautiful friend, the end/This is the end/of our elaborate plans, the end."

Indeed, every season for the Pirates consists of elaborate plans: signings of veterans who will provide "clubhouse leadership," live-armed pitcher prospects whose appendages go dead, renewed vows to start fast and finish strong that vanish beneath flurries of losses, regrets and recriminations. And always the vow to do better next year.

Last night, Kip Wells returned to the rotation for the first time this year after a long rehabilitation stint. Kip, we hardly missed ye. Handed four-run leads early, the Kipster was gone by the fourth, having squandered the lead and rekindling memories of his 8-18 campaign of a year ago. Wells was in midseason form, falling behind hitters and spending pitches as if he was a drunken sailor on shore leave. "Great stuff, he just can't harness it." Where has the Buccin' Ear heard that one before?

Then there is Ryan Vogelsong, who performed the role he has perfected, entering a two-run game and making it a four-run game. Your faithful correspondent challenges anyone to explain why RV is on the staff. He performs a role reminiscent of the firemen in Fahrenheit 451, whose job it was to spew gasoline on to books, the better to burn them. Maybe the Fireman of the Year Award should be named the Bradbury Award. Vogelsong would almost certainly get it.

After shooting their wad after five innings, the Pirates offensive machine quietly retired into the Kansas City night for a plate of barbecue and some jazz: two hits over the remaining four innings to one of the worst staffs in baseball. Jim Tracy may be running out of fingers to point.

And the madness continues. At this writing, Ian Snell, staked to a 4-0 lead, threw five shutout innings before losing it in the sixth. He has been knocked out, and we've got a donnybrook, sports fans, in the sixth, all knotted up at 4 apiece.

As the season continues its descent, and the Buccin' Ear prepares to sign off, the voice of Jim Morrison returns to paint a likely picture of the remainder of '06:

"Can you picture what will be/So limitless and free/Desperately in need/Of a stranger's hand/In a desperate land..."

Free-Fallin'

The glimmer of hope that the Pirates saw in their doomed 2006 season over the past month has vanished in the wink of an eye over the past four days. With today's -- sigh -- one-run loss in 11 innings to the struggling Arizona Diamondbacks, the team staggered to its fifth consecutive defeat. With the loss, they conclude a homestand as dispiriting as the one before it was uplifting.

Today's loss featured many of the numbingly familiar features that have come to characterize this season: one bad inning from Zach Duke, in which he gave up four runs. He blanked the Rattlers in his other four innings of work; a late comeback (two runs in the eighth to tie the game, but nothing more the rest of the way); seven runners left in scoring position and 13 overall; a deflating failure in the bottom of the ninth (runners on bases loaded, none out, followed by three consecutive strikeouts).

As bad as this loss was, the one Sunday, which on the surface looked like a blowout (8-2), but was anything but, was just as painful. Oliver Perez, matched against former Cy Young winner Johann Santana of the Twins, pitched a beautiful game, but fell victim to "one of those innings" in the eighth, which featured an off-line throw from Jack Wilson on a tough play and a mishandling of a bunt from Perez himself. The result was three unearned runs, which earned OP his ninth loss in 11 decisions. This one, however, unlike some of his others, was not a result of poor pitching; far from it. Indeed, the only bright spot of the game was that he once again gave some reason to hope that he has gotten himself back on track.

A dim spot of the game, and the real subject of this post is yet another ill-advised set of comments from manager Jim Tracy who, the Buccin' Ear has come to believe, is pressing to the point of desperation. He all but came out and blamed Wilson for losing Sunday's game, despite apparently universal agreement from all others that the play that extended the Twins' eighth was extremely difficult to make. Perez, asked about his failure to field the bunt on the next play, blamed himself for not making it. Tracy, however, after criticizing Wilson, fired another shot, saying the inning should have been over anyway. And he wasn't done. He later noted, according to the Post-Gazette, that a team can't make the mistakes it did in Sunday's game and expect to win. There was no doubt who he was talking about.

Well, first of all, very, very few games are won or lost on one play, especially one that occurred with the bases empty and two out. If Tracy is going to play that kind of game with his players, maybe he should start critiquing every at-bat that doesn't result in a hit. One wonders what his reaction will be to Jeromy Burnitz, Freddie Sanchez and Jose Castillo striking out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth today. Off with their heads!

More disturbing is calling out a player on an error of commission rather than omission. The implication of his remark about Wilson is that the shortstop either wasn't hustling or wasn't thinking. Even if that were the case (which no one else believes, apparently), the proper response would be to take the player aside, especially since Wilson is hardly known for not playing hard.

This is not the first instance of finger-pointing that the Buccin' Ear has noted from Tracy. If his goal is to fire up his obviously uptight team (7-21 in one-run games) by putting pressure on them, it doesn't seem to be working. He may, however, be brewing a Buccaneer mutiny.

Well, off to Kansas City for a matchup between the two worst teams in baseball. Call it the MISERY tour (Most Irrelevant Series Ever Released Upon You).

Time to Look Back

It is time to assess the Pittsburgh Pirates by looking back at the month-long tenure of the Pirates of Penance. When the Buccin' Ear began his commentary, the Pirates were a dismal 11-27, buried in last place in the Central Division of the National League, and on track for one of the worst records in team history. A month later, the team is 26-42, which means it went 15-16 over a month. That's the good news. The bad news is that they are on course for roughly 98 losses.

Since the last post, the Pirates have won one game (9-7 over the Cardinals in a win for Zach Duke, who pitched a bad game) and lost two (yet another one-run loss to the Cardinals and tonight's 4-2 loss to the Twins). Tonight's victim was Ian Snell, who continued his recent pitching mastery through six shutout innings, but faltered in the seventh, giving up three runs, which doomed him to a 4-2 loss.

How can one assess a team that is 7-20 in one-run games and, 8-25 on the road and 1-3 on the current homestand? The team generally plays well enough to lose. They insist, to a man, that they are close to being a team to be reckoned with. "Be patient," the team implores us. Sure, why not?

The Buccin' Ear asks himself why he continues to follow this team. Your faithful correspondent has not lived in Pittsburgh since the late '70s. He is not one of those transplants to Denver (his long-time residence) who pines endlessly for the city he left behind, although he continues to think of it fondly and enjoys it when he has had the chance to return.

In fact, the franchise puts the Buccin' Ear in mind of the Bernard Malamud novel The Assistant, vastly underrated and largely forgotten (total number of amazon.com reviews since 1997: 23).

In that novel, the Old World Jewish shopkeeper, Morris Bober, holds on to his store despite losing customers by the droves as the neighborhood declines. He is resistant to change and makes do with the occasional mid-day trickle of business that keeps him alive. He avoids selling the store, persisting in the the fading hope that the old neighborhood as he remembers it is still alive and that the business that sustained him will return.

In the opening scene of the novel, an old woman waits in the cold beside the bottles of mile for Morris to open the store. A Pirate fan today fulfills much the same role. You return to the old store even though the glittering shops on the outskirts of town beckon you to move on those siren shores. Wal-Mart has cheaper prices and the anchor stores at the mall have better goods and you damn well know it, but you keep going to the grimy store downtown, past the old shops (owned by the Royals and the Brewers). You are drawn back to the youthful place of memory, dead as you know that it is.

The Buccin' Ear has become that old woman in the novel, kvetching about the cold and demanding the seeded roll that she's gotten every morning in the past, ignoring the fact that the deli up the street has the same thing, and probably more, plus music and WIFI. Still, it's the store the Buccin' Ear goes to. It's Old World, and the Buccin' Ear loves it, but its time is probably past.

The Twist of Oliver

Oliver Perez, the Post Gazette observed yesterday, is neither a puzzle nor a riddle because both have an answer. And the Buccin' Ear must concur, there is no answer to Perez, a frequent subject during the short duration of this blog. Who is Oliver Perez? Kris Kristofferson might provide the best answer: "He's a walking contradiction/partly truth and partly fiction/Takin' every wrong direction on his lonely way back home."

During Perez's relatively brief career, he has displayed flashes of brilliance along with a maddening inability to focus. I recall seeing him three or four years ago pitching at Coors Field when he was with the Padres. It was a hot Sunday afternoon, and the game was awful if you had a rooting interest in the Rockies because the relatively unknown lefthander completely dominated the game. Perez struck out 13 in six or seven innings en route to a win, and my interest in him was piqued.

I saw the other side of Perez early the following year after he struck out Jose Hernandez (not much of a feat), who was beginning a brief tenure with the Rockies. Perez showed Hernandez up, brandishing a mock pair of six-shooters after recording the whiff. Hernandez took revenge the next time up, going deep on Perez and making a point of letting him know he didn't care for the youngster's antics.

This, to me, is the essence of Perez: he rides emotion, and the result can be, for the fan, his teammates and his manager, exhilirating or infuriating. One never knows which character is going to show up on any given night, and that maddening inconsistency, as we all know, is on the verge of costing him a spot in the rotation.

Perez is reminiscent of another mercurial Pirates pitcher, Jose DeLeon, who flashed across the sky briefly in the early- to mid-80s. DeLeon, a Dominican righthander, raised hopes in 1983, when after debuting in July at the age of 22, he went 7-3 in 15 starts, striking out 118 in 108 innings and recording an ERA of 2.83. He had electric stuff and fans (including this one) eagerly looked forward to 1984.

Unfortunately, DeLeon was never able to fulfill his potential, at least as a Pirate. He slipped to 7-13 and saw his ERA rise by nearly a run in '84. His strikeout-to-walk ratio, about 2.5-1 in '83, was 1.5-1 in '84. In '85, already discussed here as one of the worst in Pirates history, DeLeon had a year that was hard to comprehend. He went an astounding 2-19, remarkably bad even for a team that won only 56 games all year. To put it in perspective, he accounted for less than 3% of the team's wins and more than 18% of its losses. His ERA rose another run and again was plagued by wildness, walking about five per nine innings.

Sound familiar? One promising year followed by a seemingly inexplicable collapse? Like Perez, DeLeon's stuff consistently drew raves. And although he posted a couple of good years later with the Cardinals, in 1990, he recorded a second 19-loss season, and his career essentially was over, his promise never fulfilled. Will Perez suffer the same fate?

We can hope not, of course. But the Buccin' Ear is reminded of one of the pet peeves of his late father, who often wondered why certain commentators would remark that losing pitchers "have great stuff but need to harness it." Well, the old man would say, "If his stuff is so great, how come he can't get anybody out?"

The question is rhetorical, but it suggests the answer: the stuff may look great, but if the pitcher can't control it consistently, he's going to get hit. And, of course, the real point is, if the stuff can't be controlled, it's not really all that great, is it?

The time has come, the Pirates coaching staff seems to be saying, to stop talking about how great Perez's stuff is and see if he can get somebody out, not for one or two games, but for the rest of the year.

Welcome Home Buccos

Tonight brings a mixed bag of comments from the Buccin' Ear, and none of them will have to do with Ben Rothelisberger, other than to say we hope he is all right and that he will consider playing football with a helmet this fall.

As for the Pirates, the subject of this blog, there has been plenty of good news since the last post, most notably the come-from-behind 7-5 win in San Francisco Sunday, which brought them their first winning road series of the year and, logically enough, their first winning road trip of the year, at 4-3. The outcomes of the game, the series and the trip were all improbable. The series finale turned on a grand slam homer from Jose Bautista, which brought the Pirates back from a 5-2 deficit in the seventh. Mike Gonzales went against recent form by pitching a perfect ninth for the save. The win was the team's third straight in the series, capping a recovery from a 1-3 start that featured two of their patented one-run losses. All in all, the game marked a high point of a season that has featured very few bright spots.

The return to Pittsburgh and tonight's game against the Cardinals, bully boys who routinely kick sand in the face of the scrawny Pirates, featured a return to form from on-again but mostly off-again Oliver Perez, who rebounded from two straight horrific starts to hurl seven strong innings. He gave up just two runs and walked only one, but unfortunately he was matched against Chris Carpenter, who treated the Pirates like Little Leaguers, as he nearly always does, shutting them out over seven innings while striking out 13, and dropping OP's record to a dismal 2-8. If I were a Carpenter, I'd want to pitch against the Pirates all the time.

Typically, the Pirates scored a run in the ninth, enabling them to notch their 19th one-run loss of the year, 2-1. The game was notable otherwise only for the return of Joe Randa, who started at third, meaning that Jose Castillo, not Freddie Sanchez, was pushed to the bench. Randa had a hit, but Freddie had two.

If the Pirates are going to prove that their recent improvement isn't a fluke, this is the series to do it. They began this modest run with a series victory over Houston, another persistent tormentor, but the Astros were playing poorly at the time. St. Louis (38-25) is the best team in the division, but they are Pujols-less, which means a lot more than being Bonds-less, which the Giants were this weekend. The Buccin' Ear is looking for Zach Duke to make a statement on the direction of his season tomorrow night. Can last season's bright and shining hope prove he wasn't a flash in the pan? Wednesday is a good night to state his answer.

Who Are These Guys?

You can argue the 2006 Pirates are bad, but at least over the past couple of weeks they haven't been boring. Just when it appeared their current road trip was ready to turn into another fiery crash, the team produced two consecutive victories in San Francisco on Friday and Saturday, one of them -- gasp! -- a one-run triumph, just their seventh in 25 opportunities.

That victory, 3-2 on Friday night, followed another one of those soul-sapping losses that has been a Pirate trademark this year. In that one, Zach Duke was staked to a 3-0 lead, but couldn't hold it, leaving in the seventh with the score tied. After going ahead 4-3, the bullpen coughed up a run in the eighth and lost the game in the ninth. This time the victim was Matt Capps, who wild-pitched in the winning run. A runner was at third in part because Jose Castillo dropped a pop fly during the inning.

However, much as they did two weeks ago after giving up four runs in the ninth to blow a game to Houston, the Pirates shook off the disappointment of Thursday's game with the win on Friday, which featured a strong performance by fifth starter Victor Santos. Santos had pitched credibly last Sunday against the Padres (five innings, one run), but got no run support as the Pirates were dominated by Chris Young. He was better against the Giants, giving up just two runs in seven innings. This being the Pirates, the ninth naturally bordered on disaster. Mike Gonzales, continuing a recent trend, walked a tightrope, loading the bases with two outs. He's sometimes fallen off that perch, but this time he got a strikeout and a save.

That set the stage for Ian Snell, who has been the team's most pleasant surprise recently, on Saturda . Following up his excellent start on Monday against Colorado, Snellover came a wild start and threw seven shutout innings in a 2-0 win (the runs coming on homers by Castillo and Jose Bautista), raising his record to 7-3. He's shaved about a run off his ERA (4.75) in a couple of weeks, has two of the three wins on the road trip, during which he has given up two runs in 13 1/3 innings while striking out 15, and he is riding a five-game winning streak. Not bad for a guy who was a key disappointment over the first five weeks of the season.

The great pitching of the last two nights has rendered moot the fact that the team hasn't hit very well (except for Sean Casey, a veritable Jamey Carroll who had consecutive four-hit performances). The Pirates are 3-3 on the road trip with a chance to -- dare we say it? -- win a road series and post an overall winning record on the trip.

Who are these guys?

Part of the answer is we don't know, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The shape of the team is only beginning to emerge from the chaos that produced the dismal opening month and first half of May. Snell, Duke, Gonzales, Freddie Sanchez, Castillo, Ronnie Paulino and, to a lesser extent, Paul Maholm, Nate McLouth and Bautista are among a group of players making a bid to join Jason Bay and Jack Wilson as the core of what could be a reasonably competitive team. Any Pirates fan understands the Buccin' Ear's use of the italics. The Bucs have been down this rebuilding road so frequently in the past decade and a half that it would be ludicrous to make too much of their recent modest success. Two seasons ago, the team won 10 games in a row in June and seemed poised on the edge of success. The hot young pitcher of the time was Sean Burnett, who hurt his arm shortly after the win streak ended and has never pitched in the Major Leagues since.

The fluid situation also casts light on a few players who may not be part of the picture in the future. Topping this list in terms of importance is Oliver Perez, currently the anti-Ian Snell, a guy who can't seem to get this act together under the glare of the spotlight. People assume that because he had one good season, in 2004, that his presence in the rotation is a given. Not so, in the Buccin' Ear's eyes. His situation reminds me of one faced by the Rockies a few seasons ago. Mike Hampden and Denny Neagle were cementing their reputations as expensive busts, and debate raged about whether one or both of them should go to the bullpen. The Rockies could at least argue -- although unpersuasively -- that their price tags and past successes earned them additional shots at improving. Perez has not earned this kind of respect, and team would do a great deal for its reputation among fans by pulling Perez from the rotation if he can't achieve consistent success beginning now.

Then there are Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa, Ryan Doumit, Craig Wilson and Humberto Cota, all of whom might not fit into the picture at all. Of these, Wilson might fetch the most in a trade, although his power at the plate might keep him around (and the fact he can play more than one position). But the team doesn't seem to care for him much, and he strikes out way too often to fit in with the current shape of the club's lineup. Burnitz, who stranded an appalling 19 runners across two games Thursday and Friday, is now basically a platoon outfielder, an expensive luxury the team can't afford (ditto third baseman Randa, who won't return to the starting lineup when he gets off the DL), and will be gone by season's end, if not before. Doumit, a flop at the plate and in the field this year, is currently shelved with an injury, and Cota rarely plays, with Paulino emerging as a contributor at the plate, albeit one who needs much seasoning behind the plate.

The picture, we can hope will continue to clear favorably for the team as it heads into the last week's before the break. At least a couple of rays of light have emerged from the unrelieved gloom.

Figuring Out How to Lose

Robert Redford, playing The Washington Post's Bob Woodward in the 1976 classic, "All the President's Men," remarked, after an afternoon of unsuccessfully trying to get people to talk about presidential corruption, "It's not just that they're sayin no. It's how they're saying no."

For the Pittsburgh Pirates, wallowing in the mire of yet another miserable season, it's not just that they're losing. It's how they're losing.

Consider: the Buccin' Ear began his/her faithful correspondence in this venue 22 games ago, when the Pirates stood at 11-27. They have since gone 11-11. Of the 11 losses, seven have been by one run. Of those seven, five have been in the final game of a series. Of those five, four would have resulted in the team either winning or sweeping the series. Of those four, three were lost in extra innings or in the bottom of the ninth. Of the three, two involved the Pirates surrendering a lead of four or more runs.

So where does the blame lie? Well, when 38 of your first 60 games are losses, it's clearly a team effort. However, if we look at the 22-game window that the Buccin' Ear has peered through, the first stat that jumps out is the 143 runs that the Pirates have scored during that time: 6.5 per game. That should produce a record better than .500, but it hasn't. Does that mean the fault lies entirely with the pitching? No, not exactly. In the 11 losses, the Bucs have scored a grand total of 28 runs, or 2.5 per game. The problem, it seems, is one of consistency. If the Pirates had scored their "average" in their 11 losses, they would have won six. Had they scored their "average" in their 11 wins, they'd have lost just one. Result: a five-game swing, and a record of 27-33, rather than 22-38. This analysis does not take into account the other 38 games played this year.

Last season, the Buccin' Ear found the woes of the Pirates easy to trace: they were a horrible team at the plate, one that was impatient, given to striking out and rarely walking and ridiculously dependent on Jason Bay. The present team can't not be pinned with this criticism. The problems, to this observer, revolve around consistency, primarily in the starting pitching and most specifically in the person of Oliver Perez. Most puzzling is the team's monumental failure on the road, a subject to be addressed in a subsequent post.

Breaking Down on the Road

If the late Jack Kerouac had written his beat classic "On the Road" about the 2006 Pirates, the book would have been a nonstarter, replete with yawners about a vehicle perpetually stalled by flat tires, blown radiators and worn-out transmissions. In this installement, the Buccos pulled into Denver with the motor seeming to run fine, then threw a rod.

After an all-too-familiar one-run loss on Tuesday (the 17th of the season) and a laughably inept blowout loss on Wednesday (16-9, a score the Rockies counterparts, the Broncos, would be happy with in their rematch with the Steelers next fall -- November 5 at Heinz Field, not that anyone is looking ahead), the Pirates are now an incredible 5-24 away from home. The staggering inepititude of their road work can only be summarized by a cold statistic: they are on course for a record of 14-67 on the road which, if their current record at home (17-14) ran true to form, would leave them with a year-end record of 59-103.

On Tuesday, the Pirates had the staggering Rockies on the ropes after a Jason Bay home run and another by Rob Deer clone Jose Hernandez, who interrupted his regular avoidance of the baseball with a 400-foot shot that put Pittsburgh up 3-0. Paul Maholm pitched in and out of trouble through four, surrendered a run in the fifth and then departed after putting the first three men on in the sixth. That inning ended with the Rockies regaining the lead, at 4-3. Jamie Carroll (more on this mighty mite later) boosted the lead to two with a homer, setting the stage for the usual set piece in which the Pirates got to within one in the ninth. With two out and two on, Humberto Cota sprayed on a coating of Rustoleum (he hadn't played in nine games), worked the count to three-and-two, then fisted a ball over the infield. Score tied? No. Carroll raced back, took a dive, came down with a snow cone and Rockies win.

Wednesday's matinee can be summed up with one name: Oliver Perez. Last week the Buccin' Ear was hailing the return of the Enigmatic One, who had allowed just four runs in 20 innings. After surrendering nine runs in two innings today (and 14 in his last five innings), Perez is 2-7 with an ERA that is, as the Byrds might say, higher than I've ever been before, at 7.18. Whether Perez's problems are mental, physical, or both, it is clearly time to reopen the topic of his status on the staff, and it says here he needs a trip to the minors to figure himself out or let someone else try to do it. He may have until Kip Wells, scheduled for a rehabilitation assignment this week, returns to salavage his spot in the rotation, and incredible development given what was thought to be his breakthrough season in 2004.

As the Pirates depart Denver for San Francisco, the Buccin' Ear extends a tip of the hat to the aforementioned Jamie Carroll, a supposed "utility" player who, like the Bucs' Freddie Sanchez, is actually better than the players he supposedly backs up (at second, short and third). As noted, he saved the game Tuesday, during which he contributed another highlight reel play on a pop foul off the bat of Jose Bautista. First baseman Todd Helton, racing down the line with his back to the diamond, was able only to tip the ball. However, Carroll, also in pursuit, and with a better angle, alertly grabbed the ball out of the air for the out. Oh, and he went eight-for-ten over the two games, with a homer, two RBIs and four runs scored. He runs the bases, fields his positon, works the count and would probably sell peanuts between innings if he was asked to do so. He makes the Buccin' Ear's All Gamer Team.

So it's off to San Francisco, where the Pirates are apt to leave their heart, their bats, their gloves and a good portion of their rickety '06 touring car.

Skipping the Bump in the Road

At 4-22 on the road, the Pirates might have seemed an ideal opponent for the reeling Colorado Rockies, losers of 10 of their past 12 games going into Monday night's game. But the mile-high air of Denver proved a tonic for the Pirates and starter Ian Snell, who dominated their hosts en route to a 5-2 win.

Snell struck out ten in 6 1/3 innings in one of his better starts of the year. As the Buccin' Ear remarked in yesterday's post, Coors Field demands that pitchers stay ahead in the count, and the sometimes controlled-challenged Snell took heed, throwing 70% of his 94 pitches for strikes. He displayed a 95-mph fastball with good movement that set up an 80-plus mph slider that had the overanxious Rockies off balance throughout the game. On offense, the Pirates wasted some opportunities, but Freddie Sanchez, Jose Castillo, Jason Bay and Ronnie Paulino provided more than enough for Snell, who raised his record to 6-3. Snell's ERA, which suffered some massive hits earlier in the year, is still far above the horizon at 5.26, but he's provided some hopeful signs that he is ready to do his part to stabilize the rotation.

So the Pirates are now 8-3 since May 26, obviously a record you'll take, especially if you were 14-33 prior to the stretch. Not to minimize the success, but the four teams that they have played in those 11 games (Astros, Brewers, Padres and Rockies) have gone a combined 13-28 over the same period. This is not to say the Pirates haven't play some good ball over the past two weeks (they have), but it helps that the teams they've encountered haven't been.

In sports, as in business, it's important to kick your opponent when he's down, lest he get a chance to get up and reverse positions. Modest as the Rockies' success has been over its 13-plus year history, the Rocky Mountain News baseball writer Tracy Ringolsby still saw fit to label the Pirates "the humblest of opponents," undoubtedly with apologies to the Kansas City Royals. If such comments are reflective of overconfidence on the part of Colorado, so much the better for the Pirates, who should seek to place their dimunitive cleats on the neck of their struggling opponent.

After Colorado, the Pirates travel to San Francisco, where the Giants are undoubtedly licking their chops at the prospect of six games, beginning tonight, with the Marlins and Pirates. The Giants are in the thick of the Western Division race, and the lovely city by the bay has never been a hospitable place for the Bucs. The four-game series will be a good test for the hopes of the Pirates, still striving to emerge.

A Sad Good-bye to Home

The Pirates' drive to 90 victories suffered a setback Sunday as they fell in the rubber match of a three-game series with the San Diego Padres, 1-0. The game concluded an otherwise successful homestand, during which the Bucs won 7 of 10 games.

Unfortunately, as the Buccin' Ear noted in yesterday's post, the Pirates needed to win at least two of three of the equivalent of 34 of 36 three-game series going into the matchup with the Padres. Their razor-thin margin for error is now reduced to 34 of 35. Well, nobody said it was going to be easy. At 21-36, they need to go 69-36 the rest of the way. I am confident in saying this is the only blog or any other publication that is bringing you stats like that.

The Pirate bats were silenced by Chris Young, a former member of their organization (traded for the immortal Matt Herges), a 6-10 Ichabod who carried a no-hitter into the sixth and surrendered just two hits in eight innings. The Pirates can take cold comfort in the fact that their next opponent, the Colorado Rockies, suffered the same fate at the hands of Young earlier in the week. The difference was the Rockies didn't get a hit off him until the eighth. The Rockies' commentators made the same comment about Young as the Pirates' announcers and hitters did yesterday: he's tough because of his height, which enables him to come at hitters from higher angles than they are used to. Although he's as tall as Randy Johnson, he doesn't throw as hard as the Big Unit did. He calls himself a "flyball pitcher" who can get the popup when he needs it, just as the sinkerballer can get the groundball. Whatever the case, he's 5-3 and for now the leading pitcher on a pretty good Padres staff that still hasn't seen the best of Jake Peavy.

The aforementioned Rockies are a reeling bunch, which could turn out to be a dangerous thing for the Pirates. As recently as mid-May Colorado was one of the surprise teams in the league, leading the Western Division for a time and getting surprisingly good pitching and consistent play from a young group. They have lost 10 of their last 12, however, and are staggering from a sweep by the Florida Marlins that included a 13-0 loss. The Rockies scored just five runs during the homestand. They are undoubtedly desperate to avoid losing another series to a bottom-level club.

The lack of offensive production from Colorado is surprising (they have a number of very good young hitters, including Matt Holliday, Brad Hawpe and Garrett Atkins, although few people who don't follow the NL's Western Division have probably ever heard of them), but Coors Field is not quite the hitter's paradise it once was. The team began several years ago putting baseballs in a humidor to counteract the effects of the notorious warm, dry, mile-high air that routinely produced 9-8 games that ran to three-plus hours and occasionally more. Teams are still capable of scoring runs in bunches in there, not so much because of cheap home runs but because of the expansive outfield. The park favors teams with outfielders with good arms who can play shallow and get back on a ball well. It also punishes severely pitchers who fall behind in the count, which might not bode well for Ian Snell tonight.

The Rockies oppose Snell with a pitcher who struggled early but has seemed to find his way, Aaron Cook. Cook, the best hurler on the Colorado staff, will present the mirror image of Chris Young. He has a strong sinkerball that he has learned to trust and routinely induces a dozen or more grounballs a game. It will be interesting to see how the Pirate hitters adjust tonight.

The Pirates in a sense tonight meet themselves as they were a couple of weeks ago: a reeling team badly in need of a confidence builder. If the Bucs are going to salvage any type of a season, they need to keep the Rockies on the ropes over the next three nights and prove to themselves that the 10 games in Pittsburgh were not just a mirage.

A Mixed Bag

The concluding weekend of a 10-game homestand for the Pirates has been a soggy one so far. Each of the first two games suffered significant rain delays. So far, the Pirates haven't been a washout against their opponents, the San Diego Padres, but they haven't cleaned up either.

The less said about Friday night's game the better, a 7-0 loss that was delayed for two hours by light rain and then played in a downpour that doused the stadium lights after six innings. Oliver Perez was banged up for three innings, but we won't put much stock in this setback in his rehabilitation of his season.

Last night the delay was more than an hour and a half, which seemed to tak a toll on both starting pitchers. Eight runs were scored in the first inning, five of them by the Pirates. Zach Duke overcame his early-inning woes, however, and blanked the Padres over the next six innings, and picked up his second straight win. Just why Duke has so much trouble in the early going is a mystery, and it is a trait shared by his rotation mate Ian Snell. Both the Post Gazette and the Pirates' radio team have noted that the two pitchers are generally hit hard in the early going. Teams hit over .300 against them on the first trip through the lineup. By the third time through (if they get there), the average dips below .250, and in Duke's case significantly so.

There is a positive to be drawn from this. Duke, who has pitched much better overall than Snell, has shown that he can make adjustments as the game goes on, the mark of a smart pitcher. If he can make a further adjustment in his approach in the early innings, he may return to the form of last season. As it is, he is 4-6 with a 4.23 ERA, not where he or anybody else wants to be at this point, but certainly not a disaster on a team that is 14 games under .500.

Saturday's game was also marked by another positive trend, the newfound ability of the team to preserve victories in the face of adversity. A week ago, they came back several times to win an 18-inning victory over Houston and used some timely hitting and a couple of good defensive plays to do so. Last night they were in danger of blowing a three-run lead in the ninth inning in a scenario eerily similar to last Sunday's loss, in which they lost a four-run lead in the final frame. Mike Gonzales, one of the victims of that collapse, was on the mound again, and had already given up one run when the Pirates blew a potential game-ending double play with a bad throw to first from Jose Castillo. The ball bounced past Sean Casey, but also the Pirates way when Casey fielded the carom off the wall and fired a strike to Ronnie Paulino, who blocked the runner trying to score to end the game. Without a doubt, the play would have gone differently earlier in the year.

The team has a chance to win its third consecutive series today and end an eventful homestand 8-2. The enormity of the hole that they dug themselves, however, can be measured thus: entering the series with the Padres, they were 20-34, exactly one-third of the way through the season. If the 108 remaining games were played as 36 three-game series, the Pirates would have to win two of three in 34 of the 36 to reach 90 wins. Simply to reach .500, the team needs to win the equivalent of 24 of 36 series, sweep one and win one in each of the remaining 11.

This must be why players are advised to take games one at a time.

So today is a must win. The season of 36 series begins today. Let's go 1-0.

Keep the Beer Flowing

The Pirates continued a remarkable recent run of games Thursday with a two-run rally in the bottom of the ninth against the Brewers that brought home a 4-3 win and a sweep of the four-game series. It was the team's first series sweep in nearly two years.

Dwelling on that sobering fact tempers the present celebration, so the Buccin' Ear will leave it alone. For now, at least, there is no time like the present for the Pirates, who are 6-1 on the current homestand. They left their hittin' shoes in their lockers yesterday for the first time in a while, but Paul Maholm balanced the power gap by pitching his best game of the season, seven efficient innings (87 pitches), and leaving with the score tied 2-2. After the Brewers took the lead in the eighth, the stage was set for the ninth inning dramatics.

That inning illustrated the turn in fortunes the Pirates are presently experiencing. Jeromy Burnitz, continuing his hitting revival, hit a double with one out. Pinch runner Jose Hernandez was advanced to third by Freddie Sanchez. Jose Castillo then appeared to win the game with a home run. After a bit of a rhubarb, the ball was ruled to have hit the top of the wall, Castillo returned to second (denied his sixth home run in six games), and the game was only tied.

Thus, instead of a win, the Pirates had light-hitting Ryan Doumit coming to the plate. In recent games, this kind of situation meant an inning-ending pop-up, followed by yet another crushing loss in extra innings. Not this time. The struggling Doumit singled home Castillo with the win.

So, for one more sun-splashed day in Mudville, there is joy. There is now the prospect of one more romantic weekend at PNC, against the Padres, and then the honeymoon is over. The great nemesis, The Road, awaits. Can our heroes continue to reverse their fortunes? Stay tuned.