Keystone Krap

Annoyed by the endless carping about their one-run losses, the Pirates stormed out Saturday and Sunday and lost to the Fadin' Phils by a combined score of 14-5. That'll show 'em.

With that, the team slinked home for the All-Star break with a dismal 30-60 record. Seemingly a lifetime ago, the Buccin' Ear wrote a post entitled "Who Are These Guys?", a musing, it now is clear, that occurred through a pair of glasses tinted a rosy red, or maybe Jack Daniels brown. The obvious answer to the question now is, "A supremely, maybe historically, bad team composed of some individually talented players."

After inexplicably winning three of four games in San Francisco in early June (a series the Giants will look back on ruefully if they come close to winning their division but don't make it), the Pirates have lost eight consecutive series, reeled off a 13-game losing streak, and dropped 20 of their last 24 games.

They are also the cure for any team's woes. The Mets had hit a rough patch in the road when the Pirates rolled into Flushing and were promptly flushed three out of four. The Phillies had lost of 18 of 23 since their humbling 3-2 loss to the Pirates on Friday night. The Buccos naturally curled into a ball for the final two games, with Paul Maholm and Zach Duke providing the Phillie offense with just the shot in the arm it was looking for.

It's time to declare that these two highly touted pitchers have been nearly total busts this year. Duke hasn't pitched a decent game in over a month. His last win, in mid-June, featured a performance no different than most of the ones that resulted in losses. You can count on Zach for about five innings and about five earned runs. Maholm specializes in producing high pitch counts and yielding lots of hits. What a combo!

But of course both of them will keep their spots in the rotation, because not only is this a club with no answers, it is obviously also one that has become used to losing. They appear to be a bunch of guys who slouch into work, punch the time clock, do what they are told, and keep an anxious eye on the clock for the five o'clock whistle to blow so they can collect their paycheck and blow the foam off the first of several frosty mugs of brew. "Why sweat it?" they seem to say. "The checks cash the same, whether you win or lose."

The sorry series in Philadelphia is doubly painful for any Pirate fan who remembers what matchups between these two teams once were. As the Buccin' Ear noted in another post, once upon a time, Pennsylvania teams ruled the NL East. Between 1970 and 1980, either the Pirates or the Phillies won the division every year except one (1973), and the two combined for three World Series championships. Their games were wonderful grudge matches filled with bad blood and dominated by stars and characters, from Greg Luzinski to Larry Bowa to Steve Carleton to Mike Schmidt on one side and Willie Stargell to Dave Parker to Al Oliver to Manny Sanguillen to Phil Garner to Dock Ellis on the other. (And I could go on. I omit The Great One -- Roberto Clemente -- only because his tragic death occurred early in the rivalry.)

Now? The teams, inexcusably, aren't in the same division, so the rivalry has been allowed to die. On top of that, of course, good baseball has been seen but rarely in Pennsylvania in a quarter century, and particularly in the last decade and a half. The Pirates, as we all know, are headed toward their 14th consecutive losing season and have rarely menaced .500 during the dry spell. The Phillies, after going a remarkable 176 games over .500 between 1975 and 1984 and appearing in two World Series (winning one), fell on hard times as well. Between 1987 and 2000, they recorded just one winning season, although that one (1993) produced a World Series appearance. They have not made the post-season since 1993, although they can at least boast of four winning seasons in the last five (2006 isn't headed in that direction).

So a tip of the hat to Freddie Sanchez, Jason Bay, Chase Utley and Bobby Abreu. The ghosts of Keystoners past would at least recognize your efforts.