Staggering to the Break

The Pirates continued their metronome-like season tonight, falling in dispirited fashion to the New York Mets, 5-0. With the loss, they have lost two of the first three games of the series, last night's defeat being of a more wrenching but no less typical variety, 7-6. That one was their 25th one-run loss of the season.

So after nine games with three of the top teams in baseball, the Pirates are 3-6, with one more game remaining with the Mets. The team is marching in lockstep toward a 54-108 finish, which, as discussed in yesterday's post, would put them as the fifth-worst in club history.

Tonight's loss featured a lifeless offensive performance against over-the-hill Orlando Hernandez. Although admittedly still crafty, El Duque is hardly the pitcher he once was, and is of an age no one can determine and he won't reveal. But the Pirates' offense, which had shown some life in the past week, was baffled, and the Ancient One put up seven scoreless innings before turning the game over to the Mets' bullpen for the final disposal of the snoozing Bucco bats.

Tuesday's loss would have been excruciating in another season, but in 2006 it seemed merely yet another variation on an endless theme and produced nothing much more than a weary shrug. Up 6-4 in the eighth, the Pirates turned the game over to Salomon Torres and Roberto Hernandez, who combined to yield three runs en route to a 7-6 loss. The inning featured a disputed play at the plate that resulted in the winning run scoring. On a single that tied the game, Nate McLouth fired a throw to catcher Ronnie Paulino that appeared to beat Endy Chavez, who was trying to score the lead run. Of course Chavez was called safe, touching off a rhubarb that resulted in Jim Tracy's ejection.

Of course, the Pirates made much of what they believed to be -- and by all appearances was -- a bad call at the plate. But as The Buccin' Ear has observed in previous posts, much of this carping is beside the point. And even Torres, who ripped umpire Angel Hernandez for that call and for what he considered Hernandez's inconsistent balls-and-strikes call, finally had this to say:

"It's on us, too," Torres said. "There's no excuses for that. We should have done better."

'Nuff said.

Torres occupies a particularly difficult spot on this team. He is used frequently, far too much, it says here, despite his frequent protestations that there is nothing wrong with his arm and that he is not tired. The numbers say otherwise. His ERA is creeping near 5.00 and he has had numerous poor outings over the last month and a half. He and other team members keep talking about his velocity, which they claim is still where it has been, but obviously velocity is only one part of pitching. And a player's velocity doesn't begin to measure his mental fatigue. Torres himself has admitted that he's "just not making his pitches." Doesn't matter what label you put on it, that's fatigue.

Forty-one-year-old Roberto Hernandez and rookie Matt Capps are two more workhorses who could join Torres in the glue factory unless the staff gets better performances from its starters. That seems unlikely. Zach Duke officially crossed the 5.00 ERA barrier with his five-plus-inning, four-earned-run performance Tuesday, the latest in a string of mediocre starts. He blamed this one on one unlucky inning, which featured a few cheap hits.

Then there is Kip Wells, he of the stratospheric ERA who promptly put his team in a 5-0 hole this evening. No doubt we will hear much brave talk of his putting up five scoreless innings the rest of the way. A guy who lowers his ERA to 12.00 by giving up five runs in six innings doesn't really have much to say that The Buccin' Ear needs to hear, but he'll lay down a mythical dollar that some variation of the word "gritty" appears in Resident Genius Jim Tracy's comments tonight on the Kipster's sterling performance.

The 1985 Watch Update: The Pirates must now go 29-47 (.381) the rest of the way to better the final mark of the 1985 team (57-104). Things are looking grim.