The Pirates of Penance

October Ollie

2006-10-19T01:39:00.000-06:00

News item (from the Associated Press):

"The New York Mets are handing the ball - and their season - to Oliver Perez in Game 7.

"That's right, Oliver Perez, who was demoted to the minors by lowly Pittsburgh less than four months ago.

"The erratic lefty who went 3-13 with a 6.55 ERA in the big leagues this year. The guy who couldn't seem to throw a strike earlier this season."

So it's come to this. The pitcher who maddened the Buccin' Ear, the Pirates and the rest of Bucco Nation for a year and a half with stuff that alternately delighted and dismayed departs the team in disgrace and suffers the indignity of starting a game that could take his team to the World Series.

Best of luck, Mets.

The Buccin' Ear watched Ollie's Game 4 start, in which he displayed the same unpredictable behavior we all came to know and loathe when he was a Pirate. People seem enamored of calling Perez's stuff "electric." Well, it's certainly shocking, that much can be conceded. No one seems to know where it's going, much less him. Sunday, Perez put the ball up, down, outside and inside, fell behind, baffled hitters, flummoxed his catcher and put up an all-too-familiar line: 5 2/3 IP, 5 ERs, 9 hits. Okay, he got a win, not much of a feat when your team scores 12 runs.

But we Pirate fans know all too well that Ollie's M.O. is to confound, so we probably shouldn't be surprised if he goes out and throws a gem on Thursday. He's ornery that way.

Should the Mets win, by the way, the World Series will feature not one, but two players who began the season as Pirates, Sean Casey having already made it as a member of the Detroit Tigers, although he may not play due to injury. Then there's Jim Leyland, he of the resurrected career, who will guide the Tigers through the last leg of their storybook season. Leyland's presence alone dictates that the Buccin' Ear will abandon National League allegiance for the Series in favor of Detroit.

The rise of the Tigers from nearly 20 years of obscurity to the cusp of the championship of baseball tempts the dreamer to imagine a similar turnaround for the Pirates, but the Buccin' Ear's goals are more modest. This time next year, if references to Our Team are not routinely prefaced by "lowly," "downtrodden," "hapless, "beleaguered," "miserable" or other like appellations, your humble correspondent will feel that a corner has been turned.

Friday the 13th: The Buccin' Ear failed to commemorate the 46th anniversary last Friday of the most famous hit in Pirates history, Bill Mazeroski's Series-winning homer in the seventh game of the 1960 World Series. For reasons all Pirates fans understand, the Buccin' Ear's favorite number is 336.

Same As It Ever Was?

2006-10-04T00:45:00.000-06:00

Twenty weeks and 76 posts have passed since The Pirates of Penance debuted on May 16, with the team's fortunes gurgling down the drain at 11-27. The team's 14th consecutive losing season has ended, and the '06 team and its 67-95 record has passed into history. Time for a bit of perspective and a tentative look forward to '07.

The team duplicated its record of '05. The winning percentage of .414 is the 16th worst in the team's 116-year history, and the third-worst of the post-'92 winless span, ahead of only the '95 team (53-86/.403) and the '01 club (62-100/.383). The '06 Pirates basically dropped out of the race by the end of April, a month in which they lost 19 of 26 games, and they were an embarrasing 30 games under .500 at the All-Star break. They lost a team-record 13 straight at one point, and were within two games of closing the season on a 10-game skid before recovering to post two shutout wins in the final two games. They managed just one winning month (July/13-12).

Given this litany of defeat and the fact that on paper, at least, the team did not improve its record by a single game over the previous year, the temptation is to conclude that the Pirates are going nowhere. Well, there's always that possibility, of course, but one can also argue that the '06 team did show some signs of improvement.

For instance, this year's club went 37-35 in the second half of the season. The '05 team finished 27-42. The '06 Pirates stuck with a young group of starters, Zach Duke, Tom Gorzelanny, Paul Maholm and Ian Snell, who gained valuable experience and helped to bring the team's ERA down by about a run in the second half. Gone are underachievers Oliver Perez, Kip Wells and Josh Fogg the "mainstays" of the '05 staff. This year's edition even managed to escape the cellar, something the previous year's team could not do, falling short by six games.

After shedding unneeded baggage (Jeromy Burnitz, Shawn Chacon, Joe Randa and Victor Santos), the Pirates will look in '07 to a group of players that is headed, in the Buccin' Ear's estimation, by a core of five everday players: Jason Bay, Chris Duffy, Ronnie Paulino, Freddy Sanchez and JackWilson. However you shuffle the pieces around, then, the team will need to fill three starting positions, either with players they already have, players they bring up (unlikely given the state of the minor league system) or players they sign. Here are the Buccin' Ear's Boys on the Bubble:

Xavier Nady. Many people would probably put Nady in the core group, but the Buccin' Ear isn't convinced. Sure, he had some nice moments, but where's the beef? He hit three homers and drove in 23 runs as a Pirate. After batting .359 in August, he sagged to .219 in September and was a big part of the team's offensive swoon in the second half of the month. Nady is capable of filling the gap at first base or in right field next year, obviously, but the team needs to decide if he really is the answer, not just another body.
Jose Castillo. The underachieving Castillo should be dealt, but the Pirates are, as too often happens, in the position of trying to dump a player whose value has plummeted (see Perez, Oliver). The Buccin' Ear recently documented Castillo's plunge from June 1 to the end of the season. A three-month dive hardly gives a team the clout it would like at the trading table.
Jose Bautista. Ideally, Bautista would move to third base, which would allow Sanchez to take over at second, while Castillo takes his famous inconsistency to some other market. But Bautista, much as the Buccin' Ear pulled for him, did not make a statement when he got significant playing time. He hit .190 from August 1 to September 30, with four homers, 21 RBIs, and 53 strikeouts in 157 ABs. He finished the season at .235. Can the offensively challenged Pirates afford that kind of performance from its third baseman?
Nate McLouth. Given a chance to start in '06, McLouth was a big disappointment, batting .233 with an OBP of .293 before a season-ending ankle injury. The Buccin' Ear might dismiss him, but he's not yet 25 and has shown some promise. The real point is that if the Pirates have a choice of playing McLouth or someone else they already have (like Nady) in rightfield or signing another overpriced retread (see Burnitz, Jeromy), make mine the former. Save the money and put it into developing young players.

Aside from these decisions, the Pirates must look for another starter, preferably a righthander. Normally, the team scrapes the bottom of the free agent barrel in looking to pick up a warm body to start, but that won't cut it in '07. They have the makings of an above-average staff, and it makes no sense, particularly in a weak division where even decent improvement could move a team into contention, to skimp on pitching. Jeff Suppan is the kind of innings-eating veteran who could really help solidify the rotation, and he won't come with an outrageous price tag.

Next Post: A look back at the season that was (or wasn't, depending on your point of view).

Between a Laugh and a Tear

2006-10-02T09:45:00.000-06:00

The Pirates ended the '06 season with a series of escapes: with their 1-0 victory over the Reds, they escaped the cellar, leaving the Cubs to hibernate there for the offseason; they escaped having a worse won-loss record than the '05 squad (both finished 67-95); they escaped finishing the season as they had begun it -- with a loss; and they actually played two games above .500 (37-35) in the second half of the season.

And so the clouds parted just a sliver on yet another season shrouded in gloom. And yes, there were several other rays of sunshine that fell on PNC Park on Sunday:

Freddie Sanchez concluded a remarkable season by winning the batting title, the first by a Pirate in 23 years. He finished at .344 and earned the crown in typical Freddie fashion, shunning the idea of sitting the game out to protect his lead and salting things away with two hits in his first two ABs.
Rookie Shane Youmans duplicated the seven innings of shutout ball produced by Marty McLeary on Saturday. Shane didn't get the win, but he put the Pirates in position to get one. Youmansin the last two weeks of the season lived up to the attributes of his 1953 film namesake, described by http://www.filmsite.org/shan.html as a "mysterious, gunslinging hero from the wilderness who appears from nowhere."
Salomon Torres, the best story on the Pirates this year by anyone not named Freddie, appeared in his 94th game -- the most in Pirate history -- and collected his 12th save in as many opportunities. That concluded a season that the Buccin' Ear continues to maintain was every bit as notable as Sanchez's.
Rookie Matt Capps appeared in his 85th game and collected his ninth win against one defeat. Capps certainly makes the short list of best rookie seasons by a Pirate.

As might be expected, in the flush of victory, there was much brave talk about '07. Resident Genius Jim Tracy can, the Buccin' Ear supposes, be granted one last don of the rose-colored glasses:

"We had an above-.500 second half of the season for the first time since 1992," RG said.

No word on when the last 30-60 start was.

Not to worry about that detail, of course. RG is nothing if not the eternal optimist -- or spinmeister, depending on your point of view.

"And this is a team that played 90 games before the break and lost 60 times, with pretty much the same group It's great to see. I think the thought process for 2007 is that we're going to pick up where we left off instead of feeling like we're starting over."

Pardon the cynicism, but does picking up where we left off mean finishing 2-0 or finishing 2-8 and scoring 24 runs total in the last 10 games?

But the Buccin' Ear will leave a more detailed assessment of the '06 season and what it has wrought to another post. Let's conclude with a snatch of a John Mellencamp tune suggested by regular reader Zack from Shanghai. Z-man decided that JM's tune "Between a Laugh and a Tear" from the Scarecrow album sums up being a Pirates fan (see more of the lyrics in the comments to the "Mailbag" post of September 22):

"Between a laugh and a tear

Smile in the mirror as you walk by

Between a laugh and a tear

And that's as good as it can get for us

And there ain't no reason to stop tryin'".

The Buccin' Ear will leave the last regular season post with this remark from Zack:

"The Pirates of Penance" is that space between a laugh and a tear. It is necessary because sometimes it laughing that keeps us from crying."

Behind the Eight Ball

2006-09-30T03:38:00.000-06:00

The stretch-run free fall of the Pirates continued Friday night with a 5-2 loss to the Cincinnati Reds, their eighth in a row. Aaron Harang of the Reds extended the Pirates' miseries at the plate with a dominant complete-game performance that featured nine strikeouts and no walks. Zach Duke's disappointing season ended with a mediocre performance and his 15th loss.

**************************************************************************************

Sitting at the computer early in the morning on Saturday, counting the moments until he could make the weekend official, the Buccin' Ear hit the wall. Nothing to say about this strange and infuriating team that went 30 games under .500 before the break, rallied after the break to a modestly inspiring 35-27 record, then dropped eight in a row to bring its overall record with two games to play to...30 games under .500.

Better luck next time with that rock, Sisyphus.

But wait! Just when it seemed the team would suffer the ignominy of ending the season with two weeks of losing (what a fine feeling to take into the offseason), over the horizon rode a man from the frontiers of Ohio, one...Marty McLeary.

Yes, sports fans, Marty McLeary, the righthander who spent 10 years toiling in the backwaters of baseball, hoping for a shot at the Show. What franchise could be better suited than the Pirates to such a man? Frustrated pitcher, meet frustrated franchise.

So last week at 32, McLeary not only started his first Big League game, he picked up a win with five credible innings of pitching. Perhaps the sweetest line a pitcher in the Bigs will ever gaze on belonged to MM: 1-0.

Saturday night, the Beleaguered Bucs sent out the call for Marty once again. Knowing he was pitching for a team that had amassed 21 runs in eight games, MM apparently knew there was only one thing he could do to end his team's misery: throw a shutout.

So he did. Okay, for seven innings. The bullpen took it from there (Imagine! Pitching with a lead!), and sealed the 3-0 victory.

What a story! The Post-Gazette, giddy over this feel-good story of professional perseverance, devoted the first two-thirds of its story of the game to....Freddie Sanchez?

Yes, you see, Freddie went o-for-4, dropping his league-leading average to .343, still ahead of Miguel Cabrera (.340), but still in nervous territory as he attempts to be the first Pirate batting champ since Bill Madlock in 1983.

Hey, nobody can out-Everyman Freddie, the hardest-working man in showbiz and at times a one-man reason to watch the Bucs this year, so the Buccin' Ear will never begrudge Freddie his time in the spotlight, an area he rarely if ever seeks on his own.

But, hey, this should be Marty McLeary's day. He's 2-0 and at least the Pirates are 1-0 since he last started. How would we have liked a nine-game losing streak even if Freddie had gotten four hits? Chances are, Sanchez is happy to take his collar as long as the team gets a win. After all, they only had two more chances to do so in '06 before Mighty Marty took the mound.

Seems to the Buccin' Ear that maybe such obscurity is the fate of guys named Marty. Think about the Academy Award-winning film (1955) of the same name, with Ernest Borgnine playing the lead. Here's a synopsis from http://www.filmsite.org/mart.html:

"The film depicts thirty-six hours in the life of the main character: 34 year-old, bug-eyed Marty Piletti (Ernest Borgnine) - an ordinary, burly, heavy-set Bronx butcher. In the opening scene in his butcher shop while Marty waits on a female customer, he tells her how all his younger brothers and sisters are happily married and raising families. A romantic loser all his life, Marty is resigned to listening to people ask when he is getting married."

The Buccin' Ear somehow imagines echoes of this in offseasons past for Our Marty:

"So, Marty, when are you gonna get called up, man? You plannin' on pitchin' in the bushes all your life?"

In fact, The Pirates of Penance is lucky enough to have one of its faithful readers, Zack from Shanghai, offer an early glimpse of how film could pull Our Marty from obscurity. In a recent response to the "Mailbag" post (Sept. 22), Zack, moved by Our Marty's first ML victory, blogged,

"I smell a motion picture "based on a true story" in the future. They'll have to clean it up a bit so that ancient rookie McLeary carries the lovable loser "Booneville Brigands" to the championship in an improbable turnaround. I'm seeing montages a la the unforgettable A-Team "Work Sequence". Oh, wait. It's already been done."

Well, Zack, in today's Hollywood, there is no shame in imitation, so the Buccin' Ear heartily endorses the use of the A-Team material. We'll just call it an homage.

But in any event, thanks to Our Marty, the long season has come down to one game, and it's meaningful, in one of the few ways that such a game can be for Our Team: win today, and the Pirates will have their first winning record in the second half since 1992.

Of such stuff dreams are made.

On the Outside Looking In

2006-09-29T03:25:00.000-06:00

Thud.

That's the sound of another precipitous drop to earth by the Pittsburgh Pirates. A little more than a week ago, they were on a bit of a run, hoping to put at least a little shine on yet another dull season. They had begun a road trip decked out in their best spoiler duds, taking the first two games of a three-game set from the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Then came a loss in the series finale, and the Buccos haven't won since, dropping three straight to contending San Diego and three straight to the Houston Astros, who have now won nine in a row and are poised to pull off one of the greatest comebacks in baseball history.

So much for Pirate aspirations to play with the big boys. Tonight, following a 3-0 loss to Roy Oswalt at PNC, they find themselves singing an old Lennon-McCartney tune:

"I don't want to spoil the party so I'll go
I would hate my disappointment to show
There's nothing for me here
So I will disappear..."

So the fragile promise of the second half threatens to disintegrate with a 10-game losing streak finish, which would happen if the team manages to drop its three-game finale to the Cincinnati Reds. The present seven-game skid has dropped them into a tie with the moribund Chicago Cubs, and as much as the players and the manager would probably deny it, yes, it would mean something if the Pirates wound up in the cellar, given the lifeless performance of the Cubs in the second half.

What has gone wrong? One word: offense, or more accurately the lack thereof. During the streak, the Pirates were nearly no-hit by ex-Buc Chris Young in San Diego, and scored a grand total of four runs in that three-game series. In the Houston series, they were shut down by Oswalt and Andy Pettite; those two games were sandwiched around the one game that they did manage some offense, but they blew a 6-1 lead in that one and lost in 15 innings. After piling up their six runs in the first five innings, they patted their stomachs, shoved themselves away from the table and contentedly napped for 10 scoreless innings to close out the game. With today's shutout, they've gone 19 innings without a tally. In seven losses, they've managed 16 runs -- total. The Dodgers scored 19 runs in one game on Thursday.

Somebody say oy vay.

No offense, Dave Littlefield, but you've got a team with no offense.

As always, we look to Resident Genius Jim Tracy for guidance in troubled times such as these, and he didn't disappoint following today's loss:

"We are definitely growing. On most days, when you look up there, you'll see hits on the board. And baserunners. And these guys that we have, they're going to keep getting better. Now, are there some things we need to look into? And could that make the situation much, much better? Sure, it could."

Maybe some runs would help. But at least we're growing. The Buccin' Ear may speak for most Pirates fans in saying we certainly are growing -- inpatient, frustrated, restless and weary. And that's usually after the first inning.

But RG wasn't finished with today's lesson. He then spun out one of those series of sentences that separates him from the rest of us mortals:

"But are we talking about a number of things? Uh-uh. No. It's close. It's a lot closer than a lot of people want to think."

A Spanish doubloon to the first reader who can decipher this. The Buccin' Ear freely admits that he doesn't speak Gibberish. Well, maybe there are just some things I need to look into.

Undoubtedly the most lucid statement of the day came from Astros manager Phil Garner, who said of the rain-delayed game, "I don't think anybody really wanted to come back."

Uh, no.

Well, three more games. What words can the Buccin' Ear summon up about the impending conclusion of this glorious season? Ah, RG has the answer:

It's close. It's a lot closer than a lot of people want to think."

Mailbag

2006-09-22T03:22:00.000-06:00

The Pirates got a mere two of three from the Dodgers in Los Angeles, dropping the finale Wednesday night, 5-2. The good news is, of course, that they won two of three from the Dodgers on the road, and the better news is Freddie Sanchez collected six hits over the last two games of the series (including his 50th double), and now is hitting a league-leading .347. Second-place Miguel Cabrera of the Marlins is at .338. The Buccin' Ear refuses to jinx Freddie by saying anything more about it.

The subject of Freddie neatly segues into the eagerly awaited Volume 2 of The Pirates of Penance Mailbag. In the September 19 post "Not in Our House!", the Buccin' Ear, discussing players who had shown improvement in the second half, made this observation:

"Then there's Salomon Torres, whose yeoman work in place of Mike Gonzales has earned him the Buccin' Ear's vote as most valuable Buc this year."

Bern1 of Pittsburgh had this to say about that:

"Salomon instead of Freddy Sanchez as MVP??? I dunno, Buccin' Ear. I gotta differ with you on this one."

Well, voting against Freddie in anything this year is like casting a vote against mom, apple pie or even truth, justice and the American way. So I could take the easy way out and say Salomon is the most valuable pitcher. But I'll hold the line and say that at worst, Torres is a co-MVP.

The case for Freddie doesn't need to be made; it's self-evident. Torres? Well, let's just say that anybody who appears in 90+ games, is a reliable setup man, gets better as the year goes on and takes over as closer has to get some serious props. That he has gone 10-for-10 in save opportunities is rather remarkable. But what clinches it for me is that he lent some stability during an interminable stretch of the season when the young Pirate starters were flat-out bad and rarely went more than six innings, on the rare occasion that they got that far. Torres and Matt Capps pitched nearly every day and rarely failed, although both endured a couple of rough stretches. It's not too strong to say, all-in-all, that Torres helped to salvage a strong measure of respect for the Pirates in the second half. The pitching staff without him would have been just as out to sea as the everyday lineup without Freddie.

Add to it that he's a top-notch team guy who never says a discouraging word, and I rest my case.

Another reader, commenting on the Bucs' three-game sweep of the Mets, sounded nearly metaphysical. JD wrote,

"I hate and love this so much. Nothing beats racking up wins, but taking this optimism into next year will cause unspeakable pain."

Hmmm...Well, JD, we can say the same thing about life in general, I guess. How, indeed, can we give our hearts away each year to hope when we know all that time brings us is one step closer to shuffling off this mortal coil?

Perhaps we need to think of Rodgers and Hammerstein here. These wise words may offer you and all of us Pirate fans some comfort:

"When you walk through a storm
Keep your chin up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At he end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never walk alone."

Which brings to mind the famous words of Earl Weaver. Advised by born-again outfielder Pat Kelly, "You have to walk with the lord, Skip," Weaver replied, "I'd rather walk with the bases loaded."

Actually, though, JD, the Buccin' Ear thought you penetrated deeply into the question of Pirate futility with this portion of your post:

"It feels so good to win, I sure wish they would do it more often."

Amen, brother, amen.

Existential questions also raised their head in this post from Paul from Denver. He too was struck by the latest Tracyism of the Week, which appeared in the September 15 post "This and That." After Tracy said that even special players have to have a first at-bat, the Buccin' Ear mused,

"...wonder how many special players we missed over the years who never made an appearance? And if special players play but never appear and are therefore never seen, did they really play at all?"

Paul responds,

"...and if a batter strikes out but there's no one there to watch him, did he realy whiff? Nice to see RG chanelling a different "JP" these days -- Sartre vs Juan Pierre, I mean."

The Buccin' Ear thinks that if he can get Jean-Paul Sartre mentioned on his blog, he's done his work well. And in the same sentence with Juan Pierre, no less.

Come to think of it, Sartre wrote at least two books whose titles, at least, have relevance to being a Pirates fan: "Being and Nothingness" and, especially, "Nausea." And certainly all Pirates fans need this JPS classic: "The Reprieve."

And finally...the death of Syd Thrift also drew commentary, and the Buccin' Ear joins in the general lament. Syd took his knocks, but anybody who could swing trades for Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke, Mike LaValliere, Doug Drabek and a host of other contributors and take a team like the '85 stinkeroos and turn them into three-time division champs never should have had to apologize for nuttin'.

RIP, Syd. We could use you now.

The West Is the Best

2006-09-20T03:28:00.000-06:00

"The West Is the Best": if Jim Morrison were singing those words today in Los Angeles, he might alter another of his lyrics to "weird scenes inside Chavez Ravine." That was where the Pirates Tuesday night took another step toward becoming royal pains in the keister for another team with bigger things to think about than an obscure club from Western Pennsylvania with nothing to play for other than pride and some R&R between games on a six-game California trip. Certainly the Pirates did get their kicks...at least for one night.

The Dodgers, on the strength of their improbable series-salvaging win over the Padres Monday night, owned a one-half game lead in the NL West when they took the field against the Bucs, but they left a tattered bunch, tattooed for 10 runs and stymied for six innings by 14-game winner (!) Ian Snell en route to a loss that pushed them behind San Diego and left them just a game in front of Philadelphia in the wild card race.

Jose Bautista (grand slam, five RBIs) and Xavier Nady (two hits, four runs scored), both mired in slumps, led the offensive charge for the Pirates, who have spent September playing the game like it's, well, fun. They're 11-6 for the month, with the last four victories coming over a division winner and an aspiring division winner.

Bautista, whose average for September is a crosstown bus and three transfers south of the Mendoza Line, needed this kind of game badly, not only for the team but for himself. He's trying to show the club that he belongs as an everyday player. If he can't put up decent offensive numbers, the case for jettisoning Jose Castillo will be harder to make, although the latter's recent play has done much to convince the Buccin' Ear that he's already left. After tonight's oh-fer, Castillo is four for his last 49. But that's okay. At least he made another error, his 18th.

Jose? This is a bat. This is a glove. Pick one of each. Use them.

Castillo's September fade is bad enough, but the fact is, he got a start on his vacation early in the summer. Talk about Mr. May. He hit .366 that month, which is apparently the worst thing he could have done, because he seemed to get the idea -- again -- that he's a power hitter. Not that he put up Ryan Howard-like numbers: he hit seven homers and drove home 21 runs in May, a nice month, but nothing that should have sent him to the mirror to preen and gawk at his rippling biceps and to practice taking mighty cuts that swat and injure the innocent air.

But swing from the heels he did, and his production promptly plummeted in June to .223 with three HRs and 16 RBIs. He was lousy again in July (.253, one HR, seven RBIs), and even though he recovered a bit in August (.287, two HRs, 13 RBIs), he still managed only to get his on base percentage, which has been dreadful all year (except for May, of course), to .310 for the month.

Castillo has been a flat-out liability the last three and a half months, and the numbers prove it: since June 1, he has hit .231 (72 for 312), with six HRs and 38 RBIs, and an OBP of .288. Oh, and he's struck out 65 times while drawing only 18 walks. Take away May, and he's hit .229 for the year with seven HRs, 42 RBIs, 84 Ks, 23 BBs, and an OBP of .294.

If there's a battle of the Joses going on in Piratedom, make mine Bautista.

But as the Stats Geek correctly points out in his latest Post-Gazette column, the real debate within the organization seems to be about whether to keep Castillo or Jack Wilson, probably because of the money Wilson makes. This one should be even more clear-cut than Bautista-Castillo. Wilson is a better fielder, better hitter and far more stable presence than the streaky, spacy and error-prone Castillo.

Pirates Past: On September 20, 1969, Bob Moose pitched a no-hitter against the Mets, who would, of course, go on to win the World Series in Amazin' fashion. Moose was also involved in one of the most painful losses in Pirates history, a 3-2 loss to the Cincinnati Reds in the fifth and deciding game of the '72 NLCS. With the score tied in the bottom of the ninth, Moose uncorked a wild pitch that scored the winning run and brought home the pennant for the Reds. Moose died in a car crash in 1976.

Not in Our House!

2006-09-19T00:19:00.000-06:00

As of this writing, the New York Mets have finally clinched their NL East division championship, spraying champagne tonight all over Shea Stadium. The place could use a cleaning.

The smart money, of course, had said that the celebration would occur this past weekend in Pittsburgh, and a number of Mets fans played that bet, making the trip west and helping to swell the crowds at PNC.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the coronation. The Bucs derailed the Mets three times in a row, behind solid pitching from Paul Maholm, Tom Gorzelanny (albeit an abbreviated, four-inning effort) and most impressively, Zach Duke, who finished the sweep with eight innings of shutout ball. Thanks to the Phillies sweep of the Astros the same weekend, the New Yorkers didn't even back into the championship at PNC.

There may be reasons for a pessimist like the Buccin' Ear to downplay the sweep, but frankly, he can't think of any. The Mets had plenty to play for, they weren't resting their starters, and there is no way that they wanted to be swept by the likes of the humble Buccos. They also were anxious to prove that they aren't vulnerable to lefthanded pitching, but the series showed anything but. Maholm, Gorzelanny and Duke gave them a total of three runs in 19 innings. Have no doubt that potential opponents of the Mets in the playoffs are thinking of ways to get southpaw pitching to the mound.

The 5-1 homestand left the Bucs at 63-87, meaning that a 100-loss season, which had seemed likely at the All-Star break, has been avoided. They are 33-27 since the break and 41-34 at home. Respectability, anyone?

Well, we'll talk about that after the upcoming road trip, a potential horror show, not simply because it's a road trip (remember that 22-53 record away from PNC), but because it runs through Los Angeles and San Diego, where the Dodgers and the Padres are fighting it out for an NL West division crown. The Padres grabbed the upper hand by winning three of four from the Dodgers in their just-completed series. Both teams have undoubtedly mentally penciled in a Buc brooming. If the Pirates can make a respectable showing against teams desperate for victories (much more desperate than the Mets), there will be additional grounds for cautious optimism.

Still, additional optimism comes from the recent resurgence of Duke, who has shaved a full run off his ERA since starting slowly at the beginning of the second half. He appears to have regained the form of last year, when he demonstrated great control that made his sinker extremely effective. Just as important, in the Buccin' Ear's view, is the continued growth of Chris Duffy, who seems to be laying claim to the centerfield spot for next year. He had another strong series against the Mets, hitting well, driving in and scoring runs, and stealing bases. Then there's Salomon Torres, whose yeoman work in place of Mike Gonzales has earned him the Buccin' Ear's vote as most valuable Buc this year.

All that said, the Pirates offense remains suspect. More on that in an upcoming post. For now, let's just let the Bucs enjoy the champagne the Mets didn't get to drink this weekend.

This and That

2006-09-15T09:45:00.000-06:00

Bits and pieces from the musings of the Buccin' Ear on a nearly perfect day in Denver:

Minor considerations: Dejan Kovacevic's excellent roundup in the Post-Gazette on the state of the Pirates' minor league system contained this intriguing comment from Dave Littlefield on the present lack of prospects at Triple A Indianapolis and Double A Altoona:

"We like the group, and we like where it's headed. And the thing to keep in mind is there probably will be very little attrition at the major-league level for the next three to five years, so we're going to be able to pick and choose who we keep at the upper levels of the minors."

Really. So can we take that to mean that the Pirates have pretty well settled on their starting lineup and starting pitching rotation for the coming years? I'm not sure too many other observers, the Buccin' Ear included, would agree that the 60-87 product that we see on the field is one poised on the brink of success.

A Little success: But let's give Littles a dollop of props. Freddie Sanchez wakes up this morning the leading hitter in the NL. Mike Gonzales, before suffering an elbow strain, was perfect in save attempts and beginning to show signs of being one of the top closers in the league. Both were pilfered from the Boston Red Sox, presently suffering through a bullpen meltdown that has thrust Mike Timlin into the closer role -- where he has approached a double-digit ERA. As Genarro Filice writes for "Inside Baseball" at www.cnnsi.com:

"Think the Red Sox regret moving Sanchez and stud closer Mike Gonzalez to Pittsburgh for Jeff Suppan, Brandon Lyon and Anastacio Martinez?"

The Buccin' Ear will refrain from any "even a blind pig finds an acorn" comments.

Howard's end: Ryan Howard, the Phillies' larger-than-life slugger, drove in an absurd 41 runs in August alone. To put his achievement and the Pirates' dearth of power in perspective, consider that Jeromy Burnitz, hired by Littlefield to fill the power vacuum in right field, has 49 RBIs in 311 ABs for the season. Jose Bautista has taken 355 ABs to drive in the same number of runs that Howard did in that one month.

Christal clear: Chris Duffy's .307 OBP won't turn any heads. But Pirate fans can find a measure of hope in his recent play. On August 7, his OBP -- not his batting average! -- was .233, and the Buccin' Ear was moved to write,

"Those of us who called for the return of Chris Duffy are looking pretty foolish so far. Duffy has gone 3 for 26 since his call-up and hasn't shown much reason to believe that his bad start in April was a fluke" (see Aug. 7 post, "Bruin Ruin").

Since then, however, Duffy has boosted his BA to .240 (from well under .200 five weeks ago), has injected some speed into the lineup (something it desperately needed, given the lack of power), and continued to play the solid defense that was expected of him.

Rockies Road: Hopes for the Colorado Rockies matched the mile high altitude of Denver in early July, precisely mirroring the Pirates plummeting fortunes at the time. The Rockies were in the thick of the NL West division battle, their young hitters, notably Garrett Atkins, Matt Holliday and Brad Hawpe, were producing, and most notably they had unfathomably good pitching.

Fast-forward to this bright September morning, and the Rockies are in familiar territory: last place. The hitting has gone through lengthy dry spells (although Holliday is challenging for the batting title and Atkins has been one of the best players nobody outside of the Mountain Time Zone has heard of). And the pitching finally began to unravel, with Aaron Cook, Byung-Hyun Kim, Jeff Francis, and yes, Josh Fogg all showing serious signs of coming back to earth. Overall, the team has gone 24-35 since the All-Star Break (compared with the Pirates' 30-27 mark).

The Rox have still shown great improvement over last year, but their present struggles should give pause to Pirates fans who are banking on a stunning turnaround from a young club in '07.

Tracyism of the Week: Commenting on the Major League debut of pitcher Shane Youmans, RG had this to say:

"You're always anxious to see a young guy make his first appearance and wet his feet at the major-league level. There have been a lot of very special players come along in this game who had to make their first of something -- whether it was their first at-bat, their first start, their first relief appearance -- and it goes on from there."

The Buccin' Ear isn't sure. But did RG say that even some very special players have to make their first appearance in a game? Hmmm...wonder how many special players we missed over the years who never made an appearance? And if special players play but never appear and are therefore never seen, did they really play at all?

Heading Toward Home

2006-09-14T14:10:00.000-06:00

The Pirates and Brewers played a doubleheader Wednesday, a classic late-season affair between two teams long-since out of the race and existing for the most part only at the fringes of public consciousness. Both teams play second fiddle to their pro football counterparts anyway; the real object of passion in Wisconsin lies to the north on a frozen tundra, even in a year like this, when the Packers are giving every sign of playing like a bunch of guys with rigor mortis setting in. The Pirates? Well, they played second fiddle to the Steelers even in the halcyon days of the '70s. The Buccin' Ear doubts that one could count the fiddles the Pirates are behind their football counterparts these days.

Still, the two clubs laced them up for a pair before tiny crowds for both games. Fittingly, they split the twin bill, and for those who cared, there was some decent baseball played, particularly on the pitching side. Ian Snell threw one of those dominating games he has given the team from time to time this year, going seven innings, striking out 10, and even thanking pitching coach Jim Colborn, whom he had berated a week ago, for helping him to pitch inside consistently and effectively. Chris Duffy continued to offer hope for next year with a three-hit game, and Freddie Sanchez regained the batting lead in the 6-3 win.

The Brewers' talented but oft-injured Ben Sheets went Snell one better in the nightcap, flirting with a perfect game (Duffy broke it up) and carrying a shutout in the eighth (Ryan Doumit hit a solo homer to end that) en route to 2-1 victory in which the Pirates registered only those two hits and left no men on base (Duffy was picked off after his single). Despite the loss, there was a bright spot: a solid performance from Shawn Chacon, who displayed good control for the first time in a Pirate uniform.

The Pirates reached the 60-win mark with the victory in the opener, hardly cause for celebration, but worthy of note in that it provides a measure of their second-half improvement, however modest. For the record, here are the dates that the Pirates secured their 1oth, 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th and 60th wins, with the number of days they required to get to each in parentheses:

10: May 9 (36)
20: June 1 (23)
30: July 7 (36)
40: July 30 (23)
50 August 24 (25)
60 September 13 (20)

Getting from 0 to 10 and 20 to 30 took an astonishing 72 days, summing up the futility of the Pirates' first half and showing why the season was over, in many ways, before it had even begun.

Similarly, here is the team's month-by-month record:

April: 7-19
May: 12-15
June: 8-20
July: 13-12
August: 13-15
September: 7-6

The team has gone 33-33 since July 1. We wish they could have posted a record within shouting distance of that in April, May and June instead of the abysmal 27-54 they actually posted, but at least second-half improvement gives some reason for hope. Not much, but some.

So on to the final 15 games. 68 wins for the over/under, anyone?

Fighting the Blahgs

2006-09-13T07:26:00.000-06:00

Funny thing, this blogging. It seems like such a good idea when you begin. Write on what you like. Write anything you like. Write whenever you like. What's not to like?

Then the blahgs set in. As in who wants to write?

In the Buccin' Ear's case, maybe the blahgs came from finally not knowing what to write about another losing season for a Pirates team that hasn't seen a campaign north of .500 in a decade and a half. How many different ways can you spin that?

Then the Buccin' Ear opens an online edition of the Chicago Sun-Times, sees a column by one of his favorite columnists, Rick Telander, and gets this comment on the sorry state of the Chicago Cubs:

"Perhaps more than anything, the reason for the ho-hum atmosphere surrounding the team is the fact nobody -- no fan, no writer, no citizen, no fish in a bowl -- can sustain incredulity, outrage, headaches, forever. Despair creeps in, replaced by a kind of protective cynicism, which turns in time, as the caring lessens, to frivolous sarcasm.

And finally it comes to the point we have now reached, indifference. The Cubs have lurched their way to a 58-87 record this season, holding down the worst spot in the National League, behind even a farm club like the Pittsburgh Pirates."

Farm club? Ouch. Low blow, Rick.

But the Buccin' Ear can relate to incredulity, outrage, despair, protective cynicism and frivolous sarcasm. They're all great reasons to write, but they can only take a guy so far. Indifference is the writer's ultimate enemy.

Not that the Pirates have been all that bad a story since the July break, going a respectable 29-26 and putting to bed all those fears the Buccin' Ear raised about them finishing with a worse record than the 1985 team. They passed that woeful crew on September 9 with a victory in Cincinnati. They even did it in whimsical fashion. Their 58th win, which moved them past the '85 team made their record at the time 58-85. Maybe they should be renamed the Pittsburgh Palindromes.

What else happened while the Buccin' Ear was gone? Well, they lost the rubber game of their series in Cincinnati, nothing new; they beat the Brewers on Monday, nothing new; that win was by one-run, nothing new (they're now 13-2 in such contests since the break, strangely enough).

So what is new? Freddie Sanchez slipped into second in the batting race, and Ian Snell, who should have played for the Minnesota Gophers, was miffed that his pitching coach had the temerity to visit him on the mound in the midst of his latest bad outing. Jeez, the guy's only given up 28 homers this year. You can see why he'd wonder what all the fuss is about.

But to Snell's credit, he apologized for his outburst, calling his comments "dumb" and "immature." If only we'd hear that kind of honesty from politicians.

The Buccin' Ear even has something nice to say about Resident Genius Jim Tracy, who for once lived up to the name when he chose not to comment on Snell's snit. RG held his tongue until Snell came around, then publicly complimented the pitcher for his actions.

Well, maybe it's best to stop on that note. After a layoff, the Buccin' Ear doesn't want to throw his typing arms out patting RG on the back.

My Favorite Year

2006-09-07T16:50:00.000-06:00

After winning the first two games of their dramatic four-game series with the Chicago Cubs, the Pirates got their split of the final two by winning the finale today, behind power-hitting Chris Duffy, who hit two home runs, including the game-winner in the ninth. As a result of the 7-5 victory, the Bucs took three of four from the Cubs and left the Windy City in sole possession of fifth place in the NL Central.

The game followed a familiar pattern of late: the Pirates burst to a five-run lead; starter Shawn Chacon wasn't discouraged by that, and gave up five runs by the time he exited in the sixth with the game tied. Duffy deposited the second pitch he saw in the ninth over the ivy in centerfield, and the embarrassed Xavier Nady, who saw that he now trailed Duffy in homers as a Pirate this year, 2-1, apparently felt compelled to hit one of his own for the insurance run. Salomon Torres didn't need that, as he clamped down in the ninth for his fourth save.

But enough of this boring stuff about two teams that are a combined 53 games under .500. The Buccin' Ear only laments that baseball lost in 1981 its great opportunity to really inject life into the game. What's that, you say? The infamous 1981, the season in which a strike cost fans and players nearly two months of the season? Yes, I say, yes.

It was in 1981 that Major League Baseball, confounded by the question of what to do to account for the huge gap in the middle of the season (the All-Star game wasn't played until August 9 that year), declared that the year would be divided into two parts: pre-strike and post-strike. The "winners" of the first half would be playoff entrants, and the second half would begin fresh, with every team having a chance to contend. The "winner" of the second half would also earn a playoff bid.

Naturally, after all was said and done, there were naysayers, like the Cincinnati Reds, who merely had the best overall record in for the year, but didn't make the postseason because they "lost" to the Los Angeles in the "first half" (by a half game) and to Houston in the "second half" by a game and a half. The Philadelphia Phillies and the Montreal Expos (need we say more about how the downtrodden loved this concept?) also made the playoffs.

Forget the whining from Reds' fans. Consider what an '81 system would do for the Pirates in '06. Although they went 30-60 in the first half of the season (as defined by all games before the All-Star break), they are 27-24 in the second half. That might not sound terribly impressive, but if the second half were a "season" being contested, the Pirates would be tied for first with the St. Louis Cardinals for the lead in the Central Division. We'd have an old-fashioned barn-stormer on our hands, sports fans!

The interesting thing about this concept is that just about everything else would play out normally. The relentless mediocrity in the National League would hold sway, something that would undoubtedly soothe the soul of Bud Selig. The Mets, at 32-16 post-break, would still be the class of the league. Their only pursuer would be Florida, at 31-22. After that, eight teams would be bunched within four games of the 28-23 record recorded by the Dodgers.

Those of us who despised the strike-shortened year of 1981 when it occurred should take another look. If we could but go back, we Pirates fans would be breathing a sigh of relief this evening in picking up a much-needed victory over a team we should beat, damn it, over the 22-30 Chicago Cubs, and moaning over the fact that we don't get another crack at those Cardinals.

The Trade Watch: Zach Duke pitched a fine game on Wednesday, and deserved a win. After leaving with seven innings pitched, no walks and an unearned run, he was partially undone by yet another bad defensive play by Jose Castillo, who forgot to cover the bag on a bunt. Most infuriating was this quote from Castillo, courtesy of the Post-Gazette:

"I was a little bit confused, and I was a little bit late. That's okay. It's one time a year."

No, Jose, it isn't "okay," and it isn't "one time a year." Here's yet another pebble on the mounting pile of evidence that Castillo needs to move on after this year to a place where he can daydream in peace.

Take Five

2006-09-06T11:49:00.000-06:00

It took 139 games and more than five months, but for one day at least the Pirates no longer have the worst record in the National League. With last night's ninth-inning victory over the increasingly hapless Chicago Cubs, the Bucs are 56-83, good for fifth place, if only by a slender one-half game. The teams have the same number of losses. Call this "race" tortoise vs. tortoise.

So two cheers for the Pirates, one for catching the Cubs, and one for doing it by playing north of .500 since the All-Star break. To quote E.M. Forster,

"Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three."

The Pirates can primarily thank Jason Bay (two homers and four RBIs) and the bullpen (one unearned run in 5 2/3 inning in relief of Victor "Deadwood" Santos), but should also give a tip of the hat to Cubs "closer" Ryan Dumpster, er, Dempster, who threw two wild pitches in the ninth, the second of which brought in the winning run. Dempster, now 1-8, walked in the winning run last week in Pittsburgh. With friends like this, does Dusty Baker need any enemies? (Not that those are in short supply in any event in Chicago these days.)

The five-game winning streak against Chicago that has enabled the Pirates to climb out of the basement is not altogether surprising given the Cubs' rash of injuries and the pervasive pall that has enveloped the club. However, the Pirates had played poorly against the Cubs over the previous five-plus years leading up to the turnaround (36-59, including a combined 10-24 in 2004 and 2005). Even this year, they were 3-5 against the Cubs until the last two series the clubs have played.

Resident Genius Jim Tracy was blessedly low-key about the cellar exit, choosing to emphasize that the team has played three games above .500 in the 49 games since the All-Star game. Still, it's hard, in the Buccin' Ear's view, to get too excited about that either, because the Pirates' play is just too spotty. The starting pitching, which was pretty bad in the first half, has shown glimmers of improvement, but collectively they still hit rough patches (e.g., 14 earned runs in the past 13+ innings), and individually they are still plagued by persistent weaknesses such as Paul Maholm's and Zach Duke's unending early-inning woes and Ian Snell's penchant for giving up the long ball.

Offensively, the team is usually shut down by good pitching. The two recent outings against Carlos Zambrano, which produced a combined 10 runs, don't count. Zambrano hurt himself with two errors in the first one, and he was just plain hurt in the second. Xavier Nady has provided some help recently, but the team is still far too dependent on Jason Bay and Freddie Sanchez. As we saw in St. Louis last week, when Bay has a bad series, the Pirates normally don't score much, if at all. Chris Duffy, Jose Bautista and Jose Castillo have yet to develop consistency. Ronnie Paulino has been a plus in hitting for average, but he doesn't hit for power.

The bench? Well, let's just say Ryan Doumit and Humberto Cota and leave it at that (with a minor apology to Cota because of his two pinch hits the past week). Jeromy Burnitz and Joe Randa don't play into the discussion because they're not part of the team's plans. Nate McLouth is injured, and hasn't exactly had a stellar year anyway.

And one key stat that has bugged the Buccin' Ear for some time continues to be a sore spot: the strikeout-walk ratio. The '06 Pirates have struck out 1,001 times while drawing a mere 396 walks. That's close to three Ks for every BB. Terrible.

Flip side: Pirate pitchers have struck out 920 hitters while issuing 543 walks. That's a ratio of about 1.7:1. It doesn't take a genius to understand the advantage that opposing teams have had over the Pirates in this category. RG goes on and on about how close the team is to being a contender. If that is indeed the case, then it seems obvious that this disparity needs to be narrowed.

The Buccin' Ear is no batting coach, but one would think that somebody who is would tell these guys to shorten up a little bit, particularly with two strikes. It's annoying to watch them flail away (and they're nearly all guility of this), regardless of the count or what the pitcher is throwing.

Note to Bucco hitters: "Cutting down on your swinging" isn't what you do after your girlfriend finds your Little Black Book.

Well, enough raining on RG's parade. The team is doing really well. Just ask him.

The 1985 Watch: Get ready to pop the champagne. On September 6, the '85 squad lost to the Houston Astros, 4-3 in 10 innings, to drop to 42-90. With a commanding 10 1/2 game lead over their '80s-era counterparts, the 56-83 '06 Pirates need just two wins to avoid becoming the fifth-worst team in club history. That would take a total coll...never mind.

Pirates Past: On September 6, 1973, the Pirates fired manager Bill Virdon following a 5-3 loss to the Cardinals that brought their record to a disappointing 67-69. Danny Murtaugh, taking on a fourth tour of duty as Buc manager, replaced Virdon, but the move didn't help. The team went 13-13 the rest of the way to finish in third place in the NL East at 80-82. It was the only time in the '70s that the Pirates finished lower than second in the division or had a losing record.

The season was also played without Roberto Clemente, who had died in a plane crash over the off season while attempting to aid earthquake victims in Nicaragua. The Pittsburgh Pirates Encyclopedia calls Opening Day, April 6, 1973, the third-most disappointing game in Pirates history:

"There have been 116 opening days in the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates [Note: through 2002]; none were less anticipated or more painful than the one that opened up the 1973 campaign.

"Yes, the Pirates won the game 7-5, coming back dramatically over Bob Gibson from a 5-0 deficit, but sometimes a disheartening game goes beyond the line score. The contest was the first the team played wihtout their beloved leader, Roberto Clemente."

Battle in the Basement

2006-09-05T11:34:00.000-06:00

Back on July 4, the Buccin' Ear blogged (see the post "Avoiding History"):

"Circle the dates of September 4-7. That's when the Pirates invade Wrigley Field for a series with the victory-challenged Cubs that may go a long way toward not only determining the team's place in history, but also toward revealing this year's worst team in baseball -- or at least the National League, which these days is another way of saying the same thing."

At that time, the question of whether the 2006 team could avoid a worse record than its 1985 counterpart (57-104), was an open question. That question has all but been decided as we now arrive at the aformentioned four-game confrontation with the Cubs: with yesterday's 5-4 victory in Chicago, the Bucs are now 55-83. Win just three of the final 24 games, and they're home free with 58 wins. In fact, let's get greedy. If they can win just one-third of their remaining games, they'll avoid 100 losses.

Let's get greedier. Now the Pirates try to clamber out of the cellar, and the door continues to swing open. In fact, it's gaping. The Cubs' lead over the Bucs has melted to one-half game. Merely by winning two of the remaining three games, the Pirates will leave Chicago blinking in the sunlight of fifth place.

Big deal? Well, depends on who you talk to. After Salomon Torres clinched the win for his second save, he jumped off the mound, so it was clearly a big deal for him. Paul Maholm, who turned in another wearying, 100+-pitch performance (over just five innings) for the win, told The Post-Gazette,

"No question about it. We want to get out of the cellar."

As for the Cubs, first baseman Derrek Lee summed up their response in the Chicago Sun-Times:

''I don't want to finish in last place, but for them to get excited about that, I don't know how much difference it makes. We have too many other things to worry about. We have to take care of ourselves."

Okay, the Pirates didn't exactly get the Cubs' best shot yesterday, because their ace, Carlos Zambrano, had a bad back and didn't even approach his usual form. The Bucs scored all five of their runs off of him by the second inning, but watched Maholm give four of them back by the end of the second. But Maholm managed three scoreless innings, and the bullpen closed the door the rest of the way. So it was another win, the Pirates' fourth straight over the Cubs.

Does it matter? If you're the Pirates, hell, yes, it matters. This is a team that has never been out of the cellar in 2006. This is a team that was 30 games below .500 at the All-Star break. This is a team that has won just 19 games on the road all year. This is a team that will conclude its 14th consecutive losing season in another month. Every team needs something to play for. Does the Buccin' Ear want to see a bunch of guys playing for themselves or playing for a team goal? That's an easy one. I'd rather see guys excited over winning a game and showing some enthusiasm for slogging through the last month of a lost season than trudging off the field without spirit after a win (or loss, for that matter).

And the team is 25-23 after the All-Star break. You gotta start somewhere. Beats packing it in. Does it matter in the grand scheme of things?

Hell, no, it doesn't matter. The team will approach, if not reach, 100 losses. It has a serious power shortage, it is short a starting pitcher, it is unsettled in right field, and it isn't yet a serius threat to compete in the worst division in baseball. It has a depleted upper farm system, weak decision-making skills in the front office and thus far unproven field leadership in Jim Tracy. They've reversed their awful record in one-run games, but not their terrible performance in enemy ballparks.

They've got a long way to go. Should Pirates fans find glimmers of hope in their climb up the cellar stairs? The Buccin' Ear can't put it any better than The Stats Geek did in today's Post-Gazette:

"Alas, the Pirates have given fans no confidence they know how to invest. So even as general manager Dave Littlefield correctly assesses the pressing needs, a veteran starting pitcher and a left-handed power hitter, there's fear this only heralds the second coming of Mark Redman and Jeromy Burnitz."

Pirates Past: Happy 70th birthday to Bill Mazeroski, Hall-of-Famer and owner of the most famous hit in Pirates history.

Tracyism of the Week: Following Jason Bay's 2-for-12 weekend in St. Louis, RG offered this insight on the outfielder's struggles:

"We all go through things like that. Any of us that have ever walked to the plate, we go through things like that. You figure it out, that's what you do."

No word on whether Bay offered RG a Rolex for that sage advice.

Other Views: Hall-of-Fame writer Tracy Ringolsby had this to say about the Pirates in the September 1 online version of the Rocky Mountain News: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/sports_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_83_4961193,00.html
"Word out of Pittsburgh is that for the second year in a row, ownership is going to beef up the payroll for 2007. What nobody is saying is who's going to be spending the money.

"General manager Dave Littlefield is under contract, but he also has been on the job for more than five years, brought in his hand-picked manager, Jim Tracy, last offseason and is facing the potential of having a worse record than the year before for the third season in a row. The Pirates also could lose 100 games for the second time in 21 years.

"Having money is one thing, but spending it properly is another. "Too often teams looking for credibility feel they have to spend whatever budget they have, regardless of the return on their investment. Pittsburgh has suffered from that since long before Littlefield got the job, but last offseason was another display of misspending simply because the payroll budget jumped to nearly $48 million.

"The Pirates made three key free agent signings - third baseman Joe Randa, outfielder Jeromy Burnitz and reliever Roberto Hernandez. Hernandez was dealt to the Mets a couple of weeks ago. "Randa and Burnitz have combined to drive in 75 runs for the $10 million investment and are spending the bulk of their time on the bench, waiting for the season to end so they can become unemployed."

Song of Salomon

2006-09-02T20:26:00.000-06:00

Two games into the Pirates' series against the Cardinals, they've scored a total of two runs. Surprising? No, not for a team that was 17-48 on the road going into the series, which began with them facing a pitcher that is nearly untouchable against them, Chris Carpenter.

Not surprisingly, Carpenter, now 4-0 against the Pirates this year, shut them down on three hits. Surprisingly, however, the Pirates won the second game, tonight, 1-0, behind five shutout innings from the unpredictable Shawn Chacon, and a combined four innings from Matt Capps (winner, 6-1) and Salomon Torres (save, first).

Four years ago tonight, Torres returned to the Major Leagues for the first time since 1997, beginning a remarkable story that has not been widely reported. According to www.baseballlibrary.com, on September 2, 2002,

"Pittsburgh's Salomon Torres (1-0)‚ pitching in the majors for the first time since July 20‚ 1997‚ starts and goes 8.1 scoreless innings against the Braves. He also collects his first hit since 1994. as the Pirates win‚ 3-0. Torres‚ 30‚ retired as an active player in 1997 and served as Montreal's pitching coach in the Dominican Summer League before signing with Pittsburgh in January."

Is that a story? The Buccin' Ear thinks so. In fact, it's an incredible feature, worthy of Julio Franco attention, but of course it won't get it, because Torres happens to pitch in an ignored market for a last-place team.

Torres made his 81st appearance tonight, throwing two scoreless innings, and striking out two with the bases loaded en route to the saves. He's an old-school pitcher, unafraid to pitch when he's tired, and giving more than one inning when it is called for, which is likely to be the case this final month, with Mike Gonzales injured.

How valuable is Torres?Beyond the games and innings that he has sucked up, consider the experience of rookie Matt Capps, who has observed him all year. Tonight, Capps, a rookie, made his 73rd appearance of the year, pitching two innings. As Capps put it to the Post-Gazette, regarding breaking the number of appearances for a rookie Pirate reliever,

"It will just be awesome. You only get one year and one opportunity to be a rookie. To have something to call your own -- a record like that -- would be great."

Would he say that without observing Salomon? Not likely.

Torres has said he wants to stay with the Pirates, and he may have communicated that enthusiasm to Capps and his fellow relievers. If that is the case, he deserves appreciation beyond the smattering of applause that greets his entrances and exits. He's a special player.

Get Outta Town

2006-08-31T09:34:00.000-06:00

August 30. Pittsburgh. PNC Park. Under a gray late-summer sky, two battered ballclubs battled it out. The game may not have been big, but the numbers were:

11 innings
19 runs
40 hits
35 singles
28 men LOB
13 pitchers
8 walks
17 strikeouts.

From the Pirates' perspective, the biggest numbers were the 10 runs they scored versus the nine runs the Cubs scored, which added up to 53, as in victories, and three, as in sweep. For a second night in a row, they did it by coming from behind in extra innings, this time courtesy of a two-out, two-run single from -- who else? -- Freddie Sanchez, who continues to stake his claim to folk hero status in Pittsburgh. With the hit, the guy finished the day at a measly .347 for the season -- "measly" because he's hitting an absurd .423 with runners in scoring position.

Idea for movie remake: "The Devil and Freddie Sanchez."

How well are things going for Freddie? In his pivotal at-bat, he spun a weak nubber up the first base line that twisted foul a nanosecond before Derrek Lee grabbed it (he would beg to differ). Reprieved, he managed to plunk one the opposite way just over the outstretched glove of the unfortunate Mr. Lee, and moments later he was being pummeled by his teammates.

The whole sequence led to a memorable take from the beleaguered Dusty Baker. As the Chicago Sun-Times put it,

"If the questionable roller was foul, video replay suggested it was by a razor-thin margin."

Responded Dusty:

''But it seems like 'razor-thin' always cuts us."

Talk about your cutting-edge commentary.

Later, Dusty, at least to these buccin' ears, sounded like a guy doing a "Saturday Night Live" routine:

''Boy! Our guys battled and fought. ... I thought Ronny Cedeno's run in the 11th would be enough. That was real tough. Damn!''

Gosh-darn the luck! Gee-whillikers!

Well, the Buccin' Ear advises himself and all Pirate fans to enjoy it. It's now off to St. Louis to meet Chris Carpenter and a bunch of red-hatted guys undoubtedly still sore from that three-game sweep in Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago. Let's hope RG and Company can find some spirit in St. Louis.

As for the Cubs, to quote '60s supergroup The Happenings, "See You in September" (4-7). Talk about a battle of the titans.

Our Kind of Team, Chicago

2006-08-30T09:27:00.000-06:00

If the Cubs are trying to avoid finishing last in the NL Comedy Central, they have a funny way of showing it.

After last night's 11-inning, 7-6 victory over Chicago, which can only be described as a hugely extravagant gift, the Pirates improbably find themselves just 2 1/2 games behind their rival in ineptitude. If last night's performance was any indication, the Cubs might be happy to concede fifth place to the Pirates in exchange for cancelling all games in September.

The Pirates trailed 4-0, 5-4 and 6-5 before rallying for two runs in the 11th -- with the help of the Cubs, of course. They prevailed despite an unsightly five-inning, 113-pitch performance from starter Paul Maholm; two hideous at-bats from Ryan Doumit and Jose Castillo with a runner on third in the bottom of the eighth; shaky play by Doumit at first base; and comically inept baserunning from Humberto Cota (who may have forgotten what to do on the basepaths due to lack of practice).

The game ended, fittingly, with a Cub mistake: ball four from reliever Bob Howry to Jose Bautista, which forced in the winning run. Prior to that Ronnie Cedeno and Freddie Bynum had botched a double-play ball that would have ended the game. Prior to that, starter Carlos Zambrano's promising start (no hits allowed through five innings) had died at his own hand, as he committed two errors, both on potential double play balls. Even the Pirates couldn't turn down that many extra outs.

If one play exemplified the x-rated highlight reel, it was Cota's pinch hit in the 11th. The seldom-used backup catcher bounced a ball down the third base line that eluded ex-Buc Aramis Ramirez. The ball rolled into foul territory, and Ramirez loafed after it, seemingly giving Cota plenty of time to reach second except Cota -- getting no help from statue-like first base coach John Shelby -- inexplicably held up. So here we had the Cubs essentially offering the Pirates an extra base but the Pirates graciously declining the offer. A single by Castillo, and the aforementioned muffed double play and bases-loaded pass secured the win.

The post-mortem on this one produced several gems from the participants. The Buccin' Ear offers these highlights:

``It seems like we find ways to lose ballgames,'' said Aramis Ramirez. "Seems like"? Don't sell yourself short, bud. You guys do it!
``Basically we gave it to them,'' Cubs manager Dusty Baker said. No, Dusty, you did give it to them. After all, one doesn't say, "Basically, I was in a hideous car crash."
``Everyone contributed to this win,'' Xavier Nady said. ``It's always nice to see that. We'll have to continue to build on this.'' Sorry, X, but you won't be able to schedule the rest of your games with the Cubs. Let's see how we do without the Cubs' contributions.

Let's end with some Bucco bright notes:

John Grabow and Salomon Torres combined for three scoreless innings of relief to help pick up Maholm.
Freddie Sanchez had just one hit, but it was a big one, a game-tying, two-out single in the seventh.
Nady had three hits and scored two runs, continuing a recent run of good hitting.
Chris Duffy and Ronnie Paulino each laid down perfect sacrifice buts when they were called for.
Jose Castillo threw out all three runners on groundballs in the sixth, meaning the scorecard read 4-3, 4-3, 4-3, with the score 4-3.

The Pirates go for the sweep today.

Gonzo-Gorzo-Gones-O

2006-08-29T13:16:00.000-06:00

The Pirates pulled to within 3 1/2 games of the fifth-place Chicago Cubs Monday night with an uncharacteristic offensive burst that produced an 11-6 win. Although starter and winner Ian Snell disappointingly broke down in the sixth inning after five solid innings, the 9-1 lead the team had built up for him was enough to secure his 12th win of the season.

The victory was strongly tempered by the news that both closer Mike Gonzales and rookie starter Tom Gorzelanny have elbow tendinitis, meaning their seasons are probably over. At least let's hope so. An organization that has had the kind of thick cloud hanging over it, particularly where pitchers are concerned, should hardly be even voicing the possibility that either could return this year, as Jim Tracy has seemed to do. What for, the Buccin' Ear wonders?

What makes the news of the injuries so Pirate-esque, of course, is that both players were pitching extremely well prior to the disclosures. Gorzo had pitched more consistently than any of the other starters for the month leading up to his recent missed start. Gonzo, of course, had not only converted all 24 of his save opportunities, he had retired the last nine batters he faced in his final three saves, six by strikeouts. So what Buc fan could be surprised that they would be hurt?

The name Sean Burnett should be pasted to the foreheads of all "The Deciders" in the Pirate camp, so they can remind each other of what can happen to young pitchers seemingly filled with promise. Burnett, the 19th pick in the 2000 draft, was coming on strong in 2004 and had won five games before he suddenly lost effectiveness at midseason. After getting hit hard a few times, he was shelved with elbow problems and has not made it back to the Big Leagues yet. He's currently 8-10 for Indianapolis with an ERA over 5.00 and as many walks as strikeouts.

Said Snell to the Associated Press following last night's game:

``I'm excited for myself and for my team because every win we get is a hard-fought. We're fighting to get as close to .500 as we can.''

Commendable. But .500 is a distant shore, and there is no sense wasting arms trying to get there.

ChaconGate: Shawn Chacon's latest poor effort continues to shine a light on Pirate management's shoddy performance at the trading deadline. After acquiring Chacon in a questionable (at best) exchange with the Yankees for Craig Wilson, the pitcher revealed that he had a bad knee. The Pirates, of course, had made no mention of this at the time of the trade, but Dave Littlefield attempted to cover his tracks by saying that the team was aware of the current problem, which he claimed was different than another knee problem Chacon had had -- whatever that meant (see August 14 post, "Little Laughs").

After a poor performance in his second start as a Pirate, the team announced that Chacon would be sent to the bullpen to "work on his mechanics." Then it was seen fit to put him back in the starting rotation, before he had made even one relief appearance. His lack of control and poor location point either to a knee problem or poor mechanics or both. The question for the Pirates is, which is it?

If his knee is sound but his mechanics are not, why not work on his mechanics before thrusting him back into a starting role? If his mechanics are sound, but his knee is not, why is he back in the rotation at all?

Pirates Present: On August 29, 1993, a man who was to become a familiar face for the Pirates made his Major League debut : Salomon Torres. Since coming to Pittsburgh in 2002 (he appeared in just five games that year), Torres has been the team's most dependable bullpen arm. He made his 286th appearance as a Pirate last night, and logged his 411th inning.

Pirates Past: Paul ("Big Poison") Waner, one of the greatest players in Pirates history, died on this day in 1965. Waner patrolled rightfield for the Pirates for 15 years (1926-1940). He collected more than 150 hits in every one of them except the last, and had eight seasons of 200 hits or more (he finished his career with 3,152).

In 1927, just his second year in the league, he won the MVP for the pennant-winning Pirates, batting .380 (on 237 nits) and driving in 131 runs. He probably would have won another MVP in 1934 but for Dizzy Dean, who just happened to win 30 games that year.

Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1951, Waner and his brother (and fellow HOF'er), Lloyd ("Little Poison"), have curiously never garnered the attention from the Pirates organization due them, a fact noted by Post-Gazette writer Bob Smizik in a June 12, 2005 column:

"Waner is a forgotten man in Pirates lore, a legend dimmed by time and the ESPN generation."

To read the entire column:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05163/519943.stm

The 14ers

2006-08-28T11:28:00.000-06:00

If it is tough for the Buccin' Ear to write a blog entry following the Pirates' lost weekend against the Houston Astros, imagine how the players must feel as they face the last month of the season.

The Bucs' modest run of success that included three straight wins against the Braves and Astros came to a crashing end Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Astros crushed the Pirates by a combined 28-6, and put an exclaimation point on their dominance Sunday with a 13-1 shellacking that sent Shawn Chacon to another early shower. On Saturday, Zach Duke was cuffed around in a 7-4 loss, and Friday, Victor Santos had the misfortune of facing Roger Clemens. Santos pitched credibly, but Clemens pitched better, and the Astros won 5-1.

As a result of all this, the Astros, winners of six of the past seven contests with the Pirates, left town with their playoff hopes still alive, although they undoubtedly had hoped for a sweep. As for the Pirates, they are 50-81, one game away from a 14th consecutive losing season. Loss Number 82 could come as early as tonight against the Chicago Cubs.

The 1985 Watch: The 1985 Pirates fell to the Braves in Atlanta 7-6 on August 27, bringing their record to 39-83. The team went 18-21 the rest of the way to finish 57-104. The '06 edition (50-81) must finish at least 8-23 to reach the magic win total of 58.

Tracyism of the Week: Thanks to regular reader bern1 for bringing this one to the Buccin' Ear's attention:

Following Paul Maholm's victory over the Astros on Thursday, RG said, according to the Post-Gazette:

“He battled like crazy and hung in there. Early in the game, he pitched, but he wasn't pitching.”

Move over Yogi.

Little Laugh of the Week:

Dave Littlefield remarked in today's Post-Gazette that the Pirates should have "plenty of dollars" to spend over the winter to beef up the roster. He then contributed this howler:

"We've had plenty of fan support this year, and I know Kevin and Bob are committed to investing that money in baseball operations for more resources to go in whatever direction we want, so that the product on the field keeps improving."

"The product keeps on improving"? The team has lost at least 87 games every year since 2000. The total climbed from 87 in 2003 to 89 in 2004, 95 in 2005, and is on course to reach 100 this year. If the product is improving, why aren't the results?

Also, the self-serving comment about the commitment "to investing that money in baseball operations" is especially inane. The revenue-sharing arrangement that governs Major League Baseball at this time requires that the money clubs like the Pirates receive from the wealthier teams be put into baseball operations. What can't be required is that the recipient teams invest the money wisely. Pirate fans aren't about to assume that the Brainless Trust will do that with the extra moolah.

Pirate Past: Second baseman Jose ("Chico") Lind made his Major League debut August 28, 1987. Lind went on to bat .322 in 35 games that year and became a regular the following year, holding the position through 1992. A solid fielder, Lind unfortunately was one of the players at the center of the seventh-game loss to the Braves in the '92 playoffs, as he made a crucial error in the bottom of the ninth that helped Atlanta to rally for the win.

Even more unfortunately, Lind's life took a big downturn after he left baseball at the conclusion of the 1995 season. In 1997, he was arrested for drunk driving and was found to be behind the wheel sans britches.

From Wikipedia:

"On November 21, 1997, highway police in Tampa, Florida stopped Lind for leaving the scene of an accident. They discovered that he was visibly intoxicated, and that he had been driving while naked from the waist down. A search of his car revealed seven cans of beer and one gram of cocaine. Lind ended up spending a year in jail."

Bad things can happen when you leave Pittsburgh.

Home Warriors

2006-08-25T10:22:00.000-06:00

One night after pushing a pin into the artificially inflated playoff hopes of the Atlanta Braves, the Pirates put the squeeze on another fringe playoff team, the Houston Astros. The 5-3 victory came in the Friendly Confines of PNC Park, where the Bucs are 33-30, and a solid match for most teams in the NL.

The game followed what has suddenly become a satisfying formula: decent starting pitching
(6 2/3 IP, 3 ER from winner Paul Maholm), timely hitting (3 hits for Jason Bay, who is emphatically back on track; 2 hits and 2 runs scored for Chris Duffy, who is showing signs of settling into his leadoff role), and shutdown relief work, with another suspense-free ninth from Mike Gonzales (24 for 24 in save opportunities).

The Astros were struggling coming into the series, having lost nine of 12. The Pirates have been quite good at extending the misery of struggling teams this year. Of the six series they have won since the All-Star break, all but one have come against teams in the midst of a rough patch:

July 14-16: The Washington Nationals had lost four of five.
July 17-19: The Colorado Rockies had dropped seven straight.
July 24-26: The Milwaukee Brewers had lost nine of 11.
July 28-30: The San Francisco Giants had dropped four straight.
August 11-13: The St. Louis Cardinals had lost 10 of 14.
August 21-23: The Atlanta Braves had split their previous six games.

The numbers demonstrate the weakness of the National League, which in turn offers some hope for the Pirates in the future. In the past, dominant teams beat up on lesser lights like the Pirates, particularly in August and September as the playoff races heat up. It appears this year, however, that a struggling team with playoff aspirations facing the Pirates will not be able to count on easy victories -- particularly in Pittsburgh.

As the Buccin' Ear noted above, some of the elements of a truly competitive team appear to be coalescing for the Pirates, although it is far too early to get overly excited. The team needs to nurture its young pitching, keep the bullpen intact, and let the current lineup play out the season so that a reasonable evaluation of the team can be done during the winter. The fans have not deserted this team, and management needs to reward their patience in the offseason by making acquisitions based on strategic improvement (e.g., settling the uncertainty in right field and adding some lefthanded pop), not on merely patching holes, which of course has been their pattern in recent years.

The Pirates also need to take a reasoned look at why they have played so poorly on the road this year. Is the 17-48 record an aberration or a sign of poor preparation or some other shortcoming? Common sense says that a bad trend that persists over 65 games isn't an accident.

Other views: Writing for sportsillustrated.cnn.com, SI baseball correspondent Tom Verducci has this to say about the Pirates' young pitching staff:

"I like Zach Duke, Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny and Paul Maholm, even if they still look raw, but I just don't know if any one of them is going to be a No. 1. What the Pirates need to do is keep running these guys out there, the way the Braves did with Tom Glavine, the Cubs with Greg Maddux and the Twins with Brad Radke, while managing their innings on a year-to-year basis. History tells you at most two of those guys will stay healthy and be consistent front-line starters, but you can only know that by sticking with them. I also think it's very important for the Pirates to get an older veteran who can counsel them. One of the underrated stories of this year is how important Kenny Rogers has been to the young Detroit staff. That's the kind of influence -- and innings-eating -- a young staff like Pittsburgh's needs."

Kick 'em When They're Down

2006-08-24T08:21:00.000-06:00

Want angst? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Atlanta Braves.

After 15 years of gleeful tomahawk chops, dominance accompanied by a shrug and a sense of noblesse oblige, hard times have arrived in the City That Doesn't Give a Crap If We Win the Division Every Year.

Yes, the team is under .500, their wild card playoff hopes, which are alive only because they play in the Circuit That Plays Like Seniors, are on the life support.

But wait, those New Southerners who still care had murmured at the start of the week. The Pirates are coming to town! Surely we shall resurrect our hopes by feasting for three games on these Rust Belt Schmoes. Then the Nationals are coming in, and that's three more and...

Well, in the immortal words of somebody, Not so fast, Bubba.

Things started off on schedule Monday, with a John Smoltz-authored win. But then came the eighth-inning collapse Tuesday, and then came, shockingly, another win for the road-challenged Buccos last night, courtesy of a Freddie Sanchez homer and another dominating performance by Mike Gonzales to close things out.

Hold the presses. The Pirates won two of three. On the road. In Atlanta.

How are the Braves fans taking it? The Buccin' Ear thinks this entry from the Braves blog at the Atlanta Constitution-Journal Web site sums it up best:

"We lose to the Pirates, the sorry, stinking, good for nothing, everybodies (sic) doormat Pirates. If we were losing against the Mets or Dodgers or somebody good you might understand it, but the Pirates? It is hard to accept the fact that the Braves are just a sub .500 team. They are not playing bad, this is just the kind of team they are. I would never have believed it earlier in the year but their play has proved it."

On behalf of Pirates fans everywhere: Welcome to our world. Deal with it, Bubba.

But enough on the sorry, stinking, good for nothing, everybody's doormat Braves. As Butch Cassidy said to the Sundance Kid, "Boy, a little cloud appears on your horizon, and you go all to pieces."

We Pirate fans take our satisfaction where we can get it, and Atlanta is as good as it gets. Since 1997, a trip to Atlanta has been as welcome for the Pirates as, well, a summer trip to the Deep South, which is to say sticky, uncomfortable and unsatisfying. Yes, it has been that long since the Bucs won a series from the Braves in Rhett Butler Country, so named because most Braves fans have that famous fictional southerner's most famous reactionto their team: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

But then this series might be called the resistable force against the movable object. As bad as the Pirates have been on the road (now 17-48), the Braves have been just as woeful at home (now 26-33). Certainly, the Braves must have been looking enviously at the Pirates bullpen this week. While the Pirates feasted on Braves relief pitching the last two nights, Pirates relievers held the fort after a decent outing by Shawn Chacon on Tuesday, and bailed out Ian Snell Wednesday. Matt Capps entered last night's game with the bases loaded and two out after Snell suddenly tired. Capps got a strikeout, and that was all she wrote for the Braves.

Gonzales may not be drawing a lot of attention from fans because of the team he plays on, but he should be. After a season of high-wire acts, Gonzo has shown that he belongs among the elite closers in the game. He now does what they do: simply slams the door.

And that door you heard slamming was on the playoff hopes of the Braves. Chipper, Andruw, Marcus, enjoy the rest of your nice, quiet summer at home.

The End of An Era

2006-08-23T18:34:00.000-06:00

So long, Jose K. It all ended much too soon.

Three days after Resident Genius Jim Tracy made his compelling case for Jose Hernandez as not only the best 25th man in baseball, but also the defensive equal of anyone on the team, the Pirates unceremoniously shipped the All-Purpose, Man-About-PNC to the Phillies for cash. How much? Not disclosed, although probably more than the $9.95 cynically conjectured by one of the Buccin' Ear's faithful readers.

And so ends the strange tenure of Senor Strikeout. He must be wondering, as many do, just exactly who is in charge in Piratedom. Not only was he cut loose after RG's ringing endorsement; the Pirates even saw fit to go with 24 players for a day. (Ryan Doumit was to join the team tonight. No word on whether he will be christened the best 25th man in baseball, or if Rajai Davis or Humberto Cota will battle him for the prized designation. On the other hand, perhaps RG will decide that no one but Senor K could ever merit that moniker.)

Hernandez was the perfect symbol for the Buccin' Ear of the strangeness of this season, with its oddball personnel moves and surreal decision making. No game symbolized this better than the May 21 contest in Cleveland (memorialized in the May 22 post, "Facing the Indians with an Empty Quiver"). Masochists will recall that RG sent Jose (hitting about .150 at the time) up with runners on first and second to pinch hit -- with Craig Wilson on the bench. To top it off, he asked Hernandez to bunt. Needless to say, the strategy worked out poorly, prompting a torrent of criticism from this quarter and others.

In any event, the Pirates showed what they were made of Tuesday night, recovering from the shock of JH's departure and going out to score a 5-3 victory over Atlanta that was, well, brave. It was just their 16th road win of the year, and it came in the rarest of fashion: a four-run rally in the eighth that featured a string of big basehits.

Still, RG contributed another of his alternate-universe observations following the game:

"You love to see that. And I'm seeing more of it in the second half."

Really? The Buccin' Ear is stuck for a response.

Shawn Chacon returned to the mound and, on paper, the results were encouraging: five IP, one ER. However, it's hard to wax too rapturously over a performance that included five walks and two hit batsmen. Could be the Braves were not at the top of their game.

But why quibble? He was probably pitching through tears.

The Pirate Past: According to baseballlibrary.com, on August 23, 1970, Roberto Clemente got five hits against the Los Angeles Dodgers in an 11-0 Pirates win. It was the second straight five-hit day for The Great One, making him the first Major Leaguer in the 20th century to collect 10 hits over two games.

The Pirate Prescription

2006-08-22T16:14:00.000-06:00

Say you're a team that has won 15 division titles in a row, but has finally fallen on hard times. Your playoff hopes are still alive, but time is running out. To make matters worse, you're 26-31 at home.

Now say you're the last holdover from the team that began the great run in 1991. You view yourself as a team leader, but the last time out, you got shelled, and you pronounced yourself "embarrassed" by your performance.

Such was the situation for the Atlanta Braves and righthander John Smoltz heading into last night's game against the Pirates. And the Pirates provided the perfect rejuvenating elixir for both, falling 3-0 without raising much beyond token resistance to Smoltz, who scotched the memory of his last outing with a four-hitter and 10 strikeouts. Smoltz required just under two hours to dispose of the Belittled Bucs, now 15-48 on the road and 6-25 in their last 31 games in Atlanta since 1998.

Smoltz has found the Pirates easy pickings over the last decade. His lifetime record against them is only 14-11, with a 3.31 ERA, but he is 11-3 with an ERA just over 2.00 since 1996. This year, he is 2-0 against Pittsburgh, with an ERA of 1.20. The Pirates last night were able to mount only one very modest threat, when they put two on in the eighth with two out, but Jack Wilson grounded out. Smoltz retired to towel off the light sweat he'd broken, and Bob Wickman doused the barely wavering Pirate lights in an uneventful ninth.

Zach Duke put up a game effort in opposing Smoltz, giving up three runs in seven innings in another encouraging performance. He gave up a two-run double to somebody named Martin Prado, which was probably his worst pitch of the night, but his control was solid. He just happened to be facing a surefire Hall of Famer who was mad at himself for not meeting his own high standards and wasn't about to get even nicked by a last-place team.

There are no John Smoltzes in the Pirates' locker room, it seems, and the Buccin' Ear isn't talking about a guy with his talent, but rather a guy who refuses to accept mediocrity -- either his own or his team's.

25th Man Update: Benchwarmer extraordinaire Jose Hernandez did not get into last night's game. He is opposed in this series by Atlanta's BBW (Best Benchwarmer -- thanks to reader Paul in Denver for that splendid acronym, although the Buccin' Ear also contributes PPR -- Premier Pine Rider), LF Scott Thorman (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/players/7798/).

Other Views: Browsing through the columns of the fine baseball writer Thomas Boswell
at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/12/AR2006071202069.html, the Buccin' Ear ran across this statement from TB after he had attended this year's All-Star game:

"On Tuesday night in Pittsburgh, everyone in baseball gazed in admiration at glorious five-year-old PNC Park as it basked in its full All-Star Game glory. Built flush on the banks of the Allegheny River with vast vistas of the glistening Steel City skyline beyond right field and gleaming yellow Roberto Clemente Bridge silhouetted in center field, the Pirates' home could not have been more perfectly conceived and executed. A town on a budget created a baseball masterpiece."

Well said. But a sobering couple of paragraphs he included near the end of the piece might be even better stated, and one can only hope that the Pirates' current management team takes heed:

"Once upon a time, a Camden Yards could carry a team for years. That's history. A new stadium is a huge opportunity, but far from a guarantee. Pittsburgh illustrates what can go wrong. The Pirates' attendance cratered by 26.7 percent just one year after PNC Park opened to universal raves. Pittsburgh lacks D.C.'s demographics. But gulp anyway.

Of the five best attendance seasons in the Pirates' long history, four came in the days of boring old Three Rivers Stadium -- an RFK clone. In '60, the Bucs drew more at Forbes Field than they did at PNC Park in '03 or '04. The reason? That Pirates team was a winner. Fan-friendly ballparks and snooty sky suites are nice. But winning is life's blood."

Rennie's Day of Ruin

2006-08-21T18:00:00.000-06:00

The Buccin' Ear received via e-mail today the excellent "Baseball Today" newsletter, available for free from www.baseballlibrary.com, an indispensable source of information. The newsletter noted that on this day (August 21) in 1977, Pirates second baseman, Rennie Stennett, fractured his leg sliding into second base in a game against the San Francisco Giants, ending his season, and, effectively, his career. Stennett never really recovered from the injury, and after two more frustrating years with the Pirates, he went to San Francisco, ironically, in 1980, where he again could not overcome the after effects of the injury. He retired after the '81 season.

Stennett was batting .336 at the time and leading the league in hitting, and there was good reason to believe that he was on his way to becoming one of the top second basemen in the league for years to come. Take it from the Buccin' Ear, who was at the very first game Stennett appeared in as a Pirate (July 10, 1971): Stennett had the goods to do it. He electrified the crowd that first day in the Bigs by hustling a double into a triple and triggering a number of cries of "Who's that?" in the stands. Stennett went on to hit .353 in 50 games in '71, but did not qualify for the postseason roster. By '74, however, he was the regular second baseman, and on September 16, 1975, he went 7-for-7 in a nine-inning game against the Cubs (a 22-0 squeaker in favor of the Pirates).

Stennett followed the pattern of many Pirates hitters of that day: he was a free swinger who was capable of hitting a "bad" ball for extra bases. The great Tom Seaver, talking about those Pirates teams, once remarked that he hated pitching against them because he could never be sure what they would swing at. Roberto Clemente, of course, was well noted for this trait, but he was hardly alone. Stennett, Manny Sanguillen and Al Oliver were also quite capable of taking a pitch that a hurler wanted to waste and driving it into the gap.

If one could return to view the tableau of August 21, 1977, this is what he would see at the time of Stennett's injury: a mad dash by Rennie to second; a hard slide; a sickening thud as he hit the bag hard and awkwardly; the Giants' shortstop, Tim Foli, standing over Stennett, yelling at him to get up and motioning for help; and second baseman Bill Madlock looking on.

One of the ironies of this scene is that Foli, traded to the Pirates from the Mets early in 1979 for Frank Taveras, went on to play a key role on the championship team that year, providing the solid defense that the more erratic Taveras had never proven capable of at short. As noted last week (see August 16 post, "Mad Dog and Freddie"), the other half of the eventual left side of the Pirates' '79 infield (Madlock), was also on the field. With the trade of Madlock, Stennett, who had been playing second, was shuttled to the bench, in favor of Phil Garner, who played second so that Madlock could return to his natural position at third.

Finally, while Stennett lost a chance at a batting crown that day, another Pirates player did collect one in '77: Dave Parker, who hit .338. Parker duplicated the feat in '78, hitting .334, and adding a Most Valuable Player award for good measure.

As for the '77 Pirates, they were one of the better teams before and after not to make the postseason. In those days, of course, you had to win your division, and although the Bucs won 96 games, they were no better than five games behind a great Phillies team at season's end. The Phillies, in turn, proved no match for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs that year, giving us some idea of the strength of the National League in those days.

The '70s Pirates teams are usually associated with great power hitting -- and for good reason, of course. But the '77 team was a thieving bunch, as well, with a total of 260 stolen bases. Stennett stole 28 bases (he was successful on slightly more than 60% of his tries) before his injury, making him one of eight on the team with more than 10 swipes. Taveras (70) and Omar Moreno (53), both legitimate speedsters, led the team in base thefts, and each had outstanding success rates. The team committed to a run-at-all-cost approach under Chuck Tanner, one designed to put pressure on the opposing defenses, and in some cases, it worked unexpectedly well (Garner stole 32 bases in 41 tries), while in others, the concept probably should have been reined in (neither Dave Parker or Al Oliver achieved a 50% success rate). But you could never say the team was boring.

One player that many may not remember was on the '77 team was Goose Gossage, who had come over to the Pirates from the White Sox at the end of the '76 season. Gossage had a great season, with 11 wins, 26 saves, a 1.62 ERA and 133 innings pitched in 72 appearances. (Do they make them like that anymore? Nope.) Of course, the Pirates couldn't hold him, and he went off to the Yankees via free agency in '78, where he did the best part of building, it says here, a Hall of Fame career, although the powers that be haven't seen fit to acknowledge that yet. The Buccin' Ear would argue that Parker and Oliver were two other members of the '77 team deserving of HOF status, but that's a story for another post.

The 1985 Watch: The Buccin' Ear is going to go out on a limb and put tonight's game against the Braves in the loss column (they are down 3-0 to John Smoltz in the sixth). Assuming that holds, they will fall to 47-78, and their "magic number" for bettering the record of the '85 team will remain at 11.

As for the '85 Band of Buccos, on August 21, they lost to Cincinnati, 8-5, at Three Rivers Stadium, bringing their record to 36-80. Note that the present team is only two up in the loss column.

Closing Night Jitters

2006-08-20T14:41:00.000-06:00

For the sixth time in the past eight series, the Pirates followed an opening-game win of a road series (this one in Cincinnati) with two consecutive losses. These guys must be allergic to rubber.

After imitating the Steelers' seven-point exhibition game loss (don't give me this "preseason" crap), with a pigskin-style 14-7 defeat to the Reds Saturday, the Pirates, as has been their pattern, put their bats away today and fell 5-1, mustering very little against Aaron Harang (13-8). The Reds even managed to cool off Freddie Sanchez, who went hitless in four trips and struck out twice. Spot starter Victor Santos was dreadful.

So it's back to 30 games under .500 and off to Atlanta for this team that makes every road trip a fresh round of self-flagellation.

Rather than dwell on the two losses, the Buccin' Ear ends the week with a couple of quick pitches (and one not so quick).

Tracyism of the Week: Following Saturday's loss, in which the Pirates came back from deficits of 6-0 and 7-1, only to self-destruct in the seventh, Resident Genius had this to say: "This ends up being a loss, but it will help to make us better. It's going to be nothing but a tremendous omen for us as we move forward." He failed to elaborate, at least to the Post-Gazette.

The Buccin' Ear is wondering just what this game was an "omen" of. Perhaps it means the team has put us on notice that it is ready to deliver a new style of seven-run loss to its hungry fans.

First Things Last: Saturday night's starter, Paul Maholm, surrendered six runs in the first inning to the Reds. Maholm has yielded 28 first-inning runs and 49 runs through the third inning or earlier so far this season. The following was all Maholm could muster by way of explanation to the Associated Press: ''For some reason, that first inning again."

Can you just hear regular stiffs like the Buccin' Ear explaining another poor performance during, say, the first two hours of each workday? "For some reason, that darn 8:00-10:00 time period! I'm sure we can get the client back tomorrow."

Tracyism of the Week, Part Duh: Reprising a recent gem, RG spoke up on behalf of Jose Hernandez again, voicing early support for a return engagement by Senor Strikeout with next year's team. Quoth RG to the Post-Gazette:

"I think it's fairly safe to say there's probably an opportunity for a continuation. I'm hopeful of that. Does he [Hernandez] continue to make sense for this ballclub? I would like to think that at the moment the answer to that is yes."

Following the tangled syntax of that last sentence, RG resurrected the infamous "25th man" endorsement of a couple of weeks ago:

"If you match him up correctly, he can do some very good things for you offensively. And you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that there's a better 25th man in all of baseball. His playing time has been fairly sporadic, but he's hitting [.267]. He's as a good a defensive player as we have regardless of where he plays."

Okay, to be fair, Senor Strikeout has hit better lately. And the Buccin' Ear doesn't dismiss the "good guy in the clubhouse" argument that Tracy goes on to make. There is a lot to be said for character. The Rockies just signed Vinnie Castillo, for example, to a minor league contract and plan to bring him up for one last round with the team he played so well for for a good portion of his career. Part of their rationale is that Vinnie has a lot to pass on to young players on how to play the game correctly, and that's probably a good thing.

But there is a big difference between the Castillo and Hernandez situations. Castillo is retiring at the end of the season. The Rockies recognize that the best thing for them to do in '07 is thank Vinnie for his services, while probably keeping him around to help develop the team's presence in Mexico. Why aren't the Pirates thinking the same way?

RG's weird hyperbole when talking about Hernandez is baffling. He still is a strikeout waiting to happen, and while he has not hurt the team defensively this year, over the course of his career, he has been an average fielder. He's as good a defensive player as we have regardless of where he plays"? Anybody tell Freddie Sanchez that?

And then there's the mysterious "best 25th man in baseball" argument. The Buccin' Ear refuses to conduct extensive research into this question, but offers up the following:

When the Astros' Morgan Ensberg went on the disabled list in mid-July, they didn't waste any time worrying about their 25th man. Instead, they recalled Luke Scott, who is hitting a mere .425 at this point:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7521

Best of all, Astros manager Phil Garner doesn't seem to be worrying about who he is matching Scott up against, and he probably figures that having one of his best eight position players on the field on a regular basis is a little bettereven than having the best 25th man in baseball, however worthy that may be.

Would the Pirates like to have a player of Scott's caliber, even if it meant sacrificing the best 25th man in baseball? The Buccin' Ear thinks that RG has the best answer to that question:

"I would like to think that at the moment the answer to that is yes."

Here's the Pitch

2006-08-18T22:34:00.000-06:00

The Pirates floated down the Ohio to Cincinnati Friday night to begin another of those dreaded road trips. "Dreaded" might be too gentle a word, of course; the team was 14-45 heading into tonight's game.

As has been a pattern lately, however, the Pirates took it to the Reds tonight in the opening game of the Series (they've won the first game in five of their last seven road series), winning
7-3 behind another very good pitching performance by Ian Snell (7 IP, 1 ER), who notched his 11th win; a four-hit game by Freddie Sanchez (.351 average!); and four more hits from Xavier Nady (more on him later).

Fortunes have changed a bit for the Bucs since the All-Star break. They are now 17-15 in the season's second half, and although the road woes have continued (5-9 this half), there have been signs of a modest turnaround in the team, most notably in the pitching staff.

Want proof that pitching rules the game? Look no further than the Pirates. In their 17 wins since July 9, the staff has given up a total of 38 runs, including tonight. That's an ERA of around two-and-a quarter, which will win you a lot of games. Contrast those numbers with the 15 losses, in which the staff has surrendered 101 runs, or nearly seven a game. In 11 of the 15 losses, Pirate pitchers have given up five runs or more. The Yankees would have trouble overcoming that kind of largesse.

Here's the dilemma for the Pirates. They've got a good thing beginning to emerge with their four pitchers of the future: Snell, Zach Duke, Tom Gorzelanny and Paul Maholm. All are 24 years of age or younger, and all have put together two or more consecutive strong starts since the break. But as the Post Gazette recently reported, all are approaching their career-high innings pitched total + 20, which is the organizational cutoff for work for young pitchers.

There is talk of going to a six-man rotation, with Victor Santos filling the sixth spot -- and assuming Shawn Chacon really is ready to take the ball the rest of the way, bad knee and all.

If the Pirates choose to follow the safe path and rigidly control the number of innings for these four the rest of the way, we're close to seeing the last of Gorzelanny in particular. There is a valid argument to be made on this point -- the last thing this organization needs is another Bryan Bullington or Sean Burnett -- but it raises questions as to who exactly is going to take the ball down the stretch, and how a restriction on innings pitched is going to affect a bullpen that has already been worked hard this year.

The Buccin' Ear's only other question is whether taking the ball out of the hands of these young pitchers just as they seem to be gaining confidence is the best course to pursue. True, all of them are close to exceeding the greatest number of innings they've ever pitched, but they all seem to be responding quite well at this point.

Well, when you're 47-75, there probably is no reason to tempt fate.

Now, as to Xavier Nady. It appears that the Buccin' Ear has found a sure-fire way to breed success for the Bucs: rip the players. In yesterday's post, Nady was taken to task for his lack of power production, so of course tonight he blasts a three-run homer (his first as a Pirate) and collects, as mentioned before, four hits.

Previous rip-ees Zach Duke and Chris Duffy have similarly responded to the Buccin' Ear's negative posts. So did Nate McLouth, but he also got hurt shortly thereafter, so maybe we can't count him.

So, look, Shawn Chacon...you've shown us nothing, ok?

Let' s see how that works.

Bay Watch

2006-08-17T16:36:00.000-06:00

Need some heat or ice on that hammy, Jason?

The Pirates, after 307 straight games with Jason Bay in the lineup, endured a third straight game without their injured slugger Wednesday (although he did make a pinch hit appearance), and the result was a second straight loss, this one in 13 innings, to the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-2. The Brew Crew was only to happy to get out of PNC Park with two wins in three tries, their previous trip having ended with four straight losses.

What we saw during the three games was a toothless offensive attack from the Bucs: nine runs in 31 innings, or fewer than three a game. That was enough to neutralize excellent pitching performances from Tom Gorzelanny on Tuesday and Zach Duke yesterday. Duke was lifted, strangely, with two out in the seventh, having thrown just 83 pitches. Jim Tracy insisted the hook made total sense, but then this was the same guy who left Oliver Perez in to start the ninth in a late-May game in which he had thrown 120 pitches (see May 29 post, "Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud"). Such genius surpasseth the understanding of the Buccin' Ear.

Still, the real story was the Pirates' inability to score after the sixth inning, succumbing to a succession of Brewer relievers who followed Chris Capuano. Oh, they mounted a threat or two, most notably in the bottom of the ninth, when Chris Duffy walked and stole second. Jose Hernandez and Freddie Sanchez were walked and hit by a pitch, respectively, to load the bases. Joe Randa ended the threat by striking out. All told, Randa left eight men on base in a tough day. Damaso Marte collapsed in the 13th and was tagged with his second loss in as many days.

Randa was in the lineup, playing first, due to Bay's absence, which necessitated Xavier Nady moving to right and Jose Bautista to left. Not to knock Joe, who has done a thoroughly professional job this year in dealing with having to spot-start, but he's not a power guy and doesn't begin to fill the void left by Bay With Jeromy Burnitz largely MIA this year, the Pirates' lineup is short on juice with Bay in the lineup, and anemic when he's not.

One hopes for Nady to step up, but so far he hasn't shown much pop. In 49 ABs in August, he has no homers and a paltry four RBIs. Furthermore, he's thoroughly average against righthanded pitching (.252 with 10 HRs and 31 RBIs in 234 ABs). Numbers like that aren't going to make the Buccin' Ear forget Kevin Young.

Where else might the power come from? The Pirates seemed to have hope last year for Brad Eldred, but the Buccin' Ear didn't share that hope then, and he's badly hampered right now by a slow recovery from a thumb injury. This is a guy who whiffed 77 times in 190 ABs last year. Sorry, but the Buccin' Ear isn't interested in the second coming of Dick Stuart (http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/stuardi01.shtml) or Rob Deer (http://www.baseball-reference.com/d/deerro01.shtml).

Of course, we can probably count on Dave Littlefield to go out for next year and get an aging outfielder whose best power years are behind him. Maybe he can talk Sammy Sosa into coming back.

In the meantime, Jason, rest that hamstring. You're going to be doing a lot of walking the rest of the year.

Mad Dog and Freddie

2006-08-16T10:22:00.000-06:00

When Paul Simon sang, "One man's ceiling is another man's floor," he could have been talking about the 2006 editions of the Pirates and the Milwaukee Brewers. The two teams have been partners in frustration for nearly 15 years. Neither team has had a winning season since 1992, although Milwaukee finally reached the .500 mark last year.

The Brewers, however, have had aspirations of finally creeping into the black in 2006, and it would seem that the time should be ripe. They play in what some are dubbing Comedy Central, where the best team (St. Louis) is a shell of its former self, and two teams, the Pirates and the Cubs, make up two-thirds of baseball's Axis of Ineptitude (along with the Kansas City Royals). And of course the Brewers had all those games with the Pirates scheduled.

But the Pirates have proved to be the Brewers' floor this year, as we've noted, taking seven of the past eight contests between the two teams heading into Tuesday night's game. It seemed the Pirates' mastery was ready to continue after Jose Bautista hit a two-run homer that would have made a deserving winner of Tom Gorzelanny (seven IP, two runs, one earned), who continues his strong bid to show he belongs in the Bigs. But then the Pirates' bullpen unexpectedly collapsed, as Damaso Marte, Salomon Torres and John Grabow broke down en route to a 6-3 loss.

Despite these kinds of all too frequent disappointments, one of the happy distractions of this season has been watching the consistently excellent play of Freddie Sanchez, of course, and his pursuit of a batting title has been a double delight. After last night's one-for-four effort, Freddie is hitting .345, which leads the league by 10 points. His success rekindles more memories of Pirates past, this time Bill Madlock, the last Pittsburgh player to win the title (1983).

"Mad Dog," as he was sometimes known, actually won two batting crowns with the Pirates (and four overall), although his first in Pittsburgh occurred during the strike-shortened '81 season. Besides being a fine hitter for the Bucs, Madlock occupies an important place in club history for at least two other reasons.

First, it was Madlock whom the Pirates acquired from San Francisco at midseason in 1979 to help solidify the lineup during the pennant race that ultimately resulted in an NL pennant and World Series championship for the team. The Giants had tried to move him from third base to second that season and, possibly as a result, his offense declined (he was hitting .261 at the time of the trade.) The Pirates put him at third, where he hit a Madlock-like .328 the rest of the way. The acquisition enabled the team to move Phil Garner to second base, where he prospered as well. Madlock also went on to hit .375 in the seven-game World Series triumph over Baltimore.

Madlock also figures obliquely in a less pleasant chapter in Pirates history. In 1985, the team did him a huge favor by jettisoning him to the Dodgers, where he made another solid contribution in helping a team get to the playoffs (he had three home runs in a losing cause in the NLCS against St. Louis). The Pirates acquired R.J. Reynolds, Cecil Espy and Sid Bream from the Dodgers in that trade. Of these, Bream had the most success in a Pirate uniform, posting four decent seasons (he lost most of '89 to injury) and starting for the '90 team that returned to the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade.

Bream departed as a free agent after the '90 season for Atlanta, where he was part of the Braves teams that eliminated the Pirates from the playoffs in both '91 and '92. And of course, as every Pirates fan knows -- painfully! -- it was Bream who slid across the plate with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 7 of the '92 playoffs, thereby bringing to an end the team's last successful run.

Oh, what a tortured web of history baseball weaves!

Jason and Omar

2006-08-15T17:14:00.000-06:00

The Pirates got in some more action on their favorite whipping boys Monday night, disposing of the Milwaukee Brewers 4-2, for their fourth win in a row. The victory was the Bucs' fifth straight against the Brew Crew at PNC, and their seventh win in the past eight games between the two teams. Another round, anyone?

The game was notable in a number of other regards. Chris Duffy continued the excellent run he began over the weekend, collecting another two hits, scoring two runs, stealing a base and generally playing the role of offensive instigator, just as the team(and the Buccin' Ear) has been hoping. Victor Santos, pressed into a starting role due to Shawn Chacon's knee injury, contributed five serviceable innings and collected a win with the help of four flawless innings of relief from the Pirates 'pen. And perhaps most notably, Jason Bay's consecutive game streak ended at 307, a casualty of a tight hamstring.

Bay was nearly 200 games short of the 503 straight games started by Omar Moreno between 1979 and 1982. Moreno, who was the leadoff man on the last Pirates championship team ('79), holds the club single-season stolen base record -- unlikely to be broken -- (96, in 1980), and ranks third in team history in total steals (412, behind Max Carey and Honus Wagner). After the '82 season, Moreno departed as a free agent for the Houston Astros, and his career went quickly downhill, ending after the '86 campaign, when he was released by the Atlanta Braves.

Moreno's name is linked in an odd and circuitous way, the Buccin' Ear discovers, to the travails of the current team.

According to baseballlibrary.com, Moreno, nicknamed "Omar the Outmaker" for his unfortunate penchant for avoiding walks and thus not taking advantage of his blazing speed (career OBP: an incredibly low .306), was part of an unfortunate incident on September 8, 1983 involving his Yankee teammate, Steve Kemp. Moreno had been traded by Houston to the Yankees 97 games into the season after hitting just .242 and striking out 72 times while drawing only 22 walks.

During batting practice of the Yankees' game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Moreno hit a line drive that caught Kemp in the face, shattering his cheekbone and ending the outfielder's season. Kemp, a coveted power hitter going into '83, had signed a then-notable five-year contract worth more than $1 million per year with the Yanks, but was enduring a terrible season (12 HRs and 49 RBIs) at the time of the mishap, so in some ways his season came to an unfortunate but fitting end.

After another terrible year in the Bronx in '84, Kemp was traded to the Pirates. He was part of the ill-fated '85 squad with whom the current team shares a historical link, as has often been noted in this space. In 105 forgettable games over two seasons in Pittsburgh, Kemp, once considered a top player, hit a grand total of three home runs and drove in 22 runs. He was a poster child for the horrid direction management took the team in the mid-80s. George Hendrick and Sixto Lezcano were other disastrous signings of the period.

But a more important negative consequence of the Kemp trade for the Pirates was that they gave up a real talent to get him. Buried in the transaction was an outfielder named Jay Buhner, whom the Yankees later involved in a calamitous trade of their own. During the summer of '88, the Bombers gave up on Buhner, shipping him off to Seattle for third baseman Ken Phelps, who was another monumental bust. Buhner, on the other hand, went on to hit 310 homers for the Mariners over 13 seasons, while manning right field.

As the Buccin' Ear has noted, right field has been the Boulevard of Broken Dreams for the Pirates since Dave Parker departed (see August 4 post, "Right is Wrong"). Between 1989 and 2001, while Buhner was averaging 23 homers and 74 RBIs for Seattle (and putting up three consecutive seasons of 40 or more roundtrippers), the Pirates ran through seven different right fielders, including one (Bobby Bonilla) who was a part-timer.

The latest news on right field in Pittsburgh? Nate McLouth, a contender for the spot, has injured his ankle and is on the DL.

Call it The Curse of Jay Buhner.

Little Laughs

2006-08-14T08:24:00.000-06:00

Now the truth can be told: Pirates GM Dave Littlefield thought so little of outfielder/first baseman Craig Wilson, that he was willing to trade him for an injured pitcher.

Today's Post-Gazette contains this item from beat writer Dejan Kovacevik's "Pirate Notebook" column:

"On Friday, starter Shawn Chacon described his ailing right knee as having been 'sore all year.' But Pirates general manager Dave Littlefield, who acquired Chacon from the New York Yankees July 31 for outfielder Craig Wilson, said yesterday he has no issue with the trade.
'We're aware that he's had some surgeries on it," Littlefield said of Chacon's knee. "But this is something that's identified to us as being different than past issues.'"

Oh.

Chacon allowed that he probably has a torn meniscus that will likely require surgery in the offseason.

So let's get this straight. Not only was Littlefield content to trade Wilson, a righthanded power hitter who can play two positions for a struggling pitcher who hadn't started in a month; he devalued Wilson even further by trading him for a pitcher who possessed all of the aforementioned qualities and is injured besides.

Is Rod Serling in the house?

Littlefield's comments that he was "aware" of the past knee problem and that this one is "different than past issues" are classically empty bits of rhetoric from a guy who specializes in them. It's not a justification for a bad trade to say you were aware of problems or that the one that has now sprung up is different. He's saying that it's okay to trade for an injured player because the injury that they knew about is a new injury, not the old one.

Oh.

The Buccin' Ear's comments on Chacon (see August 3 post "The New Guy") stand: he has shown he is capable of throwing well, but he comes with lots of warning labels attached. Even if the pitcher were healthy, the trade for Wilson wouldn't have earned high marks. But this new revelation puts yet another black mark on the Littlefield regime (as if another one were needed) and its continued demonstrations of ineptitude on the trade front.

The fact is, the Pirates were perfectly capable of finishing the season without Chacon even after the trade of Kip Wells by simply returning Victor Santos to the starting rotation. Since cracking a nail a couple of months ago, Santos has been shunted off to the bullpen for long relief work, a task for which he has proven particularly ill suited. He's a journeyman starter, at best, and showed no better than marginal success in the fifth spot, but can one say the rotation is better off with Chacon today than it was with Santos in June? Methinks not, and with Santos in the mix, the team had Wilson on the roster.

This is not to say that Wilson should have been untouchable; it's ridiculous to say such a thing about a merely decent ballplayer on a bad team. But that doesn't mean that he should have been discarded for damaged goods.

As Ricky Ricardo might have put it to Littles, "You got some 'splainin' to do!"

Life Is Just Duffy

2006-08-13T19:33:00.000-06:00

Time will tell if the Pirates' improbable sweep of their longtime tormentors, the St. Louis Cardinals, was a series of golden moments or more fool's gold. We can fervently hope, however, that the three days signaled the arrival of the real Chris Duffy.

Duffy, returning to the leadoff spot for a second straight day Sunday, concluded a satisfying series by playing a major part in the 7-0 victory with two hits, a run and three RBIs. For the series, he went 7-for-11, with three RBIs and three runs scored. Suddenly, he's dragged himself above the .200 line and, perhaps, has found the jolt of confidence that he has been looking for all season.

And so this strange season continues. The Pirates, fresh off another dispiriting (1-5) road trip, returned to PNC Park to face a team that has had owned them for several seasons. The Cardinals were 7-2 against the Pirates coming into the series. Last year, the Cardinals won the season series 12-4; in 2004, 12-5. Things couldn't have looked bleaker.

But this is a Pirates team that plays Dr. Jekyll at home to Mr. Hyde on the road. With today's win, they are 31-28 at home, a pace that equals the Cardinals' 62-56 overall record. On the road, of course, they are a hideous 14-43. The reasons for this lay buried in the psyches of the team's players.

But it must be said that a solidified lineup, with Duffy as a key part of it, seemed to be on display this weekend, even if the Cardinals are not the team of the past two years. And if we are catching a glimpse of the pitching staff of the future, there may be cause for hope as well. This weekend's starters, Zach Duke (9 IP, 1 ER), Ian Snell (7 IP, 2 ER) and Paul Maholm (6 2/3 IP, 0 ER), each earned a victory and combined for an ERA of 1.19.

There is no escaping, though, how essential Duffy's contribution at the top of the lineup is to any continued success the Pirates may achieve. Here's hoping that the blues he forced St. Louis to sing will be the tune he foists on other teams the remainder of the year.

One Shining Moment

2006-08-12T15:06:00.000-06:00

The leadoff man had two hits, scored a run and drove in three. The erstwhile leadoff man, dropped in the order to work out a slump, drilled two hits and scored a run. And last year's pitching phenom hurled a complete game while throwing three-quarters of his pitches for strikes.

Pirates win, 7-1, over the division-leading Cardinals -- behind Nate McLouth, Chris Duffy and Zach Duke, all three of them recently roasted in this space. McLouth even contributed a home run, and Duke despite giving up yet another first inning run and four hits to Albert Pujols, did everything else right: 101 pitches, 75 for strikes; no walks; 12 groundballs and three double plays. Seemed like old times -- like last August, when Duke displayed that kind of form more often than not.

It's a measure of how desperate the Buccin' Ear is for positives with this team that despite all the evidence cited in recent postings on the ongoing shortfalls of these three players specifically, and the team in general, that just one game in which things go the way some of us have imagined kindles a spark of hope, however silly that may be.

Let's also not forget also the contribution of Jason Bay, who has quietly fallen into an offensive funk the last couple of weeks, which goes along way toward explaining why the rest of the team has also. Bay collected three hits and an RBI (his 79th). Let's hope that a hot streak follows.

Most tantalizing for the Buccin' Ear, however, was a tweak that Jim Tracy gave to last night's lineup: Jose Bautista played third, with Freddie Sanchez moving to second and Jose Castillo taking the bench. We undoubtedly can't expect that move to be repeated on a regular basis, but it says here it should (see post of July 19, "The Shape of Things to Come").

A recent post the Buccin' Ear read on another blog lamented the lack of power that Freddie brings as a third baseman. Leaving aside the fact that he brings many other positive qualities to the field with him (which the writer also acknowledged), the point is valid. At second, his lack of power would be a nonissue. Bautista has already shown that he has some pop (12 homers in 74 games, or about 25 over the course of a regular season). Problem solved, at least potentially.

Castillo? Well, he has power, but his inconsistencies, both at the plate and in the field, have been well documented here and elsewhere, and he lacks the versatility of Sanchez and Bautista. Rather than shuffle Bautista around the remainder of the year, Tracy should make a bold move and give him plenty of reps at third.

Bold move? Jim Tracy? Hmmm, the Buccin' Ear really is having pipe dreams.

A Culture of Losing

2006-08-11T08:15:00.000-06:00

The Pirates slunk out of Houston having lost three consecutive games by a combined score of 22-4, leaving them at a new low: 31 games below .500. There is little to comment on in the series, particularly the 14-1 atrocity on Wednesday, other than to give a nod toward another decent performance by Tom Gorzelanny, who gave up two runs in six innings last night, holding his own with Roger Clemens, although TG took the loss. The lifeless offense would have been no match for Roger Craig, much less the Rocket. The funk may have rubbed off on Clemens, who said of his performance, "I didn't feel like I had any life."

Well, at least he was going up against the right team. And as Pirates fans, we can sympathize with him.

A regular correspondent to The Pirates of Penance, code name bern1, brings up a salient point about the sorry state of the team, which the Buccin' Ear prints in its entirety because it is particularly worthy of discussion:

"When Craig Biggio's pop-up “home run” clanked off a fan’s outstretched hands last night, even Bucs television announcers Greg Brown and John Wehner were moved to observe, “That’s fan interference! Why no argument?”

As in, where's Jim Tracy? Which was also a fair question to ask during Sunday's game after the reversed call on Bay's catch/trap and the subsequent, ill-fated sequence of ball-strike calls that culminated in Ian Snell surrendering a decisive home run following what should have been called Strike Three for end of inning.

If Tracy doesn't have a “discussion,” much less an argument, with the umpires in situations like these, then ... when? When? Just when is going to back up his players? Just when might he show enough passion to get thrown out of a game? After all, the team’s record, for cryin’ out loud, is 42-71.

Granted, arguing the phantom home run would have been a futile gesture. But a gesture, nonetheless, and it might have snapped to attention a team that subsequently sleepwalked through what the Post-Gazette’s Dejan Kovacevic described as a “listless” performance. Last night, just after the home run, Jack Wilson entered a mildly animated discussion with the umpire. It was Tracy’s responsibility as a manager to pop out of the dugout, back his player and take over the argument. If he gets tossed, so be it. "

The Buccin' Ear can quibble with the point on Bay's trap -- he didn't argue it, and the manager will normally take his lead from the player's reaction -- but bern is right on the money on the essential idea: the Pirates have long since become a team not only used to losing, but one that appears to have accepted losing, and has made it a way of life.

That attitude begins at the top, with Kevin McClatchy's phony insistence that the Pirates can't afford to compete (in fact, reliable sources conclude that the Pirates are profitable) to Dave Littlefield's lame laments that he does all he can while he continues to overpay for mediocre players, to Jim Tracy's empty praise for losing performances and strange passivity. As bern correctly notes, why was Jack Wilson left to argue the non-homer by Biggio while Tracy lounged, poker faced, in the dugout, undoubtedly thinking about how tough it is to play these gosh-darn Major League teams and that it's not his or his player's fault that they stink.

Anyone who has watched this team must conclude that the losing attitude has trickled down to the players. Xavier Nady's body language in Chicago on Sunday said it all: he hung his head, he trudged back to the dugout after an out, and he appeared for all the world like a guy wondering what the heck he did to get exiled from New York to this outpost of futility.

After last night's game, Jeromy Burnitz, discussing the team's recent failures to hit, put it on the quality of the pitching they had to face in the Houston series, even going so far as to lump Brandon Backe in with Roy Oswalt and Roger Clemens. You see? It's not our fault.

The Buccin' Ear looks back with some muted nostalgia for the days of Lloyd McClendon, which is not to say that Lloyd was a great manager. Far from it. But what would a beaten-down Pirates fan give to see one of LM's patented base-throwing tantrums right now?

McClendon, you see, knew the truth: teams and umpires walk all over the Pirates because that's what happens to losing teams if they don't show at least a spark of life. He was shouting into the void that dammit, we've got a Major League team too, and we deserve to be on the same field with these guys.

Sometimes you have to act like that's true, even if it's not.

The McClendon mention is also relevant because it was Resident Genius Tracy who swaggered into town proclaiming that there would be no more of the one-run losses and poor decisions that characterized his predecessor's reign. Oh, no. RG was going to impose accountability. Losing was not going to be accepted.

How funny does that sound now?

Now comes the news that Shawn Chacon, bombed in his start in Houston, has knee pain. The team swears this is the first it's heard of any such thing.

Gosh-darn the luck.

The 1985 Watch: At 42-73, the current team is still six games ahead of the pace set by the 1985 team (36-79) through the same number of games (115). However, to best the '85 record (57-104), the '06 squad must go 16-31 (.340) the rest of the way. The '85 club finished at a comparatively torrid 21-25 (.457) pace. It won its 115th game, 3-2 over Cincinnati, on August 20, 1985, at Three Rivers Stadium.

Look out below!

Houston, We've Got a Problem

2006-08-08T20:55:00.000-06:00

The late Gilda Radner's creation Roseanne Roseanna-Dana famously declared, in her addled musings on Saturday Night Live, that "it's always something." She might have been talking about the 2006 Pirates. No matter the locale or the situation, it's always something with this team, and that something usually means a loss.

And so it was tonight at the Ballpark Suggesting a Frozen Juice, er, Minute Maid Park, in Houston, where the Bucs fell to the Astros, 3-1. Not that there is anything unusual in the team losing to the Astros in this locale. At Minute Maid, nee the Ballpark Formerly Named for a Company That Screwed the Public (Enron), they are now 11-40, a record even more preposterous than their 14-43 road record this year.

No, the "Always Something" anti-hero for tonight was Paul Maholm who, on paper, threw one of those infamous "quality starts" that the Buccin' Ear hates: six innings, three earned runs. Since when did a 4.50 ERA become quality? But enough digression. Maholm, who uncharacteristically struck out six, just as uncharacteristically walked four, and that was enough to do him in tonight. In the first, he walked three, which led to a run; in the sixth, he walked Morgan Ensberg, who came around to score when Adam Everett doubled. Throw in a Craig Biggio solo homer, and you've got a 4-10 record for your starting pitcher and the makings of another road trip to nowhere. The record for the current one is now 1-3.

But in defense of Maholm, he got little help from the offense, which mounted virtually no attack against Brandon Backe, who is now 3-1 lifetime against the Pirates. The league hits about .270 against him; the Bucs less than .200. Tonight the "big hit" was a sacrifice fly from Jose Castillo, accounting for the lone run. Brad Lidge, who has been troubled this year by other teams, breezed through the ninth, striking out the side, to send the weary Pirates home to bed.

This is a scenario that we can expect to see the rest of the way. The Astros are now 54-58, which in most years would mean playing out the string. Not in 2006, the Year of Mediocrity in the National League. Houston, like all but a handful of bottom feeders, which of course includes the lowermost bottom feeders, the Pirates, are in contention for a playoff spot. Most of the teams that the Bucs face the rest of the way will have circled on their calendars their dates with Pittsburgh, hoping to fatten up and improve their chances of eking into the postseason, however unimpressively. The Pirates will have plenty of opportunities to play spoiler, but the way they are going they are more likely to be placed on the broiler for consumption by teams hungry for victories.

This is the fate of teams that wearily trod through the endless string of games and the lengthening shadows of late summer towards October and yet another offseason in contemplation of just what it takes to win games. When it comes to losing games, it's always something.

Bruin Ruin

2006-08-07T20:10:00.000-06:00

The Pirates rolled into Chicago Friday with the unlikeliest of hopes, given their performance this year: making a serious move to escape the NL Central cellar. Despite their horrible April, their 13-game losing streak in the run-up to the All-Star break, their erratic pitching and a host of other problems, the team was just 4 1/2 games behind the Cubs, who have underachieved so badly this season that manager Dusty Baker is about as popular on the North Side as A.J. Pierzynski.

Things started out gloriously on Friday, with a 6-0 victory, courtesy of the rejuvenated Tom Gorzelanny, who tossed eight shutout innings, evening his record at 2-2, and lowering his ERA to 4.41. Since a debacle against the Rockies a couple of weeks ago, Gorzelanny has gotten his act together, picking up wins in his last two starts and slicing about three runs off his ERA.

Unfortunately, TG's win wrapped up the highlights for the Pirates for the series. They followed up the Friday win with a 7-5 loss on Saturday that featured yet another bad outing for Zach Duke. After recording outs on the first two hitters, he gave up five consecutive hits, ended the inning with four runs on the Cubs' side of the ledger and departed with an all-too familiar line: six innings, five earned runs and a loss. The Pirates crept to within a run on three occasions, but the pitching wasn't up to the task of closing the door.

The series ended with a drab 6-1 loss lowlighted by losing pitcher Ian Snell giving up a three-run homer to light-hitting Ronny Cedeno, and the hitters meekly submitting to the immortal Rich Hill (1-4 with a 7.92 ERA going into the game.)

What can the Buccin' Ear say about Duke? Since the beginning of June, he has given up 51 runs in 71 innings and has been easily the least reliable pitcher on the staff, which is saying something. As has been noted here and elsewhere, he is especially inviting to opposing hitters in the early innings. Of the 91 runs he has given up, 56 (62%) have scored in the third inning or earlier. The four runs he gave up in the opening frame Saturday were no aberration: Duke has surrendered 28 first-inning runs this year.

Looked at another way, Duke gives up about one run for every four batters he faces in the first inning. The ratio in innings 1-3 is 1:5; in innings 4-6, it is 1:7; in innings 7-9 (admittedly territory he hasn't seen all that often), it is 1:15.

Duke seems as puzzled by all this as anyone, although he told the Post-Gazette after Saturday's game that he thinks hitters are being more aggressive early in the game, anticipating that he will be trying to get ahead with strikes. Well, fine. Time to adjust? One wonders what the discussions between Duke and pitching coach Jim Colborn center on these days. "Any ideas on me not giving up runs in the first?" Duke asks. "Nope, tapped out," Colborn replies. I mean, can you guys come up with something?

The weekend series also exposed the glaring hole at the top of the Pirates lineup. Those of us who called for the return of Chris Duffy are looking pretty foolish so far. Duffy has gone 3 for 26 since his call-up and hasn't shown much reason to believe that his bad start in April was a fluke. His first at-bat Sunday against Hill was demoralizing. Fastball, swing and a miss. Fastball, called strike. Curveball, called strike.

When Duffy is paired at the top of the lineup with Nate McLouth, the Pirates not only do not have guys that set the table, they have guys that don't even get the dishes out of the cupboard. Both have OBPs of under .300 (in Duffy's case, way under), and they hit very poorly with two strikes. With two strikes, (including counts of 0-2, 1-2, 2-2 and 3-2) Duffy is 11 for 64 (.172), but McLouth is far worse: 17 for 140 (.121).

Even granting the obvious, that pitchers have the advantage with two strikes, these numbers are horrible for hitters at the top of the lineup. For example, the Cubs' leadoff man, Juan Pierre, a guy having a very average year, is 43 for 198 on counts with two strikes (.217), hardly great shakes, but a league apart from Duffy and McLouth.

If Duffy proves not to be the answer at the top of the lineup, the Pirates must make it a priority to find a leadoff man for next year. The holes on this team are starting to make them look like the national spokesmen for the Swiss Cheese Association of America.

Right is Wrong

2006-08-04T09:53:00.000-06:00

The Shawn Chacon Era got off to a good start Thursday afternoon, with the newly acquired righthander pitching five decent innings, giving up one run and picking up the win in the Pirates' series-salvaging win over Atlanta, 3-2. Chacon departed after just 80 pitches, probably a good idea given the 90-degree heat and the fact he hadn't started a game in about a month. He showed an ability to pitch out of trouble, but also displayed some control problems (see August 3 post, "The New Guy") in walking four while striking out three.

But hey, he's 1-0 as a Pirate. The two losses in three games with the Braves can't be blamed on the pitching staff. Chacon, Ian Snell and Paul Maholm combined to pitch 19 innings and gave up just 7 runs (3.32 ERA). That should translate into two wins instead of two losses, but the offense produced a measly seven runs for the entire series. Given that, the pitching staff (and today, especially, that includes the relievers, in spades) gets kudos for not allowing a sweep by the Braves.

And there was even a Chris Duffy sighting: he got his first hit since returning to the bigs, and swiped two bases, setting up a run early. This is what the Pirates are looking for from him, but he also struck out twice. That's got to stop.

Jose Bautista got the start in rightfield, which brings the Buccin' Ear to the subject for today: the ongoing and glaring hole in rightfield. Jeromy Burnitz is near the end of his career and won't be back next year, in all likelihood, which leaves RF at the present in the hands of either Bautista or Nate McLouth for next year. The uncertainty in right continues a long-running trend for the Pirates, and there is no relief in sight.

A bit of history is in order. Right field was manned during 32 of the 47 years between 1926 and 1972 by just two players: Paul Waner (1926-1939) and Roberto Clemente (1955-1972), both Hall of Famers. From '55 to 1981, Clemente and Dave Parker (1975-1981) were the only right fielders for the Pirates save a two-year gap ('73-'74) when Richie Zisk started. All told, Waner, Clemente and Parker handled right field for 70% of the 56 seasons between '26 and '81.

The quarter century since has been an entirely different story. According to records on baseballreference.com, between 1982 and 2005, no fewer than 16 different players were considered the primary rightfielder for the Pirates; add a 17th this year. And keep in mind the list includes the likes of Bobby Bonilla (1990-91) who logged considerable time at third base. The longest run by one player at the position was Orlando Merced ('93-'96), a first baseman by trade who played exclusively in right only in '96. The position has been graced by such luminaries as Emil Brown (1999) and Doug Frobel (1984 -- try that name on your buddies who think they're Pirates fans), and the last player to be credited with back-to-back seasons as the "primary" right fielder was John Vander Wal (2000-2001).

The Pirates' futility in filling the position is best illustrated by the case of Armando Rios. Acquired in the ill-fated Jason Schmidt deal in 2001, Rios was projected to fill the hole in right field, but hurt his knee almost immediately after he was acquired. In 2002, he played in 76 games for the Pirates, and he ended his career 49 games later in 2003 with the White Sox. This year's stopgap, Jeromy Burnitz, got off to a horrible start, and has yet to push his BA above .240 as he moves ever closer to a life of surfing and motorcycles, dude.

What gives? Well, the mix of rightfielders in recent times has included rent-a-players ( Reggie Sanders and Matt Lawton), players who the club chose to jettison before their time (Jose Guillen), part-timers or jack-of-all-trades (Craig Wilson, Rob Mackowiak, Lee Lacy) or warm bodies (Frobel, Brown, Cecil Espy, Glenn Wilson). Never has there been a player during this period that the Pirates appeared to commit to in right, as they have in left with Jason Bay and three other notables: Barry Bonds, Brian Giles and Al Martin. In fact, over the same quarter century, just nine players have seen time in left field for the Pirates on a "regular" basis, half the number the team has auditioned in right.

The point? A primary problem of the Pirates has been establishing a clear direction for the team. The club is plagued by trying to fit players into positions in a haphazard way. Right field is the poster child for the team that is on its own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown, as well-known baseball enthusiast Robert Zimmerman might put it.

The New Guy

2006-08-03T08:23:00.000-06:00

The Pirate bats took it easy for another night Tuesday, producing just two runs for the second straight game en route to a 3-2 loss to the Braves. The puny offensive production negated another strong pitching performance, this one by Paul Maholm (his second in succession), who went seven innings, allowing just two runs. His reward was a no-decision. Errors by Jason Bay and Salomon Torres handed the Braves the win in the eighth.

So the Pirates hit the two-thirds mark of the season at 40-68, which projects to a 60-102 finish. On the bright side, they are 10-8 since the All-Star break, but need to win today to avoid a sweep at home at the hands of Atlanta, which still clings to playoff hopes in the mildly competitive National League.

The task of preventing the sweep falls this afternoon to Shawn Chacon, recently acquired from the Yankees for Craig Wilson. Chacon is 5-3, but his ERA of 7.00 will rightly make Pirates fans skeptical about his talent. Take it from the Buccin' Ear: Chacon has plenty. He has an above-average fastball and a curveball that is devastating when he is using it effectively. Therein lies the rub, but more on that later.

Chacon's career has been enigmatic, which makes him a good replacement for the inscrutable Oliver Perez. A product of the Colorado Rockies' organization, he, like many Rockies starters, was brought to the big leagues early and asked to contribute right away (he pitched 160 innings in his rookie season, 2001, at age 23). After difficulties with management in 2002, he rebounded in 2003 with a sterling first half (11 wins) that earned him an All-Star spot. However, arm troubles derailed him in the second half, and he didn't win another game before ending the season on the disabled list.

In 2004, Rockies management, thinking that they would save wear and tear on his arm, decided to make him a closer, which turned out to be a disastrous decision. Chacon saved 35 games for a very bad team, but endured a huge number of blown saves and poor performances and never looked comfortable in the role. He was returned to the starting rotation in 2005, went 1-7 (a deceiving record, as his ERA was barely over 4.00 -- again for a bad team), and was traded to New York, where he helped the Yankees get to the post-season by going 7-3 with an ERA under 3.00. He also pitched well in the playoffs, although he lost his only start.

This year, he failed to hold his spot as a starter with the Yankees and had been banished to the bullpen at the time of the trade. Can he salvage his season with a couple of good months with the Pirates? Maybe.

On the plus side is his aforementioned stuff and his obvious mental toughness. Anybody who could go into New York in the heat of a pennant race and win big games obviously can handle pressure. He also survived a tumultuous period with the Rockies with his sanity and at least a measure of his confidence in tact.

On the minus side is his control, which is the alpha and omega of any analysis of his chances of success. When he is right, he spots his fastball, then relies on his curve and changeup to keep hitters off balance. When he does this, he can be dominant. When he doesn't, hitters can ignore his off-speed stuff, and he gets bombed. Through 2005, he had a career 425 strikeouts, or close to seven per game. Unfortunately, he walked 323 batters, or around five per game. Given that he had allowed fewer than a hit per inning going into this year, the goal for the Pirates' pitching staff is clear: get Chacon to throw strikes and get ahead in the count. Easier said than done.

As noted in yesterday's post, the performances of Zach Duke, Paul Maholm and Ian Snell will go a long way toward establishing whether we Pirate fans can once again summon up hope for next year. We can probably add Chacon to that list, and his audition starts now.

The 1985 watch: As mentioned, the 2006 team is on pace to win 60 games, meaning it would avoid becoming the fifth-worst team in club history. It must go 18-36 (.333) the rest of the way to hit the magic number of 58 wins, bettering the 1985 team's 57-104 mark.

Addendum: The 1985 team lost its 108th game on August 12, falling to the Cardinals 8-1 and bringing its record to an abysmal 33-75 (.306). The current team, at 40-68, has a seemingly commanding seven-game lead through the same number of games. However, the '85 squad went a respectable 17-18 (.486) after September 1. The 2006 club would do well not to rest on its laurels.

Dog Days

2006-08-02T10:38:00.000-06:00

The "new-look" Pirates took the field last night and produced a decidedly "old-look" result, a 4-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves and ageless righthander John Smoltz. It seems like only yesterday that Smoltz was battling the Pirates in the tense playoff games of 1991 and 1992. Times have changed, but the results haven't: the future Hall-of-Famer went seven innings, giving up just two runs and notching the win over Ian Snell, who pitched decently, giving up four runs in seven innings, while striking out 10. He had no answer for Adam LaRoche (two solo homers) and Marcus Giles (three doubles).

Chris Duffy returned to start in center and went hitless; newcomer Xavier Nady was placed at first and collected a single; and call-up reliever Josh Sharpless pitched an unimpressive scoreless inning. For Tuesday night, at least, Jose Bautista was a man without a position, as Jeromy Burnitz got the start in right. And in a most fitting note, Jose Hernandez, recently proclaimed by RG Jim Tracy to be "the best 25th man in baseball" struck out with two men on to end the game. Wonder what the worst 25th man in baseball would have done in that situation.

Of course, it's one game, and we have 55 more to watch before this season draws to a merciful close. With that in mind, the Buccin' Ear will be keeping an eye on these players, looking for signs of hope to carry over into 2007:

Zach Duke. This has been a season of discontent for last year's Last Best Hope. He has never really gained a rhythm. Groundballs that were turned into double plays last year have been finding the hole with regularity this year, leading to the suspicion that his location has been spotty, although the poor defense of Jose Castillo probably bears a share of the blame as well. Duke pitched well on Sunday; we'll be watching to see if he can build on that.
Chris Duffy. Centerfield has been a trouble spot since Andy VanSlyke left. Duffy showed promise last year as a late-season call-up, collapsed after a month this year, and has returned to try to prove once again that he belongs. The Buccin' Ear will be looking for signs that he can improve his atrocious strikeout/walk ratio, which has ruined him as a leadoff man.
Jose Bautista. The real question here is whether he will get an adequate chance to play. With Duffy recalled, he presumably will get his time in right. Given some of the challenges he faced in adapting to a new position in center, you'd like to see him be given a chance to grow into a set spot, but that doesn't appear to be in the cards for him on this team. Here's hoping the team doesn't make him into the next Craig Wilson.
Jose Castillo. Despite his sporadic power surges, Castillo still doesn't get on base enough due to his impatience at the plate, and has declined drastically in the field. The Buccin' Ear wil be looking for one thing from Castillo the rest of the year: consistency. If he continues to display offensive and defensive lapses, he should be seriously considered trade bait this winter.
Paul Maholm. See Zach Duke.
Matt Capps. Much has been asked of Capps this year, and for the most part he has delivered, despite being heavily worked. The best thing that could happen to him the rest of the year is improvement from the starters, which would ease his workload. Assuming he still gets called on often, however, his ability to hold up under the strain bears watching.
Ian Snell. He has become the best pitcher on the staff. Can he step up and display leadership the rest of the way?

Answers...looking for answers....

Groundhog Day

2006-08-01T08:26:00.000-06:00

The Buccin' Ear is back from San Francisco, where the angst is as thick as the fog that rolls in from the Bay every morning, the result of the Giants' three-game swoon in the heat and humidity of Pittsburgh. Your faithful correspondent was too busy enjoying the 65-degree weather, along with the seafood, nightlife and yes, a taste of American League baseball (A's over Blue Jays, 7-4 on Saturday) to watch much of the Pirates' triumphs, but took favorable notice of the positive starts of Tom Gorzelanny and Zach Duke. Kip Wells? Sayonara. Thanks for the sterling performance on the way out of town. That is the way of exiting Buccos.

Of course, if the Bucs could play the Giants and the Brewers more often, they might have something. They are inexplicably 12-2 over the last 14 games played against these two teams, 28-64 against the rest of the league. It also helped this weekend to catch the Giants on a severe downturn, led by the combustible Armando Benitez, who blew three saves during the team's six games in Washington and Pittsburgh, but seemed to think he never threw a bad pitch, as he frequently told the city's sportswriters.

But this is August 1, and that means waking up to yet another Grave New World, wherein the Pirates ditch their failed hopes of April for the dreary reality of a fading summer. Gone are Sean Casey, Craig Wilson, Kip Wells, Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez. Through the revolving door are Xavier Nady, Shawn Chacon, Brian Rogers and Jesse Chavez, the latter two works-in-progress. The most notable no-show for the Pirates is Ryan Shealy, whom the Buccin' Ear hoped would replace Casey. But the Royals, who dominated the Pirates in interleague play, stole the Bucs' thunder again, grabbing Shealy for themselves.

So that leaves first base to Nady, apparently, although the names of Randa and Hernadez have been tossed around as well. Leave it to the Pirates to trade their only natural first baseman and not get one in return. Of course, we can always wait for the careers of Brad Eldred and Ryan Doumit to blossom.

The annual reshuffling allows Chris Duffy to return to the big league club, where we hope he reestablishes himself as a legitimate centerfielder. Because the team chose not to move Jose Castillo, Jose Bautista will not move to third, but goes to right field instead.

The Stats Geek in The Post-Gazette correctly points out that Dave Littlefield's failings were not exposed at yesterday's trade deadlines, but in his overpricing of the contracts of Wells, et al. The Buccin' Ear will add this, which is really a variation on the comment: DL (what a telling pair of initials for this baseball man) has an unerring ability to trade players when the market for them is low. The Curious Case of Oliver Perez is the latest case in point. Perez was sent to the minors more than a month ago with his career at its lowest ebb. Rather than holding on to him to work out his problems (he apparently did not pitch badly for Indianapolis), Littlefield packaged him with Roberto Hernandez for Nady, an okay player with a troubling wrist problem.

Similarly, the Pirates' "shopping" of Craig Wilson consisted of benching him for the better part of a month, which meant they could get the struggling Shawn Chacon who, like Perez, has shown flashes of brilliance during this career but is currently putting up Perez-like numbers -- the 2006 kind, not the 2004 kind.

Are the Pirates better off today than they were yesterday? The unqualified answer is no. They did not upgrade their pitching, they did not get a first baseman and they have not solidified their outfield, unless Duffy comes through, and that will not be the result of a trade. They dumped salary, and that's it.

And so, like Bill Murray, we Pirate fans awake to another August 1, blinking in bewilderment as another year, just like the one before, continues to unfold in its unsurprising way.

The Sweet Snell of Success

2006-07-25T20:59:00.000-06:00

Who is the best pitcher in the National League? That's a question guaranteed to start an argument, but let's just say, for the sake of discussion, that it is Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamondbacks (11-3, with a 2.50 ERA over 154 IP). Webb has won 22% of his team's 50 victories.

Who is the best pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates? The answer to that one should not start an argument. It is Ian Snell, who after tonight's 6-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers (seven innings, one earned run, nine strikeouts) is 9-6. Although his ERA is 4.63 (over 119 IP), he has accounted for 25% of his team's 36 victories.

Back on May 20 (see post "Searching for Our Soul in the Heart of Rock and Roll"), the Buccin' Ear had this to say about Snell:

"Tonight the team rebounded with a 9-6 win, beating up Jason Johnson with lots of early offense (a homer and four RBIs for Jason Bay), enough even for Ian Snell, who staggered through five innings to get his third win. His ERA is as beefy as C.C. Sabathia: 5.74. I've heard for a couple of years now how promising this guy is. Enough. He was given a shot in the second half last year, showed little, and is now the fourth best pitcher on a bad staff. Apologists (or optimists) will point to the fact that of the five runs he gave up, only two were earned. Well, that probably says more about the lack of clutch hitting tonight by the Indians (they stranded 12) than Snell's hard luck. The guy threw 105 pitches (about 60% for strikes) and walked five. Most nights that kind of pitching is going to send you off to lather up with Irish Spring a lot earlier than the fifth inning."

I'd like to make like Charles Barkley, who famously said he was misquoted in his autobiography. But those were the observations in this blog then, and the observation now is, Snell has done a lot to prove that he does belong in the Bigs. He still has his bad outings, and he falls prey to big innings too often. Still, he is nowclearly the best pitcher on this bad staff, has lowered his ERA by more than a run in two months, and is probably the only pitcher at this point who would generate any significant interest from another team (not that we're advocating a trade).

The obvious comparison is to Zach Duke, who was lambasted by the Brew Crew last night in an ugly 12-8 loss. Duke now sports an ERA higher than a pint of your best microbrew: 5.50. Back on June 4 (see post "A Mixed Bag"), the Buccin' Ear had this to say about Duke and Snell:

"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."

This is not to say that the Pirates should give up on Duke, anymore than they should conclude that Snell has arrived as an ace. But surely the question must be raised: what is the reason for Snell's relative success over the past two months and Duke's precipitous decline? Personal observation suggests that Snell's power pitching has given him more room for error than Duke, who relies on location and changes in velocity. He looked like he was pitching batting practice last night, which is what happens when a finesse pitcher can't locate.

Whatever the case may be, the Pirates would do well to start looking for answers in the performances of that small number of players who have been able to achieve success this year, just as they need to seriously reexamine those players who have underachieved. The bromides of RG Jim Tracy just won't cut it anymore.

Hook, Line and Stinker

2006-07-23T14:13:00.000-06:00

It's 4:10 p.m. Eastern time. Do you know where your Buccos are?

Answer: floating face down in the Atlantic Ocean, comatose once again from another Lost Weekend in which they drank deeply from the dregs of defeat and despair.

After a surprise win in Miami Thursday to open a four-game set with the Florida Marlins, the Pirates put their bats away Friday and Saturday, mustering a grand total of one run in losing 4-1 and 5-0. Today's matchup was unpromising, with Dontrelle Willis starting for Florida and the disappointing Tom Gorzelanny going for the Bucs. Gorzo was fresh off a ghastly performance Tuesday against the Rockies, but he bounced back today with what was easily his best outing of the year. He departed after six innings with a 3-2 lead, which Matt Capps quickly coughed up, yielding a two-spot to the Fish. The Pirates tied it in the ninth when Joe Randa doubled home a run. However, they had a chance to win it, but sent Senor Strikeout, Jose Hernandez, to the plate with two out. No sense in relating what happened.

No matter. Mike Gonzales gave up the game-winner in the bottom of the ninth anyway, surrendering a run-scoring single to Dan Uggla with one out. Gonzo has made a habit of high-wire acts in pressure situations all year, and this time he got burned. Fact is, though, the game was lost, as it was throughout the series, at the plate, where the Pirates stranded 12, including seven in scoring position. Randa, Jason Bay and Craig Wilson stranded a collective 18. The team scored a pitiful 10 runs in four games, thereby almost completely negating a rare decent series on the mound for the starters. Only Kip Wells turned in a marginal performance, although by his standards it was a semi-gem (three runs in 5 2/3 innings). Of course, the Marlins' starters on Friday and Saturday were flat-out better than anything the Pirates had to offer.

Speaking of (Bottom of the) Wells, he's 0-5 after Saturday's loss, has lost 18 of his last 21 decisions, and is 8-23 since the opening of the 2005 season. Some trade bait, huh?

The Kipster's mediocre effort last night lowered his ERA to about 8-and-a-quarter. So given all of that, perhaps he can be excused for his post-game emphasis on his ability to "stay out of the big inning" and his complaint that he felt wet during the entire game. Hey, pal, you don't pitch so good when you're dry, either.

Wells also got no help from his defense, notably center fielder Jose Bautista, who misplayed a fly ball that cost a run for Wells, and another in the eighth that resulted in two more for the Marlins.

But none of it mattered, as the Pirates were completely baffled by rookie Ricky Nolasco, who threw 7 1/3 scoreless innings before the Florida bullpen effortlessly shut down the Bucs, who, as Wells might say, were all wet.

Do you know where your Buccos are? Exactly where they were coming out of the All-Star break: 30 games under .500 and ready to resume their award-winning performance as the Putrid Patsies of Piratedom on the road.

The 1985 watch: the 2006 Pirates (35-65/.350) must go 23-39 (.374) the rest of the way to better the fifth-worst record in team history. Put on your rally caps.

JG and the Sunshine Band

2006-07-21T21:38:00.000-06:00

Let's review. When the season began, the Pirates had some extra money to spend, and the talk was that the bright young pitching prospects (Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Oliver Perez), the promising and established position holdovers (Jason Bay, Jose Castillo, Jack Wilson, Craig Wilson), and the veteran newcomers (Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa) would help the team to avoid a 14th straight losing season.

In Florida, the talk was that the latest demolition of the team and payroll, which left the team with a pitifully inadequate roster, would lead to an historically bad season. Why, no one but Miguel Batista and Dontrelle Willis was left from a team that won the World Series just three years ago. How could they possibly compete?The Pirates went out and hired a manager whom they believed had a proven track record and would help them get out of their decade-plus-long funk: Jim Tracy. The Marlins managed to convince experience-free Joe Girardi to take on the lost cause that was to be the Marlins.

Well, following the Marlins' 4-1 victory over the Pirates tonight, which evened the series at 1-1 (the Pirates picked up a victory in the series opener on Thursday), the Marlins are 43-52; the Pirates are 35-63. Paul Maholm, tonight's Buccos starter, turned in a typical performance (six innings, four runs, three earned) and fell to 3-9. His opponent, rookie Scott Olsen, went 6 2/3, innings gave up an unearned run, struck out 11, raised his record to 8-4, and lowered his ERA to 4.01, a full run less than Maholm's.

So which team is rebuilding? The Marlins, because the term with that team means something: building again. The Pirates don't rebuild, because there is nothing to build from. The Marlins, on the other hand, have torn down a World Series team once (1997) before creating a new one (2003), and now they have defied expectations once again, in building from the ashes a team whose record the Pirates would gladly take.

The discussions in the Post Gazette Q&A recently made much of the commentary of various All-Stars that the Pirates shouldn't blame their relatively low payroll for their difficulties. Various readers and the team's beat writer bemoaned the unfairness of the MLB economic systems. All well and good. Obviously, another $100 million would help this club. Or is it obvious? I'd like to see the evidence that the Pirates would spend any extra money they might magically be granted wisely -- or spend it at all -- which is exactly the big-market clubs' argument against revenue sharing: why should they spread their money around to ineptly run clubs?

The fact is, the Pirates are a poorly managed franchise that has failed since 1992 to get the maximum of the players they've had (with 1997 being one possible exception) . Don't forget, they were a small-market club in 1990, when they surprised the world by beating out the supposedly superior big-market Mets.I'm tired of hearing about the inequities of the system. Sorry, MLB isn't the NFL and it isn't the NBA, and it's pointless to bemoan the fact that it isn't. Somehow, despite the incredible unfairness of Major League Baseball, an unprecedented number of teams have playoff aspirations in 2006. The Pirates aren't even close to being one of them. Whose fault is that?

The true fallacy of the defeatist attitudes of that segment of fans is that they seem to believe that a team's success is measured only by playoff seasons. There is another segment of us who have been complaining about the Pirates for years, but aren't even asking for championships. We're only asking for teams that aren't out of it by July 15 or earlier. We're asking for teams that can develop talent and make the most of the skills of the players that take the field. We're asking for a team that can COMPETE.

The Pirates do justice to the words of the immortal Walter Winchell, who said, "Nothing recedes like success." Jeez, the Great Depression only lasted 12 years. If the recession-bound Pirates ran the economy, the U.S. might be competing with South Yemen in the economic development category.

Yo, Jim Tracy, Dave Littlefield, et al. Joe Girardi has a crap payroll, young players and a disinterestd fan base. He also has a team that can hang. What's your excuse?

The Shape of Things to Come

2006-07-19T20:18:00.000-06:00

Like a sailor celebrating one last day on land before shipping out to seas feared and forbidding, the Pirates snagged another victory in the comforting climes of PNC Park today. The 6-5 triumph over the Colorado Rockies was notable in several regards: a rare one-run win, and in come-from behind fashion, no less; a fine recovery from what could have been a dispiriting nine-run loss the night before; a win over a pitcher (Jason Jennings) whose recent performances had been among the best in the league; and last, but not least, a second straight series win, giving the the team a 4-2 homestand.

Zach Duke also got his second straight win, although again in unimpressive fashion, to improve his record to 7-8. The win is the good news; the bad news is he surrendered a 3-1 lead in the sixth by giving up three runs, before the offense rescued him with three runs of their own in the bottom of the inning.

With slightly less than two weeks to go before the trading deadline, we are again left to ponder a question raised by the Buccin' Ear earlier in the season: Who are these guys? (see post of June 11.)

Zach Duke is one of these guys, of course, but the Buccin' Ear, for one, has no clear idea of who he is. His two wins since the All-Star break have done nothing to improve his plus-five ERA, and he has been in a month-and-a-half-long funk. At least he's consistent. His outing today (six innings, four earned runs) is about what you expect from him these days, which is more than you can say for any other pitcher on the staff.

Lest anyone ask why the Buccin' Ear is quibbling after a win, the simple response is, the team is about to go on the road, where the offense has been far less potent than at home. The Pirates keep looking for a lift from their pitching staff, and it simply hasn't been there. Simply stated, this team is going nowhere (as if it weren't there already) if the starting pitching continues at its current pace.

So that brings us to the subject of Kip Wells, whose departure is apparently imminent. It's hard to lament the loss of anyone whose post-2003 contribution has been as minimal as Wells', but we are still left with the question of who will fill his spot. At this point, the only viable options appear to be Victor Santos or Oliver Perez. The latter is 0-2 for Indianapolis with a 4.58 ERA since his demotion, which isn't very encouraging, although he has 23 strikeouts vs. 4 walks in 20 innings. The Buccin' Ear isn't much of a fan of Santos as a starter, so it says here that OP gets a call-back. The more nagging question is, how long does the team with Tom Un-Terrific Gorzelanny, but we'll jump off that bridge when we come to it.

All signs point to an end to the brief homecoming of Sean Casey, who deserved better. The best bet here, as the Post-Gazette pointed out, is to work out a deal for the Rockies' Ryan Shealy, who has no future with Colorado as a first baseman. The kid can hit, and the Pirates have some relievers who could help the Rockies, who are hurting in that area with the collapse of Ray King and the departure of Chris Dohmann and David Cortes to the minor leagues. As noted in an earlier post, the Rockies' recent travails can largely be blamed on their suddenly vulnerable bullpen, including All-Star closer Brian Fuentes. Could Roberto Hernandez or Damaso Marte help them? You bet. And Shealy would be a great addition. The team needs to make this a top priority.

Joe Randa has shown a lot of class since his injury and job loss to Freddie Sanchez, who simply made the third base job his. Joe has hit well in spot duty since his return, which is not an easy thing to do, and the team would do well to reward him with a trade to a contending team.

Jeromy Burnitz, on the other hand, has zero trade value, as he combines a hefty contract with a poor set of stats. The Buccin' Ear could come up with all the different possible scenarios for moving JB, but the fact is, the inept front office got themselves into this one, and they probably need to eat plenty of unwanted material to move him along. It would be nice to think that this will be a lesson to them, but....naaaaaaaaaaaah.

So excluding pitching and assuming for the moment that the Pirates were to get Shealy, the position player problem for the Pirates is as follows:

Jose Bautista has obviously earned a spot somewhere. If he stays in CF, however, RF would be manned by Craig Wilson or Nate McLouth, with one of the two left out in the cold. If the team doesn't get Shealy and lets Casey go, Wilson is the only option at first, barring some other move. That leaves McLouth in right, not his natural position.

If McLouth is in center, Bautista becomes the question mark. His natural position is third, but there is a guy named Sanchez there.

The X Factor, it says here, is Chris Duffy. If he could return to the form he had shown last year, he could man center, Wilson could take over right, Bautista would move to third, Sanchez would move to second and...

Jose Castillo, who would command some value, would be traded. The trade choice, otherwise, is Wilson, but that leaves RF in the hands of McLouth or...Jose Hernandez? Have another drink. Trade McLouth? Okay, but for whom? He has an OBP of .298 and has yet to prove himself.

The problem, as it has been for some time, is frickin' right field.

Want to be Pirates GM? Be my guest.

Rocked and Rolled

2006-07-18T20:34:00.000-06:00

Has anybody here, seen my old friend Oliver?

Let's just say that Tom Gorzelanny isn't making anyone forget the dearly departed Oliver Perez.

Gorzo, the latest in a long line of highly touted young Pittsburgh hurlers, delivered another X-rated pitching performance tonight, allowing the Colorado Rockies to snap their eight-game losing streak without breaking a sweat. Well, except that they had to spend lots of energy running around the bases.

In short, Tom Un-Terrific was awful, lasting only into the third inning and playing not only the Rockies' best friend but also his own worst enemy with walks, elevated pitches and a silly throwing error that helped to open the floodgates to what was ultimately a 13-4 pasting.

The last we saw of Tom, he'd buried his head in a Terrible Towel. Maybe there was a mug hidden underneath and he was crying in his beer.

Not that TG was alone. With the score 5-0, he left the game in the uncapable hands of Victor Santos, who toted his kerosene can to the mound. By the time the erstwhile fifth starter was finished, the score was 12-1, and the only suspense left was whether Freddie Sanchez could boost his league-leading BA (he did, going 2-for-4, and driving in two runs. He's now hitting .365, which might even be better than what the league is now batting against Pirate pitchers).

Speaking of Pirate pitchers, they would do well to look at the Rockies staff. Traditionally the laughing stock of the league, the Colorado starters had a collective ERA of 4.17 coming into tonight's game, third-best overall in MLB. In days past, the Rockies sprinting to a 7-0 lead wouldn't have been cause to give up hope. No more. Starter Jeff Francis (7-8, 3.98 ERA) coolly shut down the Pirates over seven innings, allowing just one earned run. The team's eight-game losing streak wasn't the fault of the starting pitchers, who by and large threw well over that period. The bullpen broke down and the hitters went into a funk. Until tonight, that is.

The Rockies' five starters (Francis, Aaron Cook, Jason Jennings, Josh Fogg -- yes, that Josh Fogg -- and Byung-Hyun Kim) have combined for 558 innings (well over six innings per start), counting tonight's game, and Kim didn't start the season in the rotation. They have struck out 348 and walked 188.

Consider that the six pitchers who have started for the Pirates this year (Gorzelanny, Perez, Santos, Kip Wells, Zach Duke and Paul Maholm) have combined for 512 innings (about an inning less per start than the Rockies' starting staff) and have issued about 70 more walks, and you begin to see why Colorado has reason for hope (as their respectable 45-48 record suggests), while the Pirates are still floundering.

During the horrid 26-game stretch that began June 12 with a 2-1 loss to St. Louis and ended July 9 with an 8-3 defeat at the hands of the Phillies, the Pirate pitching staff gave up 160 runs, or more than six per game, and the bulk of that total was attributable to the starters. A Pirate starter gave up three runs or fewer in just four of the 26 games.

Obviously, good pitching is hard to come by, and the Pirates, for the time being, at least, are going to have stick with what they've got and hope that experience will pay off, as it seems to be with the young Colorado staff. Kip Wells may well be on the block, but if the plan is to trade Sean Casey and Craig Wilson, a first baseman is going to have to come from somewhere. And even if Jeromy Burnitz and Joe Randa are about to end their storied careers with the club, one can hardly hope that either will net a prized pitching prospect.

Tonight shows us once again that the Pirates' call to arms in '06 has gone largely unheeded.

The Second Season

2006-07-17T20:04:00.000-06:00

The Pirates of Penance returns after an All-Star break for the Buccin' Ear. The first "half" (90 games) of the Pirates' season is best forgotten, and some of their bad karma must have rubbed off on the National League at PNC Park, as the American League scored two times in the ninth inning to take the All-Star game again. It marked the first AL victory in a Pittsburgh park.

The Buccos returned to action with three games against the Washington Nationals, and won two, their first series victory in over a month. Zach Duke picked up a win in the series opener despite another mediocre effort (5 2/3 innings, three runs), then the team posted a rare come-from-behind win on Saturday. After stranding Nationals by the score throughout two games and most of a third, the pitching finally succumbed on Sunday in an 11-inning loss to thwart a sweep.

But there was more positive news tonight as Kip Wells worked out of several jams to go seven innings against the Colorado Rockies and help secure a 3-1 win. Wells didn't get the win, but he and the team were desperate for this kind of outing after a dreadful return from the disabled list.

None other than Freddie Sanchez drove in the winning run in the eighth tonight, further cementing his status as the team's most consistent performer and valuable player. Sanchez came up with one out and Jack Wilson on second against sidewinder Byung-Hyun Kim, who had thrown more than 120 pitches, and took a tailing pitch the opposite way for a run-scoring double. The Pirates tacked on one more before Matt Capps threw a hitless ninth for the save.

So the Pirates, still a discouraging 33-61, have won three of their first four "second season" games. Okay, it helps that they have taken on struggling teams (the Rockies lost their eighth straight tonight), but who is to quibble at this point?

Instead the Buccin' Ear, with a chance to see the game tonight, prefers to give a tip of the hat to Mr. Sanchez, who, as they say, plays the game the right way. He made several excellent plays in the field tonight, but for me the most impressive was in the ninth. The lead-off hitter for the Rockies, Choo Freeman, topped one down the third base line that appeared to be heading foul. Freeman, probably thinking just that, hesitated just a bit coming out of the box, and Sanchez, charging the ball aggressively all the way, grabbed it in fair territory and threw Freeman out. Those kinds of plays are why you keep an eye on a guy like Freddie all year long. His head is in the game all the time.

And the team continues to show those tantalizing flashes of talent. To wit: with one out in the top of the eighth and the Rockies' Todd Helton at first, the Rockies got a gapper from Garrett Atkins that seemed a cinch to score Helton. Jose Bautista fielded the ball cleanly and relayed to Jose Castillo, who threw a strike from short right field to Ronnie Paulino. Helton's hand was reaching for the plate just as Paulino swiped him on the shoulder for the out. It was a perfect play, and one that took advantage of Helton's ill-advised look back for the ball as he came around third. Your coach waved you home, man, forget about where the ball is.

If these plays come more frequently in the next two and a half months than they have thus far, perhaps the Pirates can salvage a bit of pride.

The 1985 watch: to better the fifth-worst mark in team history (57-104), the current club must go 25-43 (.368) the rest of the way.

Stars in the Darkness

2006-07-11T17:57:00.000-06:00

In a nicely ironic twist, the best players in Major League Baseball are gathered tonight in Pittsburgh, home to the worst team in either league. Two Pirates, Jason Bay and Freddie Sanchez, made the NL squad, and it's nice to say that both are deserving. Bay will actually start, an unexpected treat for the home crowd. Sanchez's selection is even more gratifying in that a last-place team rarely gets more than the mandatory selection. Freddie earned it, hitting the break with a BA around .360 and solid play in the field.

This is, of course, PNC's first time to host the so-called Midsummer Classic, and it's hard to imagine a finer setting, even if the team that regularly calls it home rarely if ever does it justice. The Buccin' Ear dropped into PNC last summer and was stunned by the perfection of the park, with its wonderful sightlines and flawless display of the city skyline. Of course, the mid-July game, played in sweltering heat, didn't match the surroundings. The Bucs went down to the Astros 9-1, with the departed Dave Williams taking the loss.

But back to the All-Star game. This is the fifth time that Pittsburgh has played host, the most recent being in 1994 at Three Rivers, an 8-7 win for the National League, which scored three times in the last two innings. Former Pirates Moises Alou (traded to Montreal for Zane Smith in 1990) got the game-winner. Carlos Garcia represented the Pirates, which tells you what kind of year they were having.

In fact, the NL has won each of the previous games played in Pittsburgh.

In 1974, a tilt attended by your faithful correspondent, the NL prevailed easily, 7-2 (MVP: Steve Garvey). Only one Pirate appeared in the game, the late Ken Brett, but he threw two scoreless innings to get the win. The paucity of Pirates seems curious, given that they were the eventual winners of the NL East that year, until one remembers that the team began 18-32. Obviously, few Buccos were boasting All-Star stats in early July, given that start.

The 1959 match in Forbes Field was notable in that it was the first year that two games were played, one in an NL park and one at an AL field. The first game, in Pittsburgh, was won by the NL with two runs in the bottom of the ninth off none other than Whitey Ford. Game-winning hit (a triple)? Some guy named Mays, who drove in some guy named Aaron. The first six innings, which ended 1-1, featured these four pitchers: for the NL, Don Drysdale and Lew Burdette. For the AL, Early Wynn and Ryne Duren. Anybody who saw the game, contact the Buccin' Ear. That one lived up to the word "Classic."

Bill Mazeroski, Dick Groat and Elroy Face appeared for the Pirates in the 1959 game. Unfortunately, Face was the victim of a three-run uprising by the AL in the top of the ninth that forced the NL heroics in the bottom frame.

The luster of the 1944 game, also played at Forbes, was obviously dimmed by the war, and the loss of many great players, who were in Europe and the Pacific fighting fascism. Still, those notables who were still around included Bobby Doerr, Vern Stephens, Hal Newhouser, Rip Sewall (he of the Ephus pitch), Stan Musial, Walker Cooper, Joe Medwick, Mel Ott and Marty Marion. There was even a Dimaggio (Vince, who made the team as a Pirate). The other Pirate attendees were Sewall and first baseman Bob Elliott (2,061 career hits). The NL cruised, 7-1.

So perhaps all of this history bodes well for an '06 NL squad everyone is declaring overmatched. The balance of power in baseball has undoubtedly shifted to the AL, but perhaps an old NL city can inspire the Senior Circuit again. And don't forget, the NL skipper is none other than a Pittsburgh favorite: Phil "Scrap Iron" Garner, who was a key member of that long-ago 1979 World Championship Pittsburgh Pirates team.

Keystone Krap

2006-07-10T18:03:00.000-06:00

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.

Man Bites Dog

2006-07-07T21:42:00.000-06:00

The final score of tonight's Pirates-Phillies game: 3-2.

GROAN.

But wait! In a jaw-dropping development, the Pirates won a one-run game!

And with that, they also recorded their 30th victory of the season. Nine of them (30%) have been of the single-run variety. On the other hand, 25 of their 58 losses (43%) have been by one run.

We've lambasted our Buccos for the last three weeks, so let's be fair and give credit where credit is due. We've been begging for a starting pitcher to throw a shoulder to the wheel, and Ian Snell did that tonight, going seven innings and giving up just one run in recording his eighth win of the season. We've been asking for the team to make a play when it counts, and Jack Wilson did so, throwing out Jimmy Rollins on a relay to save a run in the fifth.

Okay. The Phillies have played just as ineptly as the Pirates in the past month, going 8-20. No matter. The Buccos got a road win, a one-run win, a solid starting performance and timely plays. Let's check our reservations at the door.

1985 update: Tonight's win, coupled with the 7-5 loss to the Mets on Thursday (Thanks to Jonah Bayless for his flawless portrayal of Ryan Vogelsong in that one), leaves the Pirates 30-58. Goal for the remaining games: 28-46 (.377).

Staggering to the Break

2006-07-05T21:59:00.000-06:00

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.

Avoiding History

2006-07-04T12:30:00.000-06:00

The Pirates caught a break when Pedro Martinez slipped in the shower, scrubbing him from his start against the Bucs Monday. The team responded to its good fortune with an 11-1 win over the Mets, keyed by some timely hitting and a gritty pitching performance from Paul Maholm, who labored through a 116-pitch, six-inning effort, but yielded just one run and improved his still disappointing record to 3-7.

With a win today, the Pirates can reach double digits in road victories (they are currently 9-31) and post their 30th triumph. All this by the Fourth of July!

Too bad the team can't chop up its 10-run win of last night into 10 one-run victories to partially replace the 24 single-tally losses they've piled up this year. If that could magically happen, they'd be 39-45 and on the fringes of the division race in the aggressively mediocre NL Central.

But let's walk on the sunny side today. The team still has a mission, which is to distance itself from the worst squads in Pirates history.

The worst record, unlikely ever to be broken (we hope) belongs to the 1890 forebears of the Pirates, the Pittsburgh Alleghenys, who went 23-113. The current team racked up its 24th win on June 11. Even if it were to lose every remaining game and finish 29-133, they could not finish with a worse winning percentage than the '90 Alleghenys (.169).

More good news: The 2006 Pirates will not approach the number of errors committed by nonpitchers on the 1890 team: 439. (Did they have really tough scorers in those days? Bad fields, no doubt.) In fact, the entire infield on the current team probably won't combine for the 70 miscues recorded by Doggie Miller in split duty at third base and shortstop. (Doggie tacked on another five for good measure in a fill-in role behind the plate.)

The 1952 club (42-112, .273 WP) has the second-worst record in team history, and it will stay that way if the current team can go 16-62 the rest of the way, which seems likely, even by its lowly standards. No three pitchers on the 2006 staff will combine for 54 losses, as the '52 club's Murray Dickson (21), Bob Friend (17) and Howie Pollett (16) did. From a statistical hitting standpoint, the third-best player on the 1952 team was Joe Garagiola. The Buccin' Ear is confident that when the dust settles on the '06 campaign, the team's third-best offensive player's numbers and performance will leave Joe in the dust, although none will probably achieve the same notoriety the then-broadcaster-in-waiting did.

From second place to third place on the Worst Of list is a short step: the 1953 team went 50-104 (.325). The current Buccos can speed past that one by playing a little better than .300 ball (24-54) from here on in. Definitely doable.

If the 2006 team can put the '53 club in the rearview mirror, it will also likely speed past the 1917 Pirates (51-103/.331). That team had one thing in common with its Modern Era counterpart, though: its ability to ditch promising pitching. It had a young righthander named Burleigh Grimes, who would record 270 career victories and be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1964. For the '17 Buccos, however, he went 3-16 and was traded to Brooklyn, where he posted a record of 19-9 the following year.

So to avoid placing among the bottom five, the Pirates must get past the previously discussed (see post of May 31) 1985 team (57-104/.354). The 2006 edition is already halfway to its goal of 58 wins for the season. However, it is also more than halfway to its maximum loss count of 104. So the magic numbers for our heroes are 29 (wins), 49 (losses) and .377 (WP) the rest of the season.

Can they do it? They can, of course, but there is a huge potential catch looming: the last five series of the year are all against teams that have an excellent or at least decent chance of being in contention for something in September (in order, the Mets, the Dodgers, the Padres, the Astros and the Reds). On the plus side, the Mets may be coasting by that time; on the minus side, the road games are against the Dodgers and the Padres, the two teams most likely to be battling it out down the stretch, as they are in the closely contested Western Division.

The Buccin' Ear's advice? Circle the dates of September 4-7. That's when the Pirates invade Wrigley Field for a series with the victory-challenged Cubs that may go a long way toward not only determining the team's place in history, but also toward revealing this year's worst team in baseball -- or at least the National League, which these days is another way of saying the same thing.

Thanks to www.baseballreference.com and www.postgazette.com for help with the research on this post.

The Best of RG

2006-07-03T08:25:00.000-06:00

When Resident Genius Jim Tracy arrived in Pittsburgh to take over the reins of the team, he was vocal in his desire to change the way the team approached the game of baseball. He stressed accountability and declared that the days of accepting losing in Pittsburgh were over.

So it was with surprise that The Buccin' Ear noted this comment from RG that followed the Pirates' latest loss, yet another of the one-run variety, to the Tigers Sunday. The Pirates, who have become jazz musicians endlessly riffing on the theme of the close-but-not-cigar game, trailed this one by seven before getting back six -- but only six.

Quoth RG: "This was just a terrific comeback, again. Unfortunately, it fell short. To come back after trailing 9-2 so late in the game as we were and given their bullpen, which has been so special to get them off to the start they are off to, it is big. We were in a position to tie the game once in the later innings then in the position in the ninth inning to win. We just couldn't get the hit. We couldn't get the sacrifice fly."

So what is the message here? Sounds to me like RG is providing a soothing pat on the back to his team, telling them not to feel bad, they tried, they gave it all they had, but gosh darnit, things just won't go their way.

Hey, the Buccin' Ear is all for keeping a losing team's morale up. Trouble is, RG swings between taking shots at players (see Jack Wilson and Mike Gonzales), making excuses for his own questionable decision making and offering this kind of empty encouragement. In the Buccin' Ear's book, an effective manager finds a way to encase his lash on the team in velvet -- good job coming back, but what the hell were we doing falling behind by seven in the first place? Nice job, Ian Snell, pitching three scoreless innings after giving up four in the first two, but you and I are going to find a way to put an end to the bad innings that are ruining your games.

To illustrate the way a top-flight manager handles a team, here's what Tigers skipper Jim Leyland told Post-Gazette writer Paul Meyer in a recent interview. Leyland was discussing an early-season tantrum triggered by a loss that featured irritating play from his team.

"They played hard that day. It wasn't that," Leyland said. "It was just that it was like, 'Well, we're behind. I'm going to hit a cheap home run.' We kept popping balls up to the outfield.

"I said, 'That's just not going to be tolerated. We don't play the game that way.' "
And Leyland made his point.

"I don't think you ever plan those things. You just react," Leyland said. "You know, every once in a while, you say, 'Shut the doors. I've seen enough of this [act].' It wasn't pretty."

The Tigers, duly chastised, went 6-3 on their trip to Oakland, Seattle and Anaheim. That made their record 13-9.

"But I don't think that [meeting] had [anything] to do with it," Leyland said. "You just have to do what you feel. That's what managing is. You get a feel for something -- good or bad -- and you have to handle it. I wasn't just going to let it slide."

Long-time Pirates fans will remember spring training of '91. The team was coming off an NL East championship, and reigning MVP Barry Bonds' head had gotten a little big. (Hard to believe, I know.) Leyland ignored Bonds' behavior for about a week before he upbraided the player in full view of players, fans and media. End of problem.

"I just wasn't going to let it slide."

To counter that quote, we have another gem from RG, this one on the heels of a carbon-copy one-run loss to the Tigers to open the weekend set. The Pirates fell behind by five in that one, only to get back -- you guessed it -- four.

The post-game blather began with rookie reliever Matt Capps, who at least can be forgiven for trying to buck himself up in the midst of a horrible season. From the Post-Gazette:

"We never hang our heads," Capps said. "And that's how it's been all year: We get into some trouble early on, but we get back into it, no matter what the score is, no matter who we're facing."

One would be looking for the manager to give his young player some guidance, words along the lines of, "It's fine to make a comeback. But we need to find ways to stay in the game early."

No, RG offered another variation on the "Gosh darn we're close" theme:

"It was a tremendous comeback," Tracy said. "And it's a tremendous effort when you consider how the early part of the game went."

So the Buccin' Ear, following the lead of RG, has this to say to the Buccos: keep it up guys. You are on track to become the gosh-darn best 105-loss team in Major League Baseball history. Quite an accomplishment.

Mailbag

2006-07-02T18:59:00.000-06:00

The Pirates played to form in their six games with the two best teams in baseball, the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers, losing four and winning two. After picking up a win Saturday night over the Tigers, who played shoddy defense to hand the home towners a 9-2 win, the Pirates today did what they do best, bowing 9-8, their 24th one-run loss in 32 opportunities. After falling behind 9-2, buried by poor pitching performances by Ian Snell and John Grabow, they rallied for six runs in the seventh, but couldn't get over the hump. In other news, the sun came up in the east this morning.

The Bucs scored 23 runs in three games off the Tigers' excellent pitching staff, which for most teams would translate into more than one victory. But even in scoring eight runs, their uncanny inability to win games emerged. They left a combined total of 22 men on base, with Jose Castillo, Humberto Cota and Jack Wilson being responsible for five each. The Pirates had the bases loaded and one out in the ninth before Castillo struck out and Cota hit a ball up the middle that was deflected by pitcher Todd Jones and fielded by second baseman Placido Polanco, who threw Cota out. As is their practice, the Pirates bemoaned their bad luck on Cota's ball. That's what losing teams do. Yo, Adrian, would being down seven runs early in the game have anything to do with the loss?

So on to the Buccin' Ear's first shake of The Pirates of Penance mailbag. A good rustling of the sack produced mostly a flutter of moths, but there were a few cyber missives that fell out.

Zack from Shanghai mocked the Buccin' Ear's elegaic "Time to Move On" post, at once an ode to the Pirates' past glory and a lament for the current state of affairs.

"Woe is me, O woe is me," Zack wrote. "Try World Cup soccer instead!"

Well, Zack, much as the Buccin' Ear's psyche might be soothed by shifting his attention from the Buccos to something more worthwhile, he is afraid that soccer isn't the answer. He breathlessly awaited the outcome of the Trinidad-Sweden match recently, and asked a coworker how it came out. "Nothing-nothing," she replied. "What, they haven't played yet?" he inquired. "No, that was the score," she said impatiently. And they call baseball boring.

Paul from Denver reacted to the recent post "Halfway to Nowhere," which questioned a decade and a half of Pirate futility by pointing to the team's small market status:

"As with most teams in small- to middle-size markets (Indians, Brewers, Reds, Royals, etc.), unless there is a compelling reason for younger players to stick around -- a team mentor, an ownership group that is honestly looking to build a winner, or loyalty to a city's fan base -- the Pirates will forever be forced to develop good, young talent and watch it be snatched up by big-market teams with deeper pockets. "

The argument that the Pirates and other small market teams don't succeed because the economics of the game won't allow them to is one commonly advanced, and it certainly has merit. However, it does not fully explain the lack of success of the Pirates. First, as The Buccin' Ear noted, the job of the front office has at least as much to do with evaluating talent as it has to do with deciding how much money to spend. The Pirates' talent evaluation, as we have seen, has been woeful, while other small-market teams, including the A's and Twins, have been able to attract, keep and restock good players consistently. Baseball is like any other business: it helps to have massive amounts of capital, but it doesn't guarantee success, and the converse is true. Michael Lewis's Moneyball famously showed Oakland GM Billy Beane's ability to put together teams that were based on a different model for evaluating talent.

Interestingly, the general consensus among the Pittsburgh press is that the Pirates aren't losing money. The team's problem is that it spends its dollars foolishly and has proven incapable of arriving at a consistent approach for developing young players.

Teams that preserve their young talent -- assuming, again, that they are smart enough to evaluate it correctly in the first place -- have a chance, even with small payrolls, of achieving success. One of the best examples is the Indians, previously discussed in this blog, who were on the short list of worst teams in baseball for more than three decades before they started finding and stockpiling good young players in the early '90s. By 1995, they were in a World Series, had a brand-new stadium and a rejuventated fan base. They reinvented themselves again recently and, it says here, will have great success again, their disappointing 2006 notwithstanding.

An anonymous poster writes, in response to "Eye of the Tiger":

Why can't the Pirates emulate what Detroit has done? They were the laughing stock of MLB a few years a go. Now they are a contender. When oh when will the curent Pirates ownership sell this team?

See above. The interesting thing about the Tigers' pitching staff is that only Justin Verlander was originally drafted by the team. Detroit picked up Jeremy Bonderman, Mike Maroth and Nate Robertson from other teams, and of course Kenny Rogers is a veteran acquisition who has helped solidify the staff on a short-term basis. Don't forget also the value of patience. In 2003, Bonderman and Maroth lost 19 and 21 games, respectively. It's easy to say now that all the Tigers had to do was wait for them to mature, but it doesn't work that way. Seasons like those could easily have ruined those two pitchers' self-confidence, but the Tigers' coaching staff apparently was able to help them survive their trial by fire.

Pirate pitchers, on the other hand, have nearly universally gone downhill as their careers with the team have progressed. Kip Wells is a classic example. In 2003, he was 10-9 with a 3.28 ERA. Since then he has gone 13-28 with an ERA well over 5.00 and has been a complete disaster since his return to the team this year.

Finally, as noted above, the Pirates are doing okay financially, so it's hard to say that a sale of the team is imminent, and as Bob Smizik of the Post-Gazette recently pointed out, it's hard to get an answer from ownership about anything these days, much less their financial plans.

The Buccin' Ear will end this mailbag session with the following note from a reader in Australia:

"Your site is on top of my favourites - Great work I like it."

Thanks, mom.

Halfway to Nowhere

2006-07-01T16:59:00.000-06:00

The Pirates' loss last night completed the first half of their hellish 2006 season in neat mathetematical fashion. The team is 27-54, meaning that it has lost exactly twice as many games as it has won, and has lost exactly two of every three games it has played.

That's about the only thing that is orderly about the mess that is the Pirates. Other than the fact that it has no reliable starters, an overworked bullpen, a perennial hole in center field, no established leadoff hitter, inconsistent fielding, an inability to win close games and a comically bad road record, this is a heck of a team.

The Post Gazette's recap of the lost first half pretty much hit the nail on the head in all areas, doling out especially well-deserved criticism to the front office and new manager Jim Tracy. Also rightly singled out was the starting pitching, which has been nothing short of disastrous. What is it with this team? Why can't pitchers perform when they come up with or come to Pittsburgh? In my mind, it all started going bad with Tim Wakefield.

A lot of people probably never knew or have long since forgotten that way back in 1992, Wakefield achieved the status of folk hero with the Pirates. A late-season call-up, he won two games in the playoffs that year against the Braves, pitching especially bravely and brilliantly with his dancing knuckleball in Game 3, with the Pirates down 2-0 and on the verge of being humiliated. Wakefield won that tense game, then picked up another win in a Game 6 blowout that sent the series to the ill-fated Game 7 that the Pirates came within a whisker of winning. Instead, the decline of the Pirates began.

As did the seeming demise of TimWakefield. He lost control of his knuckleball, pitching poorly in '93 and not at all in '94. Suddenly in '95, however, he was rescued from the scrapheap by Boston, where he resurrected his career, winning 130 games going into this season.

From Wakefield on, the story of Pirates starting pitching has been a litany of failed promise and lost opportunity. On the rare occasion that a Pirates pitcher has seemed to fulfill his potential, the team has promptly traded him away. Denny Neagle comes to mind. He was 14-6 in 1996 when the cash-strapped team sent him off to Atlanta. The marvelously talented Jason Schmidt came over in that deal. But of course Schmidt was never anything better than a .500 pitcher for the Buccos, who sent him on to San Francisco, for whom he pitched well in a World Series. Schmidt is still a SF staff mainstay. The cruelty of the loss of Schmidt can be summed up with one name: Ryan Vogelsong, whom the Pirates acquired for him. Ryan Freaking Vogelsong!

But the list goes on and on: Esteban Loaiza, Jon Lieber, Bronson Arroyo, Chris Young, Kris Benson; none were able to prosper until they left Pittsburgh. And the utter ineptitude of the Pirates front office is illustrated by the list of what the team received in return for these pitchers: Arroyo was claimed off waivers. Jon Lieber netted Brant Brown, a name that I am sure is still on everyone's lips. Loaiza fetched Warren Morris and the immortal Todd Van Poppel. Chris Young got Matt Herges to the club, which was great because that gave them a chance to release him before he had thrown a regular season pitch in a Pirate uniform. The only faint glimmer of hope came from the Benson deal, which brought them Jose Bautista (the great Ty Wigginton has gone on to another powerhouse, Tampa Bay). At best, the jury is still out on that one.

Then there are the Francisco Cordovas, Todd Ritchies and Oliver Perezes of the world: one or two decent seasons, followed by flameout. Oh, and the careers that probably will never get off the ground due to arm troubles: John Van Benschoten, Bryan Bullington, Sean Burnett.

If I were Zach Duke, Ian Snell or Paul Maholm, I'd demand a trade right now. It could be dangerous not to.

Well, as Gnarls Barkley says, I could go on and on and on, but who cares? That's all water over the broken levees of Piratedom. But it does make the point that in the end, the biggest, reddest F that could be scrawled on the club report card belongs to the front office. They've earned that honor so many years in a row, it hardly needs to be awarded anymore. This year, the brain bust came up with another classic: the Joe Randa/Jeromy Burnitz two-fer that is the worst piece of free agent foolishness since the Derek Bell signing (the trophy may have been retired with that one, with apologies to Raul Mondesi). (The Buccin' Ear feels like he should make like Bobby on The Sopranos in addressing the Bucco front office: "I'm in awr of you.")

You have to give them this: they're bad at judging talent in their own organization, but on the other hand, they're pretty bad at judging talent in other teams' organizations too.

So tonight begins the Tom Gorzelanny Story. In it, young man arrives in Pittsburgh from Indianapolis full of hopes and dreams that he will be a star pitcher on a Major League Baseball team. The Buccin' Ear doesn't have the heart to write the ending.

Eye of the Tiger

2006-06-30T23:10:00.000-06:00

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

2006-06-24T05:28:00.000-06:00

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.

***********************************************************************************

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

2006-06-21T19:52:00.000-06:00

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'

2006-06-19T17:39:00.000-06:00

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

2006-06-16T22:06:00.000-06:00

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

2006-06-14T19:03:00.000-06:00

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

2006-06-13T20:48:00.000-06:00

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?

2006-06-11T09:45:00.000-06:00

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

2006-06-08T20:29:00.000-06:00

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

2006-06-07T21:56:00.000-06:00

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

2006-06-06T19:31:00.000-06:00

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

2006-06-05T18:03:00.000-06:00

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

2006-06-04T09:47:00.001-06:00

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

2006-06-02T05:44:00.000-06:00

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.

Rock On, Bucaroos

2006-05-31T20:01:00.000-06:00

Ho-hum. Another night, another blowout win. The Pirates, behind the sluggin' Jose Castillo, who hit, yes, his fifth homer in five games, blasted the Milwaukee Brewers for the third night in a row, 6-1, running their current home stand record to 5-1. No more comments about the one they lost. The team put that one behind them with a vengeance.

Poor Brewers. The Bucco buzz saw has outscored them 32-5 in the first three games of this series. Their hitters tonight were dominated by Ian Snell, who finally earned a win worthy of the name, going six innings while yielding just one run.

So the Pirates wind up May with a 12-15 record. Nothing to write home about until you take a gander at their April record of 7-19. At 19-34, they are still on pace to lose 100 games, but they now need to go just 44-65 the rest of the way to avoid it. In other words, just play .400 ball from now until the end of the season, and the ignominy of hitting the century loss mark is avoided.

The 1985 Pirates were the last squad in team history to loss more than 100 games, going 57-104. They were 15-29 at the end of May, one-half game ahead of this year's edition. However, we can hope that the 2006 team does better than the 25-55 mark compiled by the 1985 Pirates between June 1 and September 1. That dreadful stretch left the club at 40-84. Can the 2006 Bucs do better than 21-50 over the next three months and surpass that lofty standard? Let us say a silent prayer to an answer in the affirmative.

If offense is any indication, the current team is far ahead of its 1985 predecessor. That team scored only 568 runs the entire season, or barely 3.5 per game. This year's team has already scored 236, about a run per game better. Yes, the difference in eras accounts for a bit of that, but the '85 team had no player that would match up with Jason Bay. The team leader, "Home Run" Jason Thompson, launched a staggering 12 round trippers, and the RBI leader, second baseman Johnny Ray, knocked home a modest 70 runs. His 2006 counterpart, Jose Castillo, by comparison, is on pace to drive in around 90.

The '85 team was the worst Pirates team since the 1952 squad that went an incredible 42-112. And the mid-'80s version was not on a rebuilding course. Only Sid Bream and Bob Walk played on any of the division championship teams of '90-'92, and the roster was littered with players whose best days were far behind them, including George Hendrick, Steve Kemp, Lee Mazzilli, Rick Rhoden and Sixto Lezcano. The team leader in saves was none other than John Candelaria, with nine.

None of these sorry statistics should make the pain of the present year go away, but perhaps it gives some reason for greater hope than existed two decades ago. Let's leave it on this note: Freddie Sanchez, with three more hits tonight, is hitting .352 as the Pirates' third baseman. The '85 team's hot corner man was Bill Madlock, ending his excellent career by struggling to a .251 finish.

Is there brightness in the dark of '06? A bit. Remember '85!

Keep the Angst Coming!

2006-05-30T19:20:00.000-06:00

The dispirited Pirates dragged themselves onto the field Monday night following their extra-inning loss to Astros on Sunday, one in which they blew a four-run lead in the ninth. Clearly still dragging this heavy burden, they wearily turned to face the Milwaukee Brewers and...won, 14-3 behind two touchdown passes by Ben Roethlisberger to Hines Ward and a stifling defense.

Okay, too early for the Steelers references (but who can blame Pirates fans for counting the days to football training camp), but for a day at least, the Pirates did resemble their tough-as-nails pigskin counterparts, who shrugged off a 7-5 record in November and rode seven straight wins to the Super Bowl. The Pirates won't be in the World Series, or even the playoffs, but they have shown on this home stand (3-1 thus far) that they still want to play ball as much as the guys who play across the lot at Heinz Field.

One has to wonder about this Pirates team. They follow up the most stirring win of the year with the most depressing loss of the year and then follow that up with a blowout win. They could easily be undefeated on this home stand after playing atrociously in three road losses in Arizona.

The enigma that is the Pirates grows even murkier when one looks closer at their record. They are one game over .500 at home, which doesn't sound like much until you look at the five teams with the worst won-loss records in baseball. Of these (in descending order, Washington, Chicago Cubs, Pirates, Florida and Kansas City) none has a winning home record except the Pirates. They have won five of their past seven games at home against Central Division opponents Cincinnati, Houston and Milwaukee (and are leading the latter as of this writing tonight, 9-1), all with records at or above .500, but have losing records against the lowly Cubs and Marlins. And, of course, on the road, they are abysmal, at 4-22, better than only hapless Kansas City.

What gives? Well, they don't hit on the road, for one thing. At home, the team had scored 124 runs in 25 games (before tonight, which will pad the total), or about five per game, nearly enough for the generous pitching staff. And about half of that total has come in the past seven games. In 26 games away from PNC, on the other hand, they have scored a grand total of 84 runs, or about 3.2 per game. The best pitching staff in MLB is going to have trouble dealing with that meager production, and the Pirates are not closing to having the best. They have, in fact, given up more than five runs per game on the road.

Then there is the matter of one-run games. The Pirates have lost 1o of them on the road. Cut that in half and you don't have a dream season, but you don't have a disaster either. The team went 1-6 on its seven-game trip to open the season and was outscored by a total of eight runs. In 13 of the 22 losses, they either led or were tied at some point in the game, many of them in the late going, and in a number of other losses, they scored one or more runs in the ninth inning to bring themselves to within a single tally, but couldn't get over the hump.

Just why all of this is so is difficult to answer. Why does Jose Castillo, for example, hit about .330 at home (he hit two homers and drove in six tonight) and about .260 on the road? Their travails put me in mind of the Colorado Rockies, who for years have been among the worst road teams in all of baseball. Of course, that was always atrributed to the team's high-altitude home ball park, Coors Field, where until recently, averages and run counts were hugely inflated. When the light-air Rockies went on the road, their bats seemed to take on a burden of lead. But that doesn't explain the disparity for the Pirates, who play in a ball park that is not known as a hitter's paradise.

Well, tonight's game is over, and one can only wish that the magic air wafting in off the Allegheny and Monongahela could blow forever. Pirates 12, Brewers 1. Maybe we can prorate these runs over the next road trip?

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

2006-05-29T10:10:00.000-06:00

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.

Who Am I? To Stand and Wonder, to Wait?

2006-05-28T09:56:00.000-06:00

The Pirates of Penance and the Buccin' Ear, absent for a few days, will assume a Pirates-like role today and play catch-up.

When we last looked in on our heroes, they were languishing under the dome in Arizona. After wasting a fine effort from Oliver Perez in the series opener, the team went on to lose two more to the D-Backs, who completed a sweep. The brooming left the Bucs with a horrifying road record of 4-22 and sent them limping home with a 14-33 mark to PNC, where a long-time tormentor, the Houston Astros, awaited. Certainly not a hope-inspiring scenario.

The series started unpromisingly on Friday night as Ian Snell put the team in a 4-1 hole by the fourth inning. Listening to the game on XM as I drove, I have to admit I mentally filed the game away under "L." Returning a couple of innings later, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Pirates had dropped a big 7 on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fourth, an inning that included yet another blast from Jason Bay, who continues to solidify his standing as one of the game's outstanding young players. The Bucs went on to an unexpected rout, winning 12-5.

That set the stage for Saturday's game, which turned out to be two games. Bouncing back from defecits three times, the Pirates won an 18-inning epic that stretched across nearly six hours, 8-7. The game included Bay's ninth homer in nine games (five games in a row currently) and a mad dash home on a short fly from Jose Batista in the 18th. The ball arrived ahead of Bay, but he ran over the Astros catcher, who dropped the ball and the game. The Pirates were the proud owners of a two-game winning streak and a chance to get a three-game sweep for the first time since -- get this -- 2004.

The Pirates spoke euphorically after the game about this win, some of them predicting that it might help them turn the corner. Let's not begrudge them that optimism, even if we remain skeptical. This is a team that has had about everything that could go wrong this year do so. If any team deserves even a pinch of good fortune from the Baseball Gods, it's this one. The question is, are there signs of progress with the team?

Yes and no, but let's focus on the yeses for now. First and foremost, there is Jason Bay. The quality of his play in the most difficult of situations for players can't be overstated. After enduring a slump for a couple of weeks in late April and early May, he has been an offensive terror in a lineup that provides him precious little protection. During the nine-game stretch noted above, he has driven in 22 runs, while hitting nearly .440. No one can accuse him of giving up on the season.

Next to Bay, the biggest plus for the team has been Freddie Sanchez, whom the Buccin' Ear continues to strongly support over the injured Joe Randa. He hasn't been a big factor in the Astros series at the plate, but he is still hitting over .330, and productively. He's solid defensively, and he is a player who has earned his playing time, which can't be said of everyone on the Pirates' roster.

Saturday's unsung hero was Ryan Vogelsong, who ate up five innings, saving the bullpen for today and giving a huge boost to the team. Here is a guy who easily could have given up on himself after a career-threatening injury and lots of bad outings for the Pirates in a starting role. But he seems to have taken to his middle relief role and has, like Bay, displayed a great deal of professionalism.

The Pirates are above .500 at home. That is a modest achievement for most teams, but most teams haven't lost 17 more games than they have won. The team is competitive at home. So the question, of course, is why they are abysmal on the road. But we're focusing on positives, so we'll leave that one aside for now.

The focus of today's game is Perez. He has put together two good starts in a row, and a third one would be a huge boost both for him and the team. And there are signs that he can do it. By all accounts, his long-missing velocity is returning.

Put simply, the Buccin' Ear's take is that Perez needs to assume the same role on the pitching staff that Bay has assumed as an everyday player. The Pirates desperately need a pitcher who can consistently keep the team in games. Perez did that in 2004, but he has been largely missing in action since. Perez has an opportunity to set an example for the rest of the Pirates' struggling staff. (Ian Snell picked up the win Friday after struggling through five uninspired innings and Paul Maholm fell victim to a four-run fifth last night after throwing four impressive innings. Zach Duke pitched poorly in the season finale at Arizona and so far has shown few signs that the promise of last year was justified.)

And finally, the Buccin' Ear notes the slow ascent of Jeromy Burnitz, the recipient of a few (well-deserved) shots in this blog. Burnitz hit a big pinch hit home run last night and his pushed his average up about 40 points over the last two weeks. The Buccin' Ear will not become a Burnitz convert, but if he can begin contributing offensively, it will not only help the team, but raise his worth, which is important, because the Pirates would do well to trade him and his salary at midseason.

On those notes of sunny optimism, the Buccin' Ear leads the cheers: Bring out the brooms!

Somebody Bring Me Some Water

2006-05-24T07:21:00.000-06:00

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.

Facing the Indians with an Empty Quiver

2006-05-22T18:11:00.000-06:00

The Pirates, as is their practice, the Pirates of Penance sorrowfully notes, found a way to lose the rubber match of their three-game interleague tilt with the Indians Sunday, falling 3-2 in 10 innings when Grady Sizemore, who had struck out four times, singled in the winning run with two out. Mike Gonzales had gotten the first two men out, then collapsed.

Wasted was a decent starting effort from Paul Maholm (one run in 5 1/3 innings, although he labored through 105 pitches). If we're looking for hope, as the Buccin' Ear tries to do, it comes in the form of Maholm's and Zach Duke's respectable starting outings this weekend against a very tough lineup on the road.

The real story of the game -- the state of the Pirates, really--occurred in the ninth inning, when the Pirates had runners on first and second, no one out, and sent up...Jose Hernandez...to bunt.

The coverage in the Post Gazette made much of the fact that Hernandez, who had done well against Indians reliever Bob Wickham in a modest seven career at bats, was asked to bunt. Not surprisingly, Hernandez couldn't pull it off, laying down a poor bunt that resulted in the lead runner (Jeromy Burnitz) getting cut down. The inning ended when Jose Castillo hit into a double play, the result of Ryan Doumit being stranded at first due to Jose's botched effort. The Post Gazette pinpointed this as the turning point of the game.

Well, the real question, from the Buccin' Ear's point of view, is twofold: one, what was Hernandez doing at the plate and two, what was he doing in the stadium?

If there is a poster child for the misguided player personnel policies of the Pirates, it is the presence of Jose Hernandez on the roster. He is 37 years old and had his last decent statistical season in 2002 with Milwaukee when, you might remember, his manager decided to sit him in the season's final game so he wouldn't break the all time single-season strikeout record. (He finished with 188, three better than the previous year's count.) Like his teammate Burnitz, he is a career .250 hitter with a poor career on-base percentage (.312). Most impressive is that during the course of his time in the Bigs, he has struck out over 250 more times than he has gotten a base hit. Well, gee, why wouldn't the Pirates want him on the roster? Who wouldn't want to add another overpaid, over the hill, underachieving player?

By Jim Tracy's own admission, he had Hernandez bunt because, he told the Post Gazette, "If Hernandez swings away and hits into a double play, you kick yourself."

Well, JT has gotten into the swing of managing the Pirates. You send a guy up to the plate with instructions to do the thing that has the least chance of screwing everything up. He noted that he was aware of Hernandez's success against Wickham. His comment, however, also indicates he was aware of another statistic: Jose has grounded into more than 120 double plays in his career.

You have to feel for Tracy. He has so few options that he must feel like a guy dueling Wild Bill Hickock with a pop-gun when he trudges into the dugout each night. His designated hitter Doumit was on first base because he bunted ahead of Hernandez. Quick, somebody name the last DH in the American League to lay down a bunt. But that is what Tracy is reduced to because Doumit can't hit a lick.

At 14-30, the Pirates continue on the fast track to oblivion. We can only hope that the rush to unload the dead wood on the roster begins soon. Does Triple A need another franchise?

Searching for Our Soul in the Heart of Rock-n-Roll

2006-05-20T21:09:00.000-06:00

Interleague league play began this weekend, and the Pirates were given a tough draw: the Cleveland Indians (see comments on this team in a recent Pirates of Penance post by the Buccin' Ear). After the disappointment of the Thursday come-from-ahead loss to the Reds, the team was probably looking for an easier pitching opponent than C.C. Sabathia, but that's who they got, and they were shut down Friday night, 4-1. Zach Duke pitched poorly in the first inning, giving up three runs, but he settled down nicely, surrendering nothing more and going seven in a performance good enough for a win if he had been pitching for somebody other than the Pirates.

Tonight the team rebounded with a 9-6 win, beating up Jason Johnson with lots of early offense (a homer and four RBIs for Jason Bay), enough even for Ian Snell, who staggered through five innings to get his third win. His ERA is as beefy as C.C. Sabathia: 5.74. I've heard for a couple of years now how promising this guy is. Enough. He was given a shot in the second half last year, showed little, and is now the fourth best pitcher on a bad staff. Apologists (or optimists) will point to the fact that of the five runs he gave up, only two were earned. Well, that probably says more about the lack of clutch hitting tonight by the Indians (they stranded 12) than Snell's hard luck. The guy threw 105 pitches (about 60% for strikes) and walked five. Most nights that kind of pitching is going to send you off to lather up with Irish Spring a lot earlier than the fifth inning.

But let's look at the positives. With the exception of Friday night's game, the offense, which has been dreadful thus far has shown signs of life this week, putting up 34 runs in five games against the Ohio teams. That doesn't make the team an offensive juggernaut, but it's more than respectable for the short term. The revival of Bay's bat is most encouraging. It was not surprising that when he went into an offensive funk in late April, the lights essentially went out when the Pirates were at bat. The Good JB (see comments below on the Bad JB) is often the only bright spot on this team, and it's nearly a miracle he's put up the numbers he has thus far in his career with the anemic lineup around him.

Another positive: Freddie Sanchez moved back to third base with the return of Jack Wilson to the lineup, picked up two more hits and is now batting .348. It will be interesting to see how Jim Tracy plays it when Joe Randa returns from the DL. It says here that Randa stays on the bench, but then I'm not the guy who foolishly shelled out a few million bucks to bring him in in one of those patented Pirate moves that must have struck fear into the hearts of their Central Division opponents. I can just see the jaws in the front offices in St. Louis and Houston dropping. "Wait a minute, dude. You're telling me they signed Randa and Burnitz? Get on the phone! We have to do something to stop these guys!"

Then there's first base, where the case is less clear for Craig Wilson over Sean Casey, who is still healing from two broken bones in his back. There I'd be inclined to give Casey the nod, although he fails to give the Pirates what they desperately need, which is some additional power in the lineup. Leave it to the Pirates, by the way, to sign not one but two corner players, in Randa and Casey, with below-average power numbers. Craig Wilson has some pretty good pop when he connects (he strikes out three times more than he walks), and nearly half of his hits this year have been for extra bases, including seven home runs. So there's a case to be made for him getting some of the time at first after Casey comes back. See Randa, Joe, however, for the reason that might not happen.

The Bad JB, Jeromy Burnitz, however, has clearly made his case for getting less playing time, and Wilson should take some of it in right. The big lug did collect two hits tonight to skyrocket his average to .206, but it's difficult to overstate the enormity of his flop thus far. Not only is his average anemic, but as the Buccin' Ear commented on the other day, his OBP is under .250, incredible for an everyday player. Wilson's strikeouts-to-walks ratio would actually be an improvement over Burnitz's, which is nearly five-to-one. In roughly 150 official ABs going into tonight's game Burnitz has walked eight times.

Those who keep assuring us that Burnitz will snap out of it (e.g., Jim Tracy) may have forgotten that there is precedence for this. Over roughly 215 games between the start of the 2002 season and a little more than a third of the 2003 season, he hit about .210. The Mets dumped him at the conclusion of '02, and the Dodgers packed him up 60 games into the '03 season (he was batting .204) and sent him to Chicago, where he recovered somewhat in the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field, hitting well enough to get his batting average for the season "up" to .239. From there he went to Colorado, where he pumped up his numbers for a year, and parlayed that into a return gig with the Cubs. There he put up decent numbers. Let's see. Wrigley Field and Coors Field. Numbers improve. Shea Stadium and Dodger Stadium. Numbers shrivel. Anybody see a pattern here?

Burnitz has been known to be a hard worker throughout his career (although he did himself no good recently by not running out a ground ball. What was he thinking?), but that doesn't obscure the fact that he is a career .250 hitter who has six sub-.250 seasons on his resume. He is also 37 years old, so it's hard to understand what the Pirates were thinking when they signed him.

Derek Bell is still the poster child for DPSs (Disastrous Pirate Signings), but JB is working hard to supplant him. Let's give him some time on the pine to think about what he wants to do with the rest of his life.

Pitching an Uncertain Future

2006-05-18T22:02:00.000-06:00

The Pirates of Penance and the Buccin' Ear were positively giddy. After outscoring the Reds 16-5 in the first two games of a three-game series at PNC, the Pirates dropped a six spot on the board in the first inning of the finale. Total domination! The bats were alive! Victory 14 gleamed on the horizon! One could almost see the sun glinting off the Allegheny, reflecting the new-found glow of Pirate success.

Well, hold on. This is the Pirates we are talking about. Starter Victor Santos coughed up all but two runs of the lead by the fifth inning, the bats went dead, and rookie Matt Capps sealed the defeat by giving up three of four runs in a fateful seventh inning. Final score: Cincy 9, Pittsburgh 8. So much for momentum.

Jason Bay, who has started to return to the form of his first two seasons (he hit a homer and drove in four runs today) insisted that the team is "going in a better direction" than it was a couple of weeks ago. Well, as much as I like his attitude, I have to disagree. Remember, this is a team that prior to the Cincinnati series dropped two of three to the Florida Marlins. And just as bad teams lose two of three to other bad teams, they also win two of three when they should sweep.

The failure of Santos (4-13 in 2005 for Milwaukee; obviously an ideal pick-up for the Buccos) to shut down the Reds returns the focus to the Pirates' pitching after two games of relative respite. Coming into the year, Santos had a career record of 17-33 with an ERA of 5.00. Never let it be said that he has disappointed with the Pirates; he's lived down to those numbers. Santos has this spot in the rotation because of the ill health of Kip Wells, who suffered a blood clot that required removal and is expected back in July. Does his return provide cause for hope?

Well, no. Wells is coming of an 18-loss season and has never lived up to the promise he provided when the Pirates acquired him from the White Sox. He has shown flashes of brilliance, and he clearly has above-average stuff. The problem is that Wells has never been able to consistently change speeds off his plus fastball. When he can't keep hitters honest with breaking stuff, he tends to get drilled.

Anyway, it's not like Kip Wells was going to deliver us from Victor Santos. He has a 55-69 career record, and after two initially promising seasons with the Pirates has gone 13-25 with an ERA near 5.00. In this he is similar to Oliver Perez, a spectacularly talented pitcher who initially eased the pain of the Brian Giles trade by pitching brilliantly for a bad 2004 team (sorry for the redundancy). Hopes were high in 2005. So of course he pitched horribly, broke his hand by smashing it into a wall at midsummer and has continued to plunge in 2006, going 2-5.

In addition to Santos, Perez and the waiting-in-the-wings Wells, the staff includes the young arms of Zach Duke, Paul Maholm and Ian Snell. Of these, Duke seems the most promising, and he pitched quite well in the second half of 2005. Even he, however, has shown signs of the Pirate malaise. His ERA thus far is over 4.00, and were it not for his domination of the Chicago Cubs, we might well find him in Victor Santos territory. Maholm has shown some signs of recovery after an awful start, but Snell has been maddeningly inconsistent and any reasonable observer would have to say he wouldn't be on the staff of most Major League teams.

The awful state of the pitching staff is made further frustrating by the recent penchant of highly rated Pirates pitchers to develop arm problems. Sean Burnett, Bryan Bullington and John Van Benschoten have all suffered serious injuries, and their futures are in doubt.

We keep waiting for rays of hope from the Pirates. Is there a purpose to unrelenting negativity about the status of the team? Well, I'd say yes an honest assessment came from a management team that is willing to admit that most of the decisons they've made have not worked out.

Not Much, but It's All We Have

2006-05-17T21:36:00.000-06:00

Could it be? A two-game winning streak for the Pirates? Yes, the Pirates of Penance is happy to note another dominating performance by the Buccos over the reeling Reds of Cincinnati, 7-2. As Tuesday night's victory provided a Jeromy (hate that spelling!) Burnitz sighting, tonight featured a rare strong performance by the enigmatic Oliver Perez (six innings, two runs), who garnered his second victory of the year while bringing his ERA below the Jose Lima Line, to 6.98. Freddie (I'm not Joe Randa, thank you) Sanchez, now filling it at shortstop, collected three hits to raise his average to .333.

Given these two performances by the Reds, the reader will fairly ask why the Pirates of Penance and its faithful correspondent, the Buccin' Ear, spent yesterday's post on a comparison of the Buccos with the squad from Cincinnati, seemingly destined to return to the mediocrity from which it has briefly risen. Precisely because the Reds are mediocre is the reason. One would never accuse us of choosing a big-spending, big-market, highly successful team to measure against our hapless Buccos. The disparity between the two teams that we claim to have shown is made all the more stark when we realize how modest is the standard against which our team is measured.

The tiredness of the small-market argument as an explanation for the Pirates' continuing lack of success is best illustrated by looking to the example of the Cleveland Indians. In 1992, the last winning season for the Pirates, the Indians were a woebegone franchise that finished 10 games under .500 and had had precisely one winning season (1986) in the previous 11. They had not won a title of any kind since 1954. Yet this perennial failure and nonentity was quietly compiling a roster of talent that would soon count among the best in the game. The 1992 team included the likes of Albert Belle, Sandy Alomar, Paul Sorrento, Kenny Lofton, Jim Thome, Charles Nagy and Jose Mesa. In 1993 they added Manny Ramirez. In 1994 Omar Vizquel joined the team, which was 19 games above .500 when the strike ruined the season. The Indians claimed American League pennants in 1995 and 1997, when they barely missed winning the World Series. They remained very competitive until 2002, when trades and various defections to free agency sent them into a rebuilding period.

Now, the Pirates, as we have seen, languished through the '90s as the Indians, flush with success built by the stars they had developed and kept, built a new stadium and fan base. What really distinguishes the two franchises, however, is what the Indians did after the great run of success they had had ended. While the Pirates proclaimed one five-year plan after another, none of which showed even a glimmering of success, the Indians quietly put together a real rebuilding plan. While the Pirates have attempted to build artificial success by recycling past-their-prime veterans like Matt Stairs, Derek Bell, Joe Randa, and Jeromy Burnitz in (failed) hopes of quick-fix success, the Indians have recruited a new roster of stars and created a genuinely competitive team. Goodbye, Sandy Alomar, hello, Victor Martinez. Goodbye, Omar Vizquel, hello, Jhonny Peralta. Goodbye, Kenny Lofton, hello, Grady Sizemore. Goodbye, Eddie Murray, hello, Travis Hafner. Goodbye, Charles Nagy, hello, C.C. Sabathia. And so on...

A tale of two cities, indeed. One might be tempted to say that the Pirates play the Browns to the Indians' Steelers. To what can this startling success gap be attributed except to a failure on the part of Pirates' management to recruit, develop and retain good young talent? And yet that only explains part of the story. There is also the Pirates' nearly unparalleled success in getting mediocre results from the talent that they do get to the Major Leagues or acquire from other teams. One by one, promising pitchers such as Jason Schmidt, Jon Lieber, Esteban Loiaza, Kris Benson and Bronson Arroyo have achieved little with the Pirates and go on to greener pastures with other teams.

It says here that the failure of the Pirates lies at the door of management teams seemingly incapable of building a plan for the future. Barring a miracle recovery in '06, it is time for the house to be cleaned.

Why We Lost to the Reds

2006-05-16T21:52:00.000-06:00

The Pirates of Penance checks in with a muted note of happiness: The Pirates win tonight, over the Reds, 9-3. The win is notable on several fronts: 1) It's only the 12th win of the season for the woeful Buccos. They have averaged two wins a week thus far, so they are already halfway to their quota, and it's only Tuesday! 2) The win comes at the expense of an old rival that has gotten off a surprisingly good start (23-17 after tonight's loss). 3) The offensive fireworks were led by Jeromy Burnitz, the expensive offseason acquisition who had hit a miserable .185 coming into the contest. 4) Paul Maholm, the much-touted rookie who has gotten off to a bad start on the mound, pitched into the eighth inning. Good starts have been few and far between for this pitching staff in 2006.

Well, we'll take it, even if it is just one win and the team is still 15 games below .500. The arrival in town of the Reds offers a chance to look at two once-proud franchises that have lost a bit, if not most, of their luster since 1980 (see previous blog for details on the decline of the Pirates). The Reds, of course, were probably the best team of the '70s, going to four World Series and winning three. Like the Pirates, they staggered a bit in the '80s, but they won another ring in 1990. Since then, success has been spotty, and they haven't recorded a winning season since 2000. They have won just one division title since the World Series triumph (1995), although they were probably robbed of one in the strike-obliterated season of '94 and lost a one-game playoff in 1999.

Still, that record positively glows when it is compared to the numbers posted by the Pirates. Why? Well, to start with the most recent teams, the Reds simply hit better than the Pirates, particularly in terms of power. For example, in 2005, three Reds players -- Ken Griffey Jr., Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns -- combined to hit 93 homers. The Pirates as a team hit 139 dingers.

In 2005, the Pirates ranked 12th in the league in home runs, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. It is too early to project where they will land in 2006, but there is precious little evidence that they are on course to improve in any of those categories. The players signed to protect their young slugger Jason Bay are either ineffectual (Burnitz) or hurt (Sean Casey and Joe Randa). In addition, they are terrible again at getting on base. The team has three players so far in 2006 (Bay, .418), Jack Wilson (.360) and Craig Wilson (.355) with superior OBPs. After Craig Wilson (among players with enough ABs to qualify), the fourth spot is occupied by Jose Castillo with an abysmal OBP of .311. The aforementioned Burnitz has an almost comically bad OBP of .236.

The Reds have also been able to put together some decent, certainly not great, pitching, led by Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang. They have four pitchers (Arroyo, Harang, Elizardo Ramirez and Brandon Claussen) who have combined for 28 starts, and none has an ERA over 5.00. Doesn't sound like much, but compare that with the Pirates' staff, of whom so much was expected. Going into tonight's game, Zach Duke, Maholm, Victor Santos, Ian Snell and Oliver Perez had combined for 38 starts and only Duke had an ERA under 5.00, although Maholm's will dip slightly below that line after Tuesday's game.

The issues go beyond this horrible year, however. As discussed in the previous blog, after the season-ending playoff loss to the Braves, the Pirates jettisoned every big-name player on their 1992 roster except Andy Van Slyke. Since 1993, the list of players who have performed at an above-average level for any significant period of time for the Pirates is exceedingly short. My list would include only Van Slyke, Jeff King, Jason Kendall, Brian Giles and, possibly, Denny Neagle. The Reds? On a succession of simply OK teams, they still managed to field Barry Larkin, Jose Rijo, Hal Morris, Reggie Sanders, Jeff Brantley, Sean Casey, Ken Griffey Jr., Danny Graves and Dunn. They also had numerous short-term contributions from the likes of Greg Vaughn and Pete Harnisch.

The larger question for the Pirates, to be considered in the next blog, is why so many players have performed poorly or merely passably in Pittsburgh and then have gone on to success with other teams.

I Believe in Something but I'm not Sure What

2006-05-15T17:52:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my blog on the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball club. If you are like me, you are spending this sorry season in a state of frustration as the team I have followed for more than 35 years plods toward a 14th consecutive losing campaign, ending any glimmer of hope early with a pitiful start that has, as of this writing, found them on the losing end of 27 of their first 38 contests. I guess if I were to view the 2006 Pirates' season in a favorable light, I would say that they have freed us of the burden of caring about their games at the earliest possible date. Maybe they wanted us all to catch up on our reading this summer.

It was not always thus. The Pittsburgh Pirates have been a Major League Baseball team so named since 1891. Despite a record of 55-80 that year, they finished the nineteenth century a cumulative 16 games over .500, albeit without a pennant to their credit. By the end of 1979, when they last reigned as the kings of baseball, they had won nine pennants and five World Series championships. During the 1970s, they were surely on the short list of best teams of the decade. In addition to the '79 triumph, they scored a world championship in 1971. They posted only one losing season (1973) during the '70s, and won their division six times. In 1977, they won 96 games, but came in second to a Philadelphia Phillies team -- outstanding in its own right -- that won an even more impressive 101 games. In 1978, they took their season to the next-to-last day, but fell just short -- again to Philadelphia.

Watching baseball in Pittsburgh during the '70s was a vibrant experience. True, they played in a cement bowl, the late and unlamented Three Rivers Stadium, that failed to provide a suitable backdrop for the great baseball being played on the field. But what baseball it was. The Pirates fielded consistently outstanding offensive teams that included future Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell, as well as a host of other fine players from Manny Sanguillen to Rennie Stennett to Richie Hebner to Bill Madlock to Dave Parker (who, in my opinion, should be in the HOF) to Al Oliver (maybe the least-known guy with more than 2,700 career hits that anybody could name) to Phil Garner...the list goes on and on. These teams had guys who could hit no matter where the pitch was. The Pirates of those days went to the plate hacking.

Pitching? Well, it was overlooked, to say the least. Over the decade of the '70s, the pitching staff ranked no lower than fifth (among 12 teams) in team ERA in eight of the 10 years. The other two years ('73 and '74), they ranked seventh. There were no HOF'ers, but there were some fine pitchers, both starters and relievers, such as Steve Blass, Dave Guisti, Bruce Kison, Bert Blyleven (who should be in the Hall), Dock Ellis, John Candelaria, Kent Tekulve and Jerry Reuss, just to name a few. Pirate pitchers didn't win 20 games, but lots of them won 10 to 15 games, and they all knew their roles. Candelaria, who pitched a no-hitter, was not above coming in to relieve when the situation called for it. Reuss, who pitched five seasons with the Pirates, topped out at 18 wins in one year, but won 220 over the course of a 22-year career. The team found guys who could work.

The team had a reputation as a heavy-hitting, slow-footed lot, and that reputation was earned in the first half of the decade. However, by 1976, with the arrival and development of shortstop Frank Taveras, Stennett and Parker, they had transformed themselves into a speeed and power team, and in '77 and '78, led by newcomer Omar Moreno, they led the league in stolen bases. In '79 they finished second. This combination of fat bats and fleet feet has rarely been seen since.

They were underappreciated, in part because they played in a town that rarely attracted media attention and that also just happened to have a love affair with another pretty good sports team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who did nothing more than win four Super Bowls during the same decade. Although they were a colorful team (both in their style of play and in their racial diversity), there were few headline grabbers among them. They preferred to play the game hard and cleanly, much like the residents of the community they represented.

The '70s came to an end, and with it, much of the success of the PittsburghPirates franchise. This particular blog won't be about politics (much), but I'll tip my hand on my leanings and say that I knew that the '80s were going to be rough when the defending champs crashed to end the decade's inaugural season and shortly thereafter Ronald Reagan was elected president. There were glimmerings of hope in '83 and '84, but the team collapsed with a 104-loss season in '85, before beginning a slow ascent during the second half of the decade. Interestingly enough, the rise began with the entry to the Majors of a promising young talent named Barry Bonds.

Then there was the final burst, a three-year stretch of NL East division titles from 1990 to 1992. Bonds emerged as a quality player (sandwiching MVPs in '90 and '92 around a near miss in '91), Bobby Bonilla arrived from Chicago and put up some great numbers, and Andy Van Slyke reversed years of disappointment in St. Louis by emerging as a star defensive outfielder, dangerous offensive force and team leader with the Pirates. The team stole Doug Drabek in a trade with the White Sox (he won 92 games between '87 and '92), and despite no pitcher winning more than 15 games in 1992, they stood on the doorstep of a pennant in a seventh game in Atlanta. Drabek pitched eight shutout innings, the Pirates led 2-0 going into the bottom of the ninth, and then it all fell apart. The game ended when a non-entity named Francisco Cabrera singled to left field, scoring Sid Bream (a former Pirate, in a cruel irony) ahead of a throw from Barry Bonds. For all intents and purposes, the competitiveness of the Pirate franchise ended when Bonds' throw went a tad up the first base line and the notoriously slow Bream slid in a fraction ahead of Mike Lavalliere's tag. Bonds and Drabek left to free agency the following year (Bonilla had departed the year prior), and the current streak of losing seasons began.

What has been unusual about those 14 years has been the almost total absence of real hope that the franchise will turn around. The longer the frustration has gone on, the more curious I have become about the inability of those in charge of generating a turnaround. Oh, sure, we have the usual platitudes about a small-market team with a small payroll. I won't waste time with the argument other than to point out that the same was said about, for example, Minnesota and Oakland, to name two of the most obvious examples about whom the same pronouncement was made. Both have won several division championships since being pronounced dead by conventional wisdom.

The Pirates now occupy the netherland space of baseball team along with the once-proud Kansas City Royals. In other eras ('60s, '70s and '80s) this downtrodden status was best exemplified by the Cleveland Indians. Like the Pirates, these are and were teams who generate no interest among nonfans and no hope among those who follow them. The ineptitude of the team during this stretch of lost years can be measured by the fact that its "dream season" was 1997, a year in which they posted a mediocre 79 wins, yet stayed in contention into September because of a particularly weak division. The "best" pitcher on the staff, Francisco Cordova, totaled 11 wins (although he did combine with Ricardo Rincon on a no-hitter without getting the win). Their "best" hitter was Kevin Young, a first baseman who slammed 18 homers and drove in 74 runs, in other words, what would turn out to be about a half-season's worth of work for the departed Barry Bonds. Other than that "dream" season between '93 and '06? Not much a desperate fan can cling to, the occasional Brian Giles, Jason Bay and Zach Duke not withstanding.

The current team, which I will comment on in coming blogs, is so bad as to nearly defy description, and because of the team's penchant in recent years for signing over-the-hill "talent," is also nearly devoid of hope. My hope, on the other hand, is to find from readers of my musings here a reason to care and memories that have compelled them to stick with this once-proud team.

Takers?