Spring Training : Day 1

Well baseball is back upon us, which not surprisingly gives me the motivation to start blogging again. However, I only have a couple of minutes now, but I'd just like to make a post really quick. I was exceedingly happy to listen to some Pirates baseball on my way home from school today, I can always use a little of the welcoming voice of Greg Brown. I was even happier when I arrived home to turn on the radio and hear Freddy Sanchez knock in Nyjer Morgan, who scored from first with his blazing speed) tying their first game up. They would go onto win the game 8-2, a great first appearance. Now obviously these games don't count for anything, and our two saviour's didn't have good games (McCutchen and Alvarez), but hey, I'll take that day 1 any time. Tomorrow's a new game, let's see what Snelly can do against the Red Sox (who didn't score til the 6th inning against BOSTON COLLEGE today). Let's Go Bucs.

Silly Me

I guess I was completely wrong about McLouth, and Bay as well. They both got pulled out of the game and my friend had told me he saw Freddy and Nate hug in the dugout, so I thought that meant he was traded, even though it was hard for me to believe cause Nate's name never came up in trade talks, but I mean you don't see a team pull 2 of their outfielders out of the game that early, no matter what the score is. It was a strange occurence, no help from the announcers as they could not stop talking about that auction going on, oh well it's a once-a-year thing and I guess it's no big deal. Whatever, i was kinda excited when I thought about Bay & McLouth getting traded, just because if we did that, we'd be getting something HUGE in return, atleast I'd hope, and then it'd seem we'd be completely stacked in prospects, plus then we'd see Mccutcheon up here real soon, but no trade is going to happen, atleast not tonight. I'd like to see the Pirates make atleast one more trade, because what we got for Nady & Marte just wasn't enough, no matter how good Tabata & Mccutcheon (daniel) turn out to be.

Hmmm

Huntington in the booth, has to leave for phone call, McLouth taken out of the game, camera shows him hugging Freddy Sanchez in the dugout... hmmm???

Yikes

Well it's now the second inning, and it's turned into a real one-sided slugfest, John Van Benschoten gave up 3 more runs in the top of the 2nd, on a Kouzmanoff 3-run homer. After that, JVB was pulled for Franquelis Osoria appropriately, and the Pirates are down 6. The Pirates tried to counter in the bottom of the 2nd, as Steve Pearce walked and Osoria reached on a bunted ball that was thrown to second and hit the umpire, a very odd and somewhat humorous situation, but neither Jack Wilson nor Nate McLouth could capitalize, and now the Padres have hit another HR, Hunley [his first big league homer] and we are now down 8-1. I know about this year's Pirates, but I'm not thinking we're going to be coming back to win this one. Who knows though, the Padres still have John Banks on the hill, so we should definitely put a couple more runs on the board. It should be interesting to see if they can fight back at all even after the trade yesterday, not that should have any effect on anything, but heck I felt like saying it. Anyways, I'll make a post later on my thoughts about the trade, not that anyone cares, or reads this, but I'll do it for myself. That's what I do. Doubt I'll be making another post on this blowout, I guess I picked a bad night to start posting again. Ha.

Back Again

Well I suddenly have the urge to update the Pirates blog again, so I will start it off with a little in-game glog, if you will. Today is the matchup of Johns, neither of them being any good. So far both pitchers have struggled, Van Benschoten being the worse of the two. He walked three in the first and surrendered a towering three run blast to Adrian Gonzalez. So the score was 4-0 after one, but the bucs have battled back and scored one here in the bottom of the first, as Bay just ripped one right at shortstop Khalil Greene, which would have scored a run. Now Laroche is up and trying to extend it to a two run deficit. He has been on fire this month so watch out. Should be a slugfest tonight. Oh, and Steve Pearce is in right field, so watch that, if he performs well, we could see a lot of him the rest of the season in right field.

The Day Has Come

Yes, the sad day when I would see Craig Wilson leave the Pirates (again) has come. This blog now has a false name and really no meaning, considering no one reads it anyway, it's probably not that bad of a thing. I am really hoping the Mariners bring up Craig Wilson so I can actually see him play again, that would be good enough for me. Honestly I'd rather see Craig play in the big leagues for someone else than for the Pirates in the minors. The Mariners may just be bad enough to actually bring him up and start him, so this deal could be a good thing for my fanhood. Let's Go Mariners!

Pirates vs. Brewers

The Pittsburgh Pirates are about ready to start off the first game of their 3-game set with the Milwaukee Brewers here on July 4th. The pitching matchup favors the Brewers, however, as Tom Gorzelanny matches up against Ben Sheets. Sheets has been great this season, he is 9-2 with a 2.83 ERA. He hasn't pitched less than 6.0 innings in his last 12 starts, and pitched a complete game 2 starts ago. Tom Gorzelanny has been pitching fairly well as of late, and accompanied with the luck he's been getting, he's a fairly good option to match up against Sheets. The Brewers bats have been hot as well, as  they are no doubt in the race for a playoff seed this year, so the Pirates have their work cut out for them. They are going to need to get some early runs and be patient at the plate to get Sheets out of the game as quickly as possible so they can do work against the Brewers bullpen. I am expecting Gorzelanny to give the Pirates a chance to win today, I'm not expecting anything spectacular from Gorzo, but a win is not out of reach today (it never is). Lets Go Bucs.

National League Play... Again

Well the Pirates finished up their interleague play taking 1 of 3 against the Rays. They then traveled to Cincinnatti where they blew a 9th inning lead to lose the first game, and then make up for it with 2 impressive wins in the next two games. Matt Capps is now out for atleast 2 months (and dropped on my fantasy team). I would like to see Damaso Marte close some games out, even though his control can be a little bit shaky for the closer role. Other possibilities are John Grabow and Tyler Yates. Tyler Yates seems to be a good closer-like pitcher, throwing a hard fastball and having above average control. The Pirates have found themselves in a lot of close games this year, and Capps has cost them a couple of them. It's never good to see your closer go down for an extended period of time, but atleast it happened while he was struggling and not while he was going good. Even when Capps comes back, he will not be at 100%, and it will definitely effect the rest of the season for this Pirates bullpen. Anyways, the Pirates have off tonight and then head to Milwaukee for a 3 game set with the Brewers. They seem to be playing well in the last 3 games, so let's hope we can carry that over and take a couple off of the Brewers. 

Injury Bug

Well it was only a matter of time before the Pirates pitching started getting hurt. Ian Snell has now joined Phil Dumatrait on the DL, leaving the Pirates with 2 empty slots in the rotation. They have said they will bring up this Barthmaier (spelled wrong) guy to start tomorrow's game, so that should be nothing short of interesting... and I have heard that John Van Benschoten will return to the Pirates to start in place of Snell on Saturday... that could get ugly. I really wanted to see the Pirates bring up some draft picks or someone who seems to have some kind of future with the Pirates, but again I will have to wait to see Brian Bullington or any of our other draft pick busts pitch in the big leagues. Oh well, this is just Pirates baseball. If we would bring these guys up, we would only be sadly reminded of how horrible our minor league pitching really is, and then we would really have nothing to look forward to except the inevitable fire sale of the team. The Pirates still have a respectable record this year... 37-41, only 4 games out of .500 as they head into their rubber match with the New York Yankees tonight. We'd better win this game, because it sure isn't looking like we're gonna win either of the first two games against the Devil Rays with those two pitchers taking the hill against one of the top teams in the league. Paul Maholm will try once again to keep his nice homestand roll going and somehow silence the Yankees bats enough and hope for the Pirates to make up for last nights goose egg. I've said before and I'll say it again, LETS GO BUCS

Ouch

All I can say is, it's a darn good thing the Pirates won last nights game.