All hail Rob Mackowiak

The guy's a genius. Ed Eagle has a great analysis of the current state of the team especially with regard to their weakness for crafty, soft-tossing lefthanders like Jeff Fassero. He quotes Rob:

Rob Mackowiak, a left-handed batter who started against Fassero on Friday, has a theory.

"The majority of the left-handed pitchers we've faced have been guys who throw a lot of changeups and pitch the ball away," said Mackowiak. "We have a young team and we chase some pitches we probably shouldn't swing at sometimes.

"[Pitchers] know we swing the bats and they see our walk totals. They know they can pick [the corners] and we're going to chase."

Mackowiak certainly has a point when it comes to the Pirates' lack of patience at the plate. Heading into Friday's action, eight Bucs hitters had swung at the first pitch they saw during an at-bat at least one-third of the time: Bobby Hill (34.2 percent), Randall Simon (36.4 percent), Daryle Ward (36.6 percent), Mackowiak (36.9 percent), Jose Castillo (41 percent), Wilson (41.3 percent), Ty Wigginton (44.3 percent) and Abraham Nunez (53.1 percent).

According to catcher Jason Kendall, who swings at fewer first pitches than any other player in the big leagues (2.8 percent), the combination of aggressive hitters and crafty southpaws can lead to a lack of productivity for the guys holding the lumber.

"If those [pitchers] are on, they're going to get younger guys to swing at a lot of stuff," said Kendall. "They know how to pitch. That's why they've been here for a long time."

I would say Rob has got it pegged. When he sits, he better be sitting next to Mac. It's hard to believe he can be walking around as such a fountain of wisdom and his teammates like Craiggers can still be caught gaping:

"There's really no explanation for why or what we need to do to fix it," said outfielder Craig Wilson. "I really don't know the reason. If we did know the reason we'd try to correct it.

"I don't know. This year we've just swung better against righties."

Listen to Rob, Craig, listen to Rob.