Friday

Mike Prisuta says curb your enthusiasm. Lower your expectations is more like it. If you can't have or are made to feel embarassed because you get enthusiastic about a baseball team, that's just wrong. Enthuse away. It's OK to look silly if you're having fun. Baseball is not foreign policy.

Tony Randazzo blew it. Joe Rutter and Dejan Kovacevic have that story. Mike Emeigh has a good theory in the Primer thread for one or the other of the articles: Randazzo was out of position all the way.

My theory is that no one expects to see good infield defense in Yankee stadium these days. The Yankee fans were stunned to see the Bucs turning so many double plays. So a general atmosphere of disbelief also contributed to Randazzo's confusion.

From Dejan Kovacevic's notebook:

From the Pirates' official pregame media notes yesterday: "Pittsburgh's defensive unit has turned 17 double plays in the past eight games. ... It would have been 18 had the first-base umpire made the correct call last night."

Yeah, the blown call sucked, but let's not get whiny about it. Games are not won or lost on the final play alone. The Pirates had numerous chances to put the Yankees away before the blown double-play call.

Craig Wilson won't be back soon, John Perrotto reports. He also notes that Doumit won't play any first base at the major-league level. Long term, you want him to work out as a catcher. But you also want his bat in the lineup 130 to 150 games. That's not catcherish. Either he gets some playing time at other positions, suddenly learns to be a great, every day catcher, or you move him to a corner.

Mark Redman is the player's choice for All-Star, Dejan Kovacevic reports. Of course, Tony La Russa will make the pick, and I expect he'll figure out a way to make the pick in some fashion that belittles his division rivals and softens them up for the next series with St. Louis. I'm guessing he picks Matt Lawton or Jose Mesa before he does anything to dispel the doubts that cling, for most non-Pirate fans, to the rest of the roster.