Yesterday's game

As usual, Dejan Kovacevic has a well-written recap of yesterday's game, in which certain predictable tendencies again manifested themselves & sent the team to defeat.

Snell could think a little more seriously about the long ball.

Pujols is now 4 for 6 against Snell, all of those hits being home runs, and that might not be a coincidence. Partly because he owns a 96-mph fastball and 144 strikeouts, Snell's approach is to do anything but tiptoe around the plate. No matter the opponent.

"If you lose your aggressiveness, you might as well call it quits," he said. "I'll never lose that."

Snell has been the Pirates' best starter, without a doubt, but the home run has represented his one nagging trend: He has given up 15 in his past dozen starts, and his season total of 25 is fifth-most among all National League pitchers.

Cause for concern?

"Not at all," Snell said. "I don't care who you are, you're going to give up the long ball unless you're Chris Carpenter."

Even if he can shave off ten percent of that home run rate - have 2 or 3 fewer allowed at this point in the season - it would be a big help for the team.

His admiration for Pujols strikes me as comic. Pujols went deep three times off him.

if there was any sign of scarring with Snell, it was extraordinarily well hidden. Truth be told, he sounded more like a wide-eyed kid in search of an autograph.

"I mean, that's unreal, man," Snell would say afterward, with a smile and a playful roll of the eyes. "It's like freaking Superman playing baseball. After the third one, I was going to go high-five him myself."

Buried at the end is this:

St. Louis rookie pitcher Anthony Reyes, freshly recalled from Class AAA Memphis, worked 6 1/3 scoreless innings and struck out nine.

When are they going to stop making this kind of rookie pitcher look like an All-Star? It's tiresome.