Game 64, Joel Pineiro vs. Sean Burnett Saturday

Don't let the 2-8 record fool you, this guy is one hell of a pitcher and he's been unhittable all June. Pineiro is right-handed power pitcher who gets an average groundball/flyball mix from the hitters.

Thanks to the geniuses at ESPN, we can see the Pirate splits against power guys for this year. And there's no surprises here.

I liked the lineup the Pirates fielded last night. Jason Bay looks fully recovered from his strikeout nightmare. Ruben Mateo didn't get a hit last night but he's shown great plate discipline on the year and can't be overlooked. Going into last night, he had five walks in only 30 at-bats, and a .333 OBP on a .200 batting average. Jack Wilson has to hit .316 to get on base that often. And he's shown a lot of power - something the Pirates really need. For the love of God, play Ruben Mateo.

Rake Tedman I mean Tike Redman showed he can come through as a pinch-hitter. If he can excel as a part-time player, then we are one step closer to a team full of better players. Maybe he's not cut out for a starting role, and a defensive replacement who can pinch-hit and play well on spot starts is a valuable thing to have.

After that 0-for-4 on Fireworks night, I don't want to see Chris Stynes in the lineup again this weekend. Rob Mackowiak can start at third, Hill or Castillo at second, Ward at first, and the Bucs are ready to roll.

Kip Wells's right middle finger

Bob Dvorchak has the latest and most information on his finger problem.

Back end of the bullpen

Boehringer will be out for more time, Joe Rutter notes. Mark Corey will be sent down to make room for Sean Burnett.

One thing I didn't consider when suggesting the Bucs move Vogelsong to the bullpen is Mark Corey. Any lateral move of a struggling starter to the bullpen is going to displace someone like Corey. Corey's a right-handed power pitcher.

I have no good sense of the relationship between the bullpen jobs and the starting pitching jobs right now. It's clear that the Bucs don't see the bullpen as a good way to break in starters; they've been using the minors to do that. They haven't called up Sean Burnett and used him, for example, the way the Phillies have been using Ryan Madson. Say they decide to convert a starter to relief work. Would they do that in the major leagues, or would they send the guy to Nashville for a few weeks? Does a starter like Vogelsong have a "right" to a big-league bullpen job, in the eyes of management? in the eyes of the coaches? in the eyes of the other relievers? Would many players grumble if Vogelsong took Mark Corey's job?

The Expos just put Claudio Vargas in the bullpen. (The early results, as you can see in his starter/reliever splits, are encouraging.) Lots of teams move starters out to the pen, and until I read some compelling argument to the contrary, I'm just going to assume that yeah, the Bucs would be better served with Vogelsong, and not Corey, in the pen. No doubt we have a lot more invested in Vogelsong, and he has the fuller repetoire and the better stuff. Maybe it's too early to give up on him as a starter, and maybe returning him to Nashville to start is the best way to go. It's not like he'd block Zach Duke from pitching there this year.

And yes, I guess it was a quality start last night, so it's not like this question interests me because I think it's urgent. The team is about 12-deep with starters who could or should start soon for the Pirates - or deeper if you count Figueroa or Frank Brooks (? when did he become a starter?). At some point we'll find out if the Pirates will find some relievers in this group.

Vogelsong still in rotation

For now at least. Judging from Joe Rutter's report, Burnett will have a chance to stick, and Vogelsong will stay at least until Kip Wells is healthy.

Suspensions

An A's fan wrote in the comments this past week that, from their point of view, Mac is "erratic" and he ordered Torres to throw at Miller. I certainly didn't see it that way. Looks like the big MLB front office took Oakland's view of the situation.

Bobby Hill in the outfield

Mac says not until next spring, Ed Eagle reports: "I think he has a chance to be a pretty decent utility-type player," said McClendon. "It's something we are going to explore. It only makes him more valuable and helps our club." Or maybe they will try it next year. That possibility seems to be left open in Joe Rutter's notebook. Here Mac's talking about trying Hill in right. How many 5'9" right fielders with no power do we find in the league? Position flexibility is a great thing these days with the smaller ballparks forcing teams to use more roster spots on pitchers. Sounds Bobby Hill is being groomed to go the Rob Mackowiak route to Pirate stardom.

OK, scratch him from the list then. Ruben Mateo got the start in center Friday night. How do you think he did out there?

Walker and the draft

Go read Steve Novotney's latest on Neil Walker's introduction. He reports that Walker went 46-for-49 in batting practice, which sounds like some kind of record but c'mon, who knows.

Steve also breaks down the draft and did some counting. Turns out that half of all the 2004 picks were pitchers, and half were position players. And half were college players, and half were high school players. Last year the draft was more heavily weighted toward college players and toward pitchers.

Gray crown caps available

Thanks to reader Chrysostom for noting the gray crown caps are still available through the Cooperstown Ballcap Co. Here it is. They have a ton of vintage Pirates hats available. Go here and in the second drag-down menu, select "PITTSBURGH" to see their dazzling array of Pirates, Crawfords, and Stogies caps. They'll do leather or cotton bands, regular, short, or full cuts, and every size from 6 3/4 to 8 3/8.

Is a leather band more comfortable than a cotton band? Maybe I'll strap a belt around my forehead and see how that feels for half the day.

...why am I writing about this? See here. There's nothing about this site that is for-profit, and we're not making a dime from that cap website or any other thing we do here.

Game 63, Friday night vs. Seattle

Tonight the Bucs face soft-tossing eastern PA boy Jamie Moyer.

He's a bit unusual in that lefthanders have done a wee bit "better" against him the last four years. None of the current Pirates have a statistically significant record against him. Against lefties in general this year, Kendall, Craig Wilson, Ward, and Ruben Mateo have been great. Perhaps Mateo will get a start tonight.

Moyer is what STATS, inc. calls a "flyball" and "finesse" pitcher. (His groundball/flyball ratio has been under 1, and his K+BB/IP rate has been under .93). The splits for finesse pitchers show the Bucs have only seen about nine of them this year, and no one has a lot of at-bats against them.

Third base is the big question. Mackowiak will probably get the night off. Stynes has been especially bad against lefties this year (375 OPS), though he was once a little better against them, as you'd expect with a right-handed hiter. Stynes was better against flyball pitchers but worse against finesse guys the previous three years. So maybe Hill will play third. I'd like to see Bobby Hill start again. He switch-hits, he gets on base. The other choice is Abraham Nunez. Nunez has done better against flyball and finesee guys. Nunez supposedly "owns" Tom Glavine, a left-handed finesse guy (who generates way more grounders than Moyer, however). So maybe he starts at a third, with Castillo at second, and Bobby Hill and Rob Mackowiak paying attention from the bench as they wait their turn to pinch-hit. Hmm, Nunez's ownership of Glavine didn't amount to much two months ago, did it?

If I directed this soap opera, I'd run out something much like what we ran out the last two nights. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Bobby Hill started twice, the Pirates won twice, so rub the short guy's head, put him in the lineup, and see if it works again.

The Pirates start Ryan Vogelsong, who will probably be OK and silence all the talk about what to do with him. Still, we may need five or six or eight runs to win, so let's hope we score a lot of runs. I wouldn't put the all-hands team on the field expecting a low-scoring game. It's fireworks night, after all.

Also, there will be a huge crowd. For that reason, I'd rule out Simon or Stynes. Simon will get booed if grounds into another double play, which is always likely, and Stynes will get booed if he doesn't get a hit in his first at-bat. A manager could be stubborn and play them before an unusually large home crowd, believing he gets a sliver of an edge by doing so, but why add distractions when you've got a rookie pitcher on the mound? Neither guy had much of a role in the two victories. I'd start Kendall, Wilson, Ward, Wilson, then Mateo - get him in there, maybe he'll hit a home run, and we'll need some runs - with some mix of Hill, Redman, Castillo, Nunez, and Mackowiak filling out the lineup. Since Redman's getting it going, put him in center; flank him with Wilson and Mateo; put Ward at first.

I don't know; it's hard to say there's a 100% sure thing to do with the choice of two from Nunez, Hill, and Castillo. At some point maybe you just start the guy who cranks the most homers in BP. Or, you make them arm-wrestle for it. Or, you go with the guy who started in the two wins. Either way, Mac has plenty of options tonight and lots of homework to do before he sets the lineup.

SportsCenter and the national, non-partisan view of baseball

I cringe to think a Pirate runs off the field to watch SportsCenter "to see how he did." Do you have to see it on the tube to believe it? Cue Howard Beale.

Actually, that easy & cheap crack aside, it's not the medium (television) but the show itself (a national one) that gives me the creeps these days. Baseball is one of the great national pastimes, but only as a soap opera with dozens of different - and mainly regional - interpretations of the action. There's no one, non-partisan, overarching take on the season that is satisfying or meaningful. The game is only as good as the degree of disagreement fans might have about how to interpret the action on the field.

As much as I loved USAToday when it first came out - the expanded box scores, all the statistics, a little note for every team - I've come to think that you can't really enjoy following a team like the Pirates if you rely only on the national media. It has a superficial bias towards the players and dramas of the largest markets and most-recently-winningest teams. The highest-paid players are usually the focus, and we're always reminded that they are the highest-paid players. Teams like the D'Rays and the Pirates only get notice if they win or lose a lot in a row, which signals not the best but the worst time for usually uninterested persons to look in and mouth off with their take on the meaning of the streak as it is happening. Teams that weren't picked to be winners - like the Cincinnati Reds - are subjected to overwhelming negativity until the team stops winning, and you have to wonder if that negativity ("they can't keep it up," "they have no pitching," "they get outscoured too much,") doesn't do a lot to erode the morale of the small-market Reds and their small-market fans. And morale is everything in a game that's mainly mental.

If Daryle Ward wants to know how he did, he should ask the fans. He should talk to the guy at the gas station or the burger joint (no - I take that back - he should talk to the guy at the health food store). We can't expect a show like SportsCenter to describe what events on the field mean to the audience of a small-market recently-losing franchises like Pittsburgh. The most meaningful games, for local fans, are usually the ones that appear nondescript to the usually-ignoring fans/pundits of the "whole league."

SportsCenter did a great job with the Rob Mackowiak-had-a-baby story, but that was a very easy pitch to hit, and the good feeling you might get from the national media there was totally erased by the gloating & condescending & unwelcome coverage of the losing streak. SportsCenter and ESPN are fantastic and great in their own way. But they have their limitations. And those limitations are especially felt by fans of teams like the Pirates. It would be really easy for a transplanted Pirates fan to think, after watching SportsCenter religiously for several years, that he would be better off if he divorced the team of his youth and started to root for teams with Ichiro!, A-Rod, or other national celebrities.

Burnett next

It is going to be Burnett if the Bucs need another starter, as it ought to be.

Smizik: Get better players

Huzza for Bob Smizik. Today's essay on Mac is right on and he closes with Littlefield's sane assessment:

"Lloyd is not part of the problem. Lloyd is part of the solution," he said. "Our biggest issue is we have to get better players."

If that isn't true, then the sky is purple and the earth has three suns.

Rajai Davis

Lynchburg OF Rajai Davis was named to the Carolina All-Star team with Zach Duke. Ira Liebman's story here. Here's a bit of it:

Davis a 38th round pick by the Pirates in 2003 is well deserving of being an All-Star and has developed into perhaps the best leadoff man in the Carolina League. He leads the league in both hits (75) and stole bases (25), is 3rd in runs scored (43) and 4th in walks (34). Through Monday June 15th Rajai was batting .300, 0 hr, 18 RBI with 25 SB and 75 hits. Davis who last year in the SAL was selected to the Post Season All-Star Team when he hit .305, 6 hr, 54 RBI, had 7 triples, scored 84 runs and stole 40 bases for the Hickory Crawdads. Rajai is on pace to steal 50 bases and get over 150 hits this season.

"The Duke" has become royalty in Lynchburg; a 20th round pick straight out of high school was also picked in the 2001 draft. Duke who is from Waco Texas came out with his guns "a blazin’" this year as he pitched the night he was named an All-Star, and improved to 9-2 with a league leading 1.26 ERA. Duke also leads the league in WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) at 0.88, is 2nd in strikeouts one off the lead with 78 and has only walked 14 batters in 71 innings which is better than a 5 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio. Duke also no stranger to All-Star Teams was picked to the mid and post season All-Star Teams last year finishing with an 8-7 record and a 3.11 ERA. He was 6th in the Pirates system with 113 strikeouts and 7th in ERA over 141 innings.

Duke might not return to the Hillcats after the All-Star game.

Scrap Garner

Steve Novotney has this on recent Phil Garner sightings. Wednesday was Phil Garner figurine night at PNC.

2004 Draft scorecard

Click here for Baseball America's handy draft scorecard - it lists the picks and indicates which players have signed.

In case you live in a cave and missed this news, Neil Walker signed yesterday.

Bagwell ailing

We've been noticing Bagwell's slump since May. Here's some Houston coverage of what ails him.

Of course, we go to Houston next week. The Pirates love to play in Houston and always have a good time bouncing home runs off the left-field wall.

All hail Tike Redman

BATTING: 2B - J Wilson (16, B Colon); J Kendall (12, B Colon). HR - R Mackowiak (12, 4th inning off B Colon 0 on, 2 Out), T Redman 2 (4, 7th inning off B Colon 0 on, 0 Out, 8th inning off K Gregg 1 on, 2 Out), J Wilson (6, 7th inning off B Colon 0 on, 2 Out). S - K Benson.

Baseball is a beautiful game.

Interview with a four-year-old fan

Saw this at Primer, and I have to link it here for you to see too.

At four I was like that, but a Pirates fan, but not as smart as Elias Eberman. I didn't have a five-seam fastball at that age. I didn't develop my own pitches until later. By the age of six or seven, my signature pitch was the "dustball." I'd go to the back of the mound and load up the whiffle ball with loose dirt. It would spray out as a cloud on the way to the plate.

Game 62, Thursday night vs. Anaheim

Ed Eagle has a report on tonight's game that focusses on Benson. He'll be fine tonight I think. Here's the rest of the game post I wrote up this morning. Today's many new posts pushed it way down the page.

Tonight it's Bartolo Colon against the Bucs. He's been mediocre for more than a month but better on the road than at home. Righties and lefties have been pounding him equally hard so far. The closest match, in the 2004 stats, to Colon's .323 / .389 / .598 numbers vs. right-handed batters is Vlad Guerrero; in other words, put together, all the right-handed hitters have hit like Vlad off Colon so far this year. We know he's better than that so he's probably due for one of his signature complete-game two-hitters.

Mac will also know that Colon was rough on righties the last three years, but I guess he favors righties over lefties since the lefties played last night. I'm anticipating a lineup that includes Bay, Castillo, and Stynes. Simon is 6-for-8 off Colon - must have seen him as a Tiger I guess - so maybe he plays first again. I expect the Pirates will continue to play Simon so long as he's on the roster. He's not going to ride the pine like J.J. Davis; he'll just go away when his time comes. That's what I expect at least.

Bay or Mateo might play center tonight, replacing Redman with a more powerful righthanded bat. Mateo deserves a good long look. With seven Ks in his last eight ABs, Bay is the prime candidate for extra pine time. Mateo had 99 games in centerfield in his travels through Cincinnati and Texas. Daryle Ward will probably get another start in the outfield - how can they sit him after the big home run last night - probably in right. This makes our predicted lineup something like Kendall - Wilson - Ward - Wilson - Simon - Mateo - Stynes - Castillo with some variation likely in the specific order. Hill or Mackowiak could also start at third, and would probably provide more offense than Stynes.

Another wildcard is Jack Wilson's knee. He might have to sit out tonight after yesterday's tumble at first.

Altoona on fire

Report here. We'll have to talk about 2B Jeff Keppinger sometime soon.