I guess it was asking too much of Mojo to allow a sweep, especially with Perez on the mound today.

I mentioned after Ollie’s last start he looked like he was having shoulder or elbow problems in that game and today it seemed to be more obvious something is wrong. Joe Rutter with the Trib interviewed Colborn after Ollie’s rough start on the 13th and Colby said Ollie simply had a tired arm – he was just a few weeks behind the rest of the staff. That’s easy to believe since rubber arms are typical in late spring training. But this is two weeks later – what’s the problem now Colby?

I am a bit concerned that Perez was asked to throw 106 pitches in just 3.2 innings — 40 in the 3rd alone and 66 in the last 1.2 innings. That is a lot of pitches and the way Perez kept dropping down in his delivery the last inning suggests to me he was really stressing his elbow. All we can do is fans is hope for the best and try to seek out answers.

Kudos to young Gavin Floyd for pitching a good game. His material seemed hittable to me watching on the tube but we just didn’t get the job done against him. BTW, did he really only throw two pitches today – a heater and a hook? The three changes he seemed to throw were hammered foul early in the game and he never went back to it that I ever saw. Burrell had a nice game too and I tip my hat to him as well.

On the Pirates side, John Grabow and Matt Capps both pitched very well in their relief work, kudos to Bay for showing up and taking three walks because Tracy continues to bat Burnitz behind him for some strange reason, and I guess we owe the loss to Mr. Cota because Tracy said only Paulino gets low ERA’s from the pitchers (excuse me while I laugh out loud).

Runners continue to eat our outfielder’s up advancing on the base paths. Tracy has to either make an adjustment to move them in from the no-doubles depth he plays them and take a risk on deep shots, or our pitchers need to start pitching so everything is hit to Burnitz in right field.

How about poor Nate McLouth in the 5th inning? Cota led off with a walk, Perez K’d, and Nate walks up to the plate with Cota at first base. Floyd had thrown five of his last eight pitches as balls and Nate had a 2-0 count on him when he swings away. True, the ball went foul but fans have to wonder why in the world McLouth is even swinging at that pitch to begin with. Nate ended up flying out on what would have been ball 4. Then, as if to emphasize how bad McLouth’s at bat was, Floyd walks the next two batters on 9 pitches and Burnitz promptly ends the inning with a token ground ball. Wow.

Ah – I shouldn’t jump on Nate – he is a rookie. How about Jack Wilson’s at bat in the third inning where he jumped all over the second pitch he saw after McLouth just walked to open the inning? Yep – he hit into yet another double play hitting the ball to the second baseman. That is the 4th in a row for Jack. You think Tracy would start getting smart and either have the hit-n-run on more often or ask Jack to sit back a couple of pitches to see if we could steal a base, especially with Fasano behind the plate who has averaged throwing out just 20% between 2005 and this year.

Tracy, Tracy, Tracy.. when are you going to give up trying to start batteries that are dead? Maybe you need to protect Bay with Jack Wilson? LoL. We are so pathetic.. it can’t get any worse. I say that as we head to Chicago with no offense, little pitching, and nothing clicking.

If you had any doubt what so ever that our gris-gris was responsible for last night’s win, now you know it is working.

Paul Maholm pitched a wonderful game tonight. He allowed just 6 hits, 1 run, and struck out 4. The only run he allowed was due to a Paulino passed ball that allowed a runner on 1B to get into scoring position and score on a subsequent single.

The game was far from perfect however – Bay bobbled a ball hit into the northside notch and the batter went all the way to 3B after Bay missed the cutoff man; Paulino made an error running the bases, albeit he was safe; Duffy made a base running error and was thrown out; Castillo dropped a line drive; Maholm lost his command in the 4th after the 40th pitch he threw but battled through it; and a host of late inning relief pitching blunders.

But how about that Mojo:

– Burnitz a 2-run home run! Ok – not so much Mojo here because Burnitz creams Lidle anyway. But the way Burnitz has been hitting the ball, I’m still going to call it Mojo simply because he did it. LoL  BTW, am I the only one that noticed not one player walked up to Burnitz and gave him a high five after he came to the dugout? What’s that all about?

– Paulino tries to take 2B on an overthrow to 1B on his grounder and is safe; then he scores on a Duffy bloop hit and then Duffy is caught trying to take 2B! Go figure that one.

– Burrell called out when safe by a mile on the liner Castillo dropped (would have loaded the bases). But what makes this one even more Mojo intensified is that Craig Wilson didn’t cover 1B and was trotting to the dugout thinking Castillo caught the ball, Burnitz was being Mr. Snitch in right field yelling and waving that the ball hit the ground and wasn’t an out, and Jose’s throw to 2B was so late and Burrell was so safe, he not only was at the bag but had his hands up in a safe call before tha ball even got to Jack, but was called out. Whoa – powerful Mojo there dude.

– Here’s the best one of the night – top of the 9th, Pirates up 3-2. Gonzo takes the mound and promptly heaves 9 of 15 pitches as balls to three batters, getting one to K and giving walks to the other two. Then Hernandez comes out in relief with men on 1st and 2cd. What does he do? He walks the first batter loading them up with one out.

Think about all that a second — after Gonzo walked the second batter, the odds of a runner scoring from 2B with 1 out is 41%. After Hernandez walked the third batter in the inning, the odds of scoring from 3B with 1 out climb to 68%. But with Mojo on your side, it wouldn’t matter if the odds were 99% – tonight the Pirates were going to win.

– Philly skipper Manuel somehow decided it was smart to pitch hit Nunez vs. Maholm in the 7th with a man at 1B and only 1 out. As Pirate fans probably remember, Nunez can’t hit left hand pitching worth a squat unless they are flame throwers, which Maholm isn’t. Nunez promptly hit into a double play to end the inning. But the Mojo goes deeper than just that.. remember Gonzalez that ended the 9th by hitting into a DP vs. Hernandez? The only hits he has this year are against left hand pitching and his career numbers are significantly better vs. lefties.

Nunez? He has a career .667 BA vs. Hernandez. Whew.. thank you Mojo!

Ah — back to back Mojo wins. Great stuff.

A win! Finally, a Win!

Yeah, ok.. Phillies were a .429 team coming into this game. Who cares? A win is a win is a win is a win.

Phillies had been crushing right-hand pitching and were third best in the NL entering the game with a .274/.335/.454 line. Snell played with fire with them because he was behind on the count in 9 of the 27 batters he faced after the first pitch and the Phillies are hitting .313/.467/.565 when ahead in the count.

Ian pitched a good game. Let’s give him credit: kudo’s to Ian. (Just don’t let him face the Mets Colborn).

But how about that Mojo mon?

I mean, comeon..

– Snell pitches a 5 hitter giving up zero earned runs? Oh I’m sure everyone called that one!

– Bay getting an RBI with a man in scoring position in the 7th? Man, he was batting just .208 7th inning on and only .250 with RISP. LoL

– Four bobbled infield plays by the Pirates yet they still got two outs?

– Randa 2 for 3 with a walk??

– Two fielding errors by the Pirates, 2 stolen bases allowed, and zero double plays yet we won the game. Oh – you had that one too? LoL

– 30,000 fans to watch a .217 team??? Dang fireworks must be something else!

– And the best Mojo of the day? Burnitz gets an intentional walk. Oh my!

Yeah, our gris-gris worked.. there was nooooooo doubt about it. ‘Nuff said.

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How about Kevin McClatchy on his cell phone most the night with Silverman sitting in his seat? Possible trade in the works? Hmm.. you can almost bet on it. Silverman rarely sits with Kevin at the game, much less in his seat to keep him out of camera range.

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Roberto Hernandez called a player’s only meeting before this game. I guess that means he’ll be traded or released ala Santiago. hehehe  Written on on the chalkboard in the clubhouse for the meeting: "Today is a new day!" Amen bro.

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Anybody else see the Savarn show before this game where he interviewed Torres? One of my friends said "isn’t he just the cutest little thing!" He then went and got a beer to cool off.  LoL

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Colborn or Lett must be working with Paulino because tonight was the first time I have seen Ronny not setup outside the zone to receive pitches. He is still waiving his glove when he catches the ball like a little league catcher and tonight even seemed to get a call or two from it. But the ump was pretty liberal with both pitchers so I doubt it had a thing to do with Paulino.

Nice to see the W go up. Hope to see another.. maybe tomorrow night since the Phillies don’t hit left hand pitching too well.

I gave a call to one of the well known Vodoun-non in the US who goes by the name of Reverend Zombie. He has a wonderful shop in the French Quarter of New Orleans and is well known for his ability to cast gris-gris.

After listening to my plight about the Pirates, he told me to do two things:

1. Take a lambi and point it to the northwest at 5:43 pm today and make as much music as I could for 90 seconds; and
2. Create a bochio of Kevin McClatchy and stick no less than 4 straight pins the shoulder area, one where he carries his wallet with a black head, two pins with red heads – one deep in the head and one on the left side of the body, then take the last pin with a white head and stick it in the right side of the neck. When I was done I was to say ainsi soit-il.

Because I lacked the wood or whittling capability to make the bochio, I was told paper would work so I went to work using my printer. The end result of this gris-gris is shown in the picture below.

Ok.. bring on the Phillies!

Bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, bases loaded, a 3-3 tie game and Albert Pujols walks to the plate against Hernandez. Strike One, the home plate ump yells on a 97 mph heater. Strike Two the ump moans as Pujols watches another heater go past. Ball One, he says. Count is now 1-2.

Hernandez looks in for Paulino’s signal, winds up and throws the prettiest strike you have ever seen and Pujols just sits and watches it go into Paulino’s mitt. AP starts to back out of the box thinking he K’d, Hernandez starts to head off the mound, the stadium erupts with a huge sigh feeling Pujols has struck out with the bases loaded, and all of a sudden..

.. the umpire beacons his delayed call: "Ball Two" — he saw Paulino move his glove a fraction toward the plate when he caught the ball.

Hernandez couldn’t believe it, Tracy was livid, Paulino looked down to the ground in disgust, and AP puts a sly smile on his face. The rest is history – 2 pitches later he singles the winning run home.

For two nights in a row a rookie catcher hurt us. Now, I’m not suggesting Johnny Bench behind the plate would have gotten the strike call but moving the glove was a dead giveaway Paulino and Hernandez were not going to get the call this night. That’s all it took.

Baseball games are won with solid defense up the middle and it starts with the catcher. Cota is the only catch and throw guy we have. He can’t hit a lick, but he gets strikes called strikes.

When Tracy made his defensive adjustments in the 9th inning by putting McLouth in RF and moving Craig to 1B, the very first ball off a Cardinal bat made Tracy look like a hero as it went for the odd right field corner and surely would have been an easy double on Wilson. McLouth held him to a single.

But for some strange reason Tracy left Paulino in to catch Hernandez even though there is an off day tomorrow. A rookie catcher.. a pure, raw rookie. Unbelievable. Well, maybe Cota had the flu? Who knows.

Ronny Paulino does not need to be behind the plate on a struggling team – especially with struggling starting pitchers. For the life of Jimmy, I can’t believe he continues to roll him out there for the little bit of offensive ability he provides the team. It isn’t worth it. He has zero rbi’s and only one run scored. It is nice he is batting over .400 but it isn’t worth a can of corn compared to what he is giving up defensively. He is killing us.

Thank you Jim Tracy, may I have another?

Duke pitched a typical Duke game. He walks anyone he is scared of and the attempts to throw to the rest of the batters and get them out. Today he did a decent job limiting the Cards to a .286 BA on balls in play. Not great.. but not that bad.

I was a little shocked that Tracy told Zach to intentionally walk Pujols in the 1st inning. I mean, why is Duke on the roster if the kid can’t learn? Wake up Tracy – we are already out of it – let the kid develop by pitching to the harder batters. Or, don’t you trust Duke Tracy?

Thank you Jim Tracy, can I have another?

Someone tell me why Tracy had Jack bunt in the 1st inning with Duffy at 1B? Please tell me why when Jack has the third best BA and OBP on the team? That was a rally killer in my eyes. The only thing I can think of is that Tracy didn’t trust Jack to put the ball in play without hitting into a DP. Wow. That ranks as another Tracy doesn’t believe in his players item in my book.

Thank you Jim Tracy, can I have another?

Anybody else notice the Cardinals actually give more respect to Jason Bay’s arm than they do to Chris Duffy’s? Man-oh-man, teams are running like water on Duffy. Today two runs scored that might have been held if we had just an average arm in CF.

How about Joe Randa not charging a simple ground ball and Luna beating it out for an infield hit? Talk about an embarrassing play.

Speaking of an embarrassment, Burnitz sat on the pine today like it was punishment or something. Tracy gave him the day off because of a night/day game back to back of course. Take it easy on your two and one-half day vacation Jeromy. I mean, you have done such a wonderful job lately you deserve the manager’s gratitude. I mean, which cheek are YOU kissing?

Thank you Jim Tracy, can I have another?

We are really brutal.

Victor Santos pitched a great game tonight vs. the Cards. Sure, the box score says he gave up 8 hits and 5 earned runs but in reality, he pitched much better.

For one, our battery was not given the corners of the plate all night long. The Cards battery was. I mentioned a few days ago that I would be highly surprised if our pitchers like Paulino behind the plate because he isn’t a good receiver and it is costing them strikes. Tonight I kept count and Victor Santos had 16 pitches called balls in the same spots Suppan got a strike call. Two of the batters would have struck out and one of those was Encarncion in the third who then hit a HR. The other was Pujols in the 6th who then singled and later scored on Encarncion’s triple. That is three runs that were allowed because of not getting strike calls.

As an ex-catcher I understand that home plate umps are not going to give a close ball/strike call to the visiting team most of the time. I also understand rookie catchers and pitchers will not see a true 17" strike zone. Ok.. that’s fair and all MLB catchers and managers know it and expect it. Santos also is known as a pitcher who falls behind in the count a lot and umps will tend to simply call more balls because of it. Again, Santos knows this – it’s not new.

But when Santos paints the corner of the plate knee high over and over and over and doesn’t get any of the calls, something is wrong. That something is Ronny Paulino. He sets up too far outside, he moves his glove toward the zone after he catches the ball trying to get the ump to call a strike, and he does not frame enough pitches, and all that hurts him because he is so large and umps have a hard time seeing the plate around him. Often the ump is viewing the plate over the wrong side of Paulino because of his size. That is killing us.

Paulino needs to go back to Indy and the Pirates need to work with him on how to be an MLB catcher. He simply isn’t ready. If the Pirates want his bat in the lineup, then send him down and let him take some time in right field. If it were me, I would have him playing right field if he could because of his gun arm.

Kudos to Santos – he pitched a great game against a good team tonight, in a new stadium, and in cold weather. He was outstanding.

Jim Tracy has a serious problem developing with Jeromy Burnitz. In the past four or five games Burnitz has been shown to be pretty lazy. I didn’t mention it mostly because that is one of Burnitz’s trademarks and I knew we were stuck with that when Littlefield added him to the roster.

But tonight he took it to a whole new level by refusing to budge his position when Paulino and Jose botched a play on a stolen base attempt in the first inning. The ball hit Jose’s glove and squirted into short right field and Burnitz simply stood there looking at the ball. If I was Tracy I would have sat him on the pine that instant because there was no excuse whatsoever for his laziness there.

After being beaned in the head in the second inning, Burnitz tried a whale flop dive in the 5th on Encarncion’s line drive. Not only did he run a poor route to the ball, he should have held up and blocked the ball holding him to a single. After he missed the ball on the dive, the ball ran all the way to the wall and Burnitz casually ran back to retrieve it. Duffy was nowhere in sight backing this play up for some reason, even after Bunitz ran back to the wall and threw to the cutoff man.

If Burnitz hadn’t been beaned a few innings earlier I would come down a lot harder on the bad route. Maybe the poor guy was still a bit groggy? Ok.. mistakes happen. But then in the very next inning Burnitz hits a soft ground ball to the second baseman and he doesn’t even bother to put the bat down and start running until the ball is almost in the glove. I went off. There was no excuse for not running out the ball in play. None.

Kudos for someone on the Pirates staff for finally talking to Duffy about stalling after the pitcher bats and makes an out. It only took three weeks into the season to accomplish this but it is nice to see someone finally got the job done.

Jack Wilson kept his hitting streak going now into 8 games. Kudos to Jack!

Craig Wilson took another beating batting behind Bay and Bay didn’t produce once again with men in scoring position. Geezz.. one guy can’t do everything and Jason is just not seeing the ball well right now.

Anybody else noticing that when we have an inning where we string a few hits together and we fail to score any runs (or just a run or two), the offense goes to sleep afterwards? That’s been happening a lot lately. Tonight when Bay K’d with the bases loaded in the 3rd then Burnitz popped out with two men on, it was like we were playing dead until Paulino’s single in the 7th. For the first 3 innings we averaged seeing 18 pitches per inning. After the disastrous third, just 12. Watch this the next few games and you’ll see what I mean.

One thing Jim Tracy should be happy about is the lack of swing-n-misses he made such a big deal about over the winter. Tonight just 5 of 94 strikes were missed. Of course, 31 pitches whizzed by our batters for a called strike out of the 67 called, fouled, or swung-n-missed strikes for a ridiculous 46%. So, instead of free swinging, the players aren’t swinging at all. And when they do, they are in defensive mode because they are so far behind in the count. Tracy needs to revisit this. I have been mentioning this problem for 2 weeks now and I really find it strange he hasn’t had the player’s adjust to this yet.

Good game. Close.. we came up a few strikes being called short of potentially winning this game.

Sidney Ponson had a great 2003 — 134 K’s, 17 – 12 record, and a 3.75 ERA. That year his fastball was in the 94 – 95 mph range and he had an A+ slider that got batters out. In 2004, he lost 2 mph off his heater and his slider bit the dust.. he ended up with an 11 – 15 record and a 5.38 ERA. In 2005, the heater lost a few more mph and he tried to become a low and outside pitcher to compensate. It didn’t work — he rolled up a 7 – 11 record, had only 68 K’s, and a 6.22 ERA.

Ponson declared alcoholism was his problem and started 2006 fresh with the Cardinals. So far he is doing well and possibly his troubles are over. But many folks in the industry aren’t buying it. Most believe he has elbow problems and, in fact, a recent scouting report on him indicates he has both shoulder and elbow problems. However, even starting well in 2006, his K-rate is one-third his career numbers, he continues to pitch as a low and outside thrower, and his velocity is in the 88 mph range.

Oliver Perez doesn’t have the fights in bars, DUI charges, and other convictions that Ponson has, nor has Oliver ever declared himself an alcoholic. He has kicked a laundry cart and took the winter off without consent, but those are hardly the same type of problems that Ponson has had. Yet Oliver’s on-field symptoms are classical to Ponson’s — shoulder and elbow problems.

Tonight Perez labored to fire off a 90 mph heater and the pitch sailed high and wide of the plate. The next time it was 91 mph but almost thrown to the backstop. Perez pitched routinely in the 86 mph range topping off at 89 mph with some command issues. But the telltale sign is that Oliver does not have any bite left in his slider, nor does he use it much anymore.

Forget that Perez was pitching so obvious that batters went up to the plate to hammer his first pitch hook in 6 of 18 at bats. Forget that Perez has moved his game plan from a power pitcher to being a low and outside pitcher like Ponson and batter’s are teeing off on him because the speed variance between his hook, slider, change, and heater is only 13 – 15 mph. And forget for a moment that 14 of the first 18 batters put the ball in play on Perez on 3 pitches or less because nothing he was throwing was fooling anyone.

Instead, focus on what Oliver has become. He is now trying to be a Zach Duke/Sean Burnett/Mark Redman command and control pitcher pitching for the outside corner on every batter. His power is gone, his ability to move batters off the plate is gone, and nobody fears him anymore.. not even pitchers when they bat.

Oliver Perez may not be in Birmingham having TJ surgery, Oliver Perez may not even be complaining, but Oliver Perez is absolutely not healthy. Power pitchers don’t lose 6 mph on their heater in one year. I bought that last year because of his lack of conditioning – I don’t buy it any more. Perez simply isn’t healthy and it is just a matter of time before he hits the DL. In fact, I think it is going to happen real soon. At least he should be looked at.

That being said, Oliver Perez was roughed up tonight by a team who had been pretty flat. Even with the umpires giving us every call imaginable (Edmonds beat out a ground ball during a DP opp in the first but was called out, and Eckstein beat out a squeeze bunt in the 3rd but was called out), we didn’t have a prayer against Carpenter even though he wasn’t close to being sharp.

More fundamental errors tonight – Bay caught stealing in the first, McLouth ran a bad route on a liner that ended up going for a double, Craig Wilson missed a few tough ones thrown at him at 1B, and so on.

We had our chances but couldn’t deliver.. Cota had 2 men in scoring position in the second with two outs then K’d; in the fourth Bay leadoff with a HR, Craig and Burnitz made outs, then we strung together four straight hits off Carpenter scoring a run and loading the bases for McLouth. With Carpenter on the ropes and having thrown 22 pitches in the inning so far, Nate walks up and put the first ball in play he sees. I lost it. I mean, why couldn’t Tracy or Manto, or 3B coach Cox for that matter, told McLouth to look at a few pitches to get the one he wanted with Carpenter struggling? Nate hit a little groundball and the inning was over. The Pirates offense pretty much folded from then on.

It wasn’t Nate’s fault – the poor kid is something like 2 – 27 with runners in scoring position in his short MLB career. He did what he has always done in that situation – he made an out. I know what you are thinking and I’ll state it for you – how is Duffy in RISP opportunities? He is 12 – 30, .400/.400/.500 with 10 rbi’s. So why didn’t Tracy pull McLouth for Duffy? Good question. I don’t think Tracy cares a hoot of beans about matchups by stats.

The mounting losses are hard to endure as a fan. Our general manager is doing nothing to solve the problem (ie: trade, player movement, changes to the roster, etc), our manager is not helping the team to succeed when he has a chance like replacing McLouth in the above example, and the players keep taking it on the chin.

It is unfortunate that David Littlefield has stocked the roster with a lot of streaky hitters. Tonight Jose Castillo sat on the bench for some reason and Tracy played Freddy Sanchez who went 2 for 4. But Tracy batted him 7th for some odd reason instead of leadoff. It’s almost like management wants them to fail.

Tomorrow is another day. The bats started to find the ball tonight so the offense might be starting to find their streaky self again. We’ll see. Maybe we can roll off another win or two with some nutty score like 18 – 2.