Duke threw a gem, our number seven and eight batters tied the game, and Jason Bay hit his 100th homer as Pirate over the right centerfield wall, as the Bucs took game one of the three-game series.

And how about Bayliss – another basesloaded strand for him. WOW!

Go Cubs, Go!

Anybody else look up in the sky and see a moon that was nearly full and redish/orangish? Yup.. it will be full on the 2cd – the last day of this series.

Go Cubs, Go!

Game two tomorrow leaves us with another impossible task – beating Ted Lilly, another southpaw. Again on paper, this is another blowout.

Go Cubs, Go!

Wuertz who?

Go Cubs, Go!

I don’t know what it is with our middle infielders and their inability to play defense this year.

April 6th — Score 1-1 with two outs in the third and Encarnacion singled up the middle. Griffey then hit a routine grounder to Jack Wilson but he threw flat footed, and side-armed to first base allowing Griffey a single. Conine then goes yard on the very next pitch and three runs score. Reds win.

April 7th — Score 3-2 Reds in the fourth and one out. Dunn walks and Phillips hits a routine popup to deep short. Wilson camps under it and.. misses it. Phillips would eventually come around to score as the Reds winning run. Reds win.

April 27th — Score 1-0 Reds in the fifth and Ross hit a little flair to Bay who fails to catch it putting men at 1st and 3rd. Belisle sac bunts, Paulino tags him out for the second out and throws to Wilson covering second to get Ross. But Wilson fails to tag Ross and then fails to throw home as Dunn scores. Reds eventually go on to score three more in the inning. Reds win.

April 28th — Score 4-1 Pirates starting the 4th and Conine hits a grounder just out of the reach of Sanchez for a single. Maholm throws a wild pitch, Doumit can’t get it, Conine breaks for second, and Doumit throws him out. Unfortunately, Sanchez does his best Ringling Brothers tumbling act and he drops the ball missing out number 1.

Maholm then walks two to load the bases and Encarnacion triples three runs home, Ross pop out for what should be the innings second out, and Harang hits one into center to score Encarnacion. Just one out and the score is now 5-4.. although it could have been 4-4 Pirates had Sanchez held on.

Freel then hits a tailor-made double play grounder to Wilson but Freddy can’t turn the DP. Right.. if nothing else, the force at second should have been the third out and the inning over with the game tied. But as luck goes, Phillips then hammered a double off the right centerfield wall and Freel scored to put the Reds up 6-4.

That’s a ton of middle infield errors, miscues, errors, and blunders for any MLB baseball team to make expecting to win games. And there’s even more –

April 21st — Sanchez is late covering second and ultimately out of position on Paulino’s high throw to get Valdez stealing and the ball goes off his mitt into CF. Valdez later scores as the games winning run.

April 20th — Brewers up 5-1, Hardy hits a grounder to Sanchez with two men in scoring position, the ball goes under his glove and both runs score. The Pirates shutout the Brewers the rest of the way and rally to score 4 more runs but come up two runs short – the two Sanchez let come in.

April 10th — Pirates up 2-0 in the 9th with Cardinals runners at 1st and 2cd and no outs. Pujols hits a deep fly ball to Bay, he catches it, and throws to his cutoff man as the runner from 2cd breaks. Unfortunately, the cutoff man is Wilson and he’s out of position lined up for a throw to third and Duncan takes second on Bay’s throw to third.

Men at 2cd and 3rd, one out, and Speizio singles home both runners. Preston Wilson then hits into a game ending double play. All things equal, if Bay had thrown th Wilson lined up for a relay to keep Duncan at 1st base, the Pirates would have won.

If you’re keeping track, that is 7 out of the Pirates 12 losses our middle infielders have either been the direct cause of the loss or a significant part of the loss. And that’s before I even mention in-game errors, miscues, double plays not turned, and other blunders.

No – they aren’t the only ones making mistakes. Bay has been involved directly in two of the Pirates losses himself. Torres could have helped the team in a few more.

But the theme is nearly identical loss-to-loss.. middle infield defensive problems that wears down the confidence of our young starters who then implode to compound the problem.

It can’t continue.

Even Jim Tracy and his old school mentality that everything tends to the mean over time has to feel the pain from some of these games that have been slaps to his face.

I mean, Sanchez is certainly not 100% on the field, but he’s playing everyday. Duffy was grounded last year hitting below the Mendoza line after 75 ABs, but LaRoche keeps being put in the lineup day after day with the message that his D is more important. But wasn’t Duffy’s more important? And Paulino keeps catching despite the fact he’s been lazy behind the plate and in the box.

If Tracy refuses to play his best overall eight players behind his young staff, then we deserve to lose.. and we’ll continue to lose because of it.

Castillo needs to go back to second base. We didn’t win all those games in the second half last year with him on the pine. Sanchez can’t hit the side of a barn so either put him on the DL until he’s healthy instead of forcing him to whittle his confidence level to the size of a gnat, or drop him in the order and let him get some pitches he can put in play.

LaRoche must have read my post the other day because he has taken an aggressive stand at the plate ever since. I like it. But Tracy needs to drop him in the order too.. give him some slack.

The game of baseball is all about making adjustments and we are simply not adjusting. We are like a cement statute with just a new layer after Doumit was brought up.

The Cubs come in playing baseball much like they did in 2006 – very poorly. But I’m sitting here and telling you they are going to look like NLCD champs if we continue to play the way we are, and we very well could be in last place when they leave.

The Pirates need to wake up in the front office before it’s too late. Unless, of course, this is simply another developmental year.

Here is the link to the original post: [link].

After I posted that piece, I was hammered. Even Bill James mentioned that the scout was probably thinking about facts that were around the game a few years ago.

But the scout’s observations have come to play out:

"Bucco Blog: Tell us how you view LaRoche’s offensive capabilities.

Scout: Line to line hitter with a plus bat to both fields when he chooses the right approach at the plate. He gets into trouble when he gets too patient or he swings a long bat. He has two plate approaches: impatient at the plate and a lot of contact and power at the expense of higher K’s or patient at the plate and no power."

There’s no question that Adam LaRoche’s approach at the plate has been to patiently swing a long bat. He’s almost too patient and the result has been little to no power.

When I asked Bill James about LaRoche being a platoon player, he was very adamant that the Pirates should not view him that way – LaRoche needs to play everyday.

But the scout insisted, even after I spoke with James, that he felt LaRoche would be a perfect platoon partner with Nady, with the trade off being a reduction in defense for more runs scored. At one time the scout even mentioned Neil Walker as a potential platoon partner at first when they didn’t know what to do with him, and before the Pirates shoved him to third

LaRoche seems to be starting to see the ball a tad better hitting .250 over his last three games, although it probably has more to do with a little luck and the quality of pitching the Pirates have faced more than anything because he hasn’t changed his approach at the plate at all.

Not even batting 6th.

I respect Bill James more than just about anyone around the game and I’m sure what he said about LaRoche will pan out over time – he’ll hit about .280 and get about 30 dingers. And let’s face it, LaRoche is a notoriously slow starter each year so there is some hope still in the tank.

Yet, I can’t help wondering if the scout might eventually end up being right – that LaRoche may not get to .280 – not even close. If I’m Dave Littlefield or Jim Tracy I continue to play LaRoche everyday without a question.

But if I’m Jeff Manto, I would be back looking at film from LaRoche’s farm days with the Braves wondering what the scout meant by impatient with a lot of contact because we certainly haven’t seen that side of LaRoche yet.

In April 1947, one man opened America’s pastime to men of every race and color — Jackie Robinson, whose athletic prowess and courage on the field was mirrored by the dignity and integrity with which he lived his personal life.

His example has stood for the generations that have followed and the Pirates paid tribute to him Friday night with every player wearing a #42 jersey.

Robinson is shown in the image before entering the Dodgers club house in 1947 still wearing his minor league uniform.

One of Jackie Robinson’s more famous quotes was:

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."

One young Pirate whose life Robinson has touched is Ian Snell who dedicated his performance Friday night to Robinson. And Snell looked no less than Robinson’s equal on the field when it was over.

Throwing 7 shutout innings and allowing just six scattered hits, Snell kept the Reds off-balanced all night long to record his 4th win of the year and lowering his ERA to a miniscule 1.59.

The Pirates provided run support for Snell by jumping on Reds starter Eric Milton for three runs before he could record his second out in the game.

Chris Duffy led off with an infield single, Jack Wilson walked, a wild pitch by Milton allowed Wilson and Duffy to advance, Jason Bay doubled into the left centerfield gap to score then both, Brad Eldred singled moving Bay to 3rd, and Adam LaRoche singled Bay home.

It was all the runs the Pirates would need.

Both the Reds and Pirates made some outstanding defensive plays on the field. Ryan Freel ran down Jose Bautista’s sharply hit fly ball at the wall in the first to save a couple of runs, Edwin Encarnacion made a great leaping play to flag a crushed liner off Bay’s bat in the third, and Jason Bay ranged deep into the left centerfield gap to catch an Encarnacion fly ball.

The win Friday leaves the Pirates with an 11-10 record, in second place in the division, and just 2 games behind the Brewers who lost to the Cubs.

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Saturday’s game pits RHP Matt Belisle (2-1, 4.43 ERA) vs. LHP Tom Gorzelanny (3-0, 2.05 ERA).

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David Price K’d 13, allowed just 4 hits and 1 earned run, and Vandy went on to beat Florida 10-1. Matt LaPorta was still MIA after getting hurt last week.

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Friday night’s win was the Pirates first Friday win of the season – they are now 1-3 leaving Saturday as their only winless day.. Freddy Sanchez is now hitting .125 since he was removed from the lineup April 17th with a wrist injury.. Jose Bautista, who won a starting role over Jose Castillo, is now hitting .194 at PNC Park this year while Castillo is hitting .333.. in eight home games this year, Pirates pitching has allowed just 24 earned runs in 82 innings for a 2.63 ERA.. Pirate starters have a 0.64 ERA over their last four starts.. just 17 of 27 double plays turned so far this year have been groundball variety DP’s.. Jason Bay has 9 rbi’s in his last 6 games and is hitting .333 over that span.. the Pirates last won 6 consecutive games in 2004 when they rolled off 10 in a row right before the All-Star Game.

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