Game 92 - Yawn.. a Boring Win

Yawn... no wonder Kevin McClatchy didn't attend this game.. for the most part, it was very, very boring. Credit that to home plate umpire Mike Everitt (ERA).

Don't get me wrong, there was some excitement sandwiched around the 14 walks, 27 hits, and 13 runs, but very little of it. It was as if each team told each other all night long - 'go ahead, you can win' and the other team said 'thank you, but no, you can have it' back and worth, inning-by-inning. It was almost like a 3 Stooges movie or something.

Forget the fact Snell had a 2.40 WHIP in 5 innings of work.. forget the fact he was behind in the count to 14 of 20 batters he faced that saw more than one pitch.. forget the fact Astacio wasn't much better with his 2.26 WHIP.. and forget the fact that the average WHIP for both teams over the 9 innings of work was 2.28 tonight.

Instead, imagine a night game before a day game between two teams who were a combined 18 - 39 in one run games, a combined 36.5 behind their division leading teams, it was a hot night, and there was three and one-half hours of balls exploding off bats, yet 26 of the base runners stranded because neither team could get a clutch hit.

Boring..

And just think.. they will have to do it again in just 15 hours, it will even be hotter, the players will be tired (it *is* Saturday night afterall), and, for those going to the game, Alfonso Marquez (BB/9) will be the umpire and you will be guaranteed another 3+ hour game and be able to get a good tan.

Boring..

Defensively, Jack made a couple of outstanding plays tonight on both sides of the hole, he tagged out Lopez stealing in the first inning from a high throw by Paulino, and he capped it off getting in front of a crushed Zimmerman liner that bounced in front of him that Jack flipped to Jose on a force to end the 4th. Yeah - he also had a throwing error that allowed a run to score during one of the 'no, you can win' tradeoffs tonight, but overall, Jack played a very good game considering the number of Snell smoked hits he had to handle.

One of the bigger 'no, you can win' blunders of the night came from Bautista. With Vidro at 2B in the 8th and one out, Zimmerman lined one right past Hernandez' ear into CF and Vidro sort of held up to see if Sanchez would catch it. The ball went sailing past Sanchez and Bautista ran a side route to get the ball instead of charging it, nonchalantly gloved the ball, and then threw a lollipop relay to 2B expecting Vidro to stop at 3B.. but he didn't. Tony Beasley, the Nats 3B coach, saw Bautista being lazy and sent Vidro home and he scored.. with no throw.

Because I expect the local media and Tracy to state something completely different than what really happened, here is a vid of the play with the announcers comments.

But before you watch it consider a couple of things.. one, Bautista is a young player who made a youthful mistake he should have learned not to make in A ball and, two, just who does Nate McLouth think he is? It is one thing to say something privately to a player about a play because of youthful enthusiasm, it is quite another to aggressively walk up to a player, flair your arm in the dugout, and talk someone down in front of his peers.. especially if you are a rookie too. I understand McLouth's drive to win.. his passion for baseball.. but professional ball players have cardinal rules and this is one you don't break.. you do it quietly and privately, especially when you are 20 games out at the break.

This vid goes a long way to show the clubhouse problems this team has, imo.

Offensively, we batted .154 with runners in scoring position and stranded 12 runners. Yawn.. Our 2, 3, 4, and 5 batters went 8-14 and had 5 walks, but only managed to score four runs from the 13 times on base. Joe Randa, who came in during a triple switch in the 6th, went 2-2, got a game tying rbi, and scored twice. Tracy needs to keep Randa and Sanchez in the lineup and sit Castillo. The time is right as Castillo couldn't see a watermelon being pitched right now and Randa is seeing the ball in slow motion.

Just a boring game.. a win which was nice, but boring baseball.

-- tidbits --

The Post-Gazette, among other Pittsburgh media sources, is reporting Littlefield is listening to offers for Jack Wilson. What a great PR ploy by Littlefield to get Jack to show up every night. Notice the reports all say it probably won't happen by the deadline? Anybody else think Jack will show up every day to play now and still be wearing black-n-gold in April, 2007?

hehe.. yet another Littlefield 'gotcha' head game being played out.. boring..

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A minor league champion will be decided in a one-game Class AAA showdown Sept. 19 in Oklahoma City between the playoff champions of the International League and Pacific Coast League. An AAA World Series was last played 1998-2000 in Las Vegas.

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As summer heats up and our youthful starters pile on more and more innings, as fans we need to realize that these kids are going to get hammered more and more every week until the end of the year. Gorzy will be the exception to the rule because of a lack of film on him but even he might suffer the same problem. We should score more runs too.. but we are going to give up a ton so get ready and expect it. It's going to happen.

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CS Watch: 18.6% of all pitches Pirate batters saw were called strikes.

DL Watch: 6 - 22 since Littlefield's June 12th announcement he will be a seller at the deadline.

KM Watch: 1-1 showing up to watch the game after the break.