Middle Infield D Tanks Bucs Again

Bases loaded, bottom of the 9th, two outs, a 1-1 count in a tie game and Torres holds on to a splitter too long and it goes into the dirt for a wild pitch. Paulino can't handle it, a run scores, and the Nats win the game.

Paulino is a jab-stepping, side-blocking catcher. That's perfectly acceptable as long as the lead knee hits the ground so he can establish a base, but Paulino's right knee is up exposing his equipment.

The red "X" indicates where the 86 mph wild pitch Torres tossed one-hopped and hit Paulino's chest protector, which is absolutely perfect and what Paulino wanted to have happen.

However as you can see, his hips and shoulders are more square toward the second baseman than the pitcher/shortstop and that allowed the ball to hit his protector and bounce wildly off toward the dugout because of the spin.

If he was in a proper position, the ball would have hit his protector and bounced back toward the pitcher or first baseman, even with the splitter spin. But more importantly, it would have deadened the ball.

What you see above is better known as a lazy catcher's slide and we've been watching Paulino perform this dog-n-pony show for more than a year now without getting better. Doumit does the exact same thing, so I have to believe now it is a coaching problem.

Tonight Paulino's lazy mechanics cost us a game. This isn't the only game that we've eaten runs because our catcher's can't block balls in the dirt - it's a routine affair.

With several starters and a couple of relievers who throw sinkerballs on the roster, someone please tell me why this organization doesn't put more emphasis in Paulino's ability to block pitches in the dirt? Jab-stepping is not hard to do.. it's actually very easy.

Ugghhh..

As Dejan mostly pointed out in his article about the game, the 9th inning should never have happened because of several mistakes/errors/blunders including:

-- Sanchez's error in the first which allowed Guzman to reach (somehow Sanchez wasn't charged with an error);

-- Sanchez's inability to turn a double play in the first which would have ended the inning but instead left Zimmerman at first who went to third on Young's single grounder though the right side. Kearns double then scored a run in the inning as we gave the Nats five outs;

-- Wilson's 5th inning error on a bases loaded, one out, potential double play groundball that allowed a run to score and no outs obtained. On the next pitch Schneider singled in two more (another five out inning).

Wilson claimed in Dejan's article the ball took an "awful bounce" but you make up your own mind. It's a play any MLB shortstop should routinely make even with the ball skipping a tad quick off the dirt as the arc of the ball remained the same.

Duke pitched a pretty good game, all things considered. Of the nine hits he allowed, a few were hammered like any pitcher sees and some went through the infield, including the no-error call on the Sanchez play. A very acceptable performance that would have yielded 1 run, if his defense had shown up.

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It was nice to see LaRoche hit a home run. You could see him bouncing around the bases with a new found step.

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Nady was grabbing his hammy in the second as he rounded third and this time he wasn't limping, nor did he even slow down. Just think, he was less than 48 hours from his first appearance in New York as a Pirate.

Hmm..

I guess you don't have to worry about wearing a bag over your head now X. Enjoy the dugout.

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The draft is tomorrow and the Pirates are seemingly being manipulated a bit, as they are every year.

You know how hard it is to try and get a reasonable free agent to play in Pittsburgh when he has other offers? Well, multiply that by 10 for a prospect who doesn't want to play with the organization because the clubs can't talk about deals until they are signed. At least we can talk to the agents of a player in the free agent pool.

It seems the Pirates are having a hard time finding players that they can get a clear signability reading on in the better player ranks, thus the hastily thrown together showcase last week in Pittsburgh of overdraft type players.

I mean, it's so easy for a player who doesn't want to play in Pittsburgh to just go enroll in college and not sign his deal - no matter what the money is. Then you lose one year in developing top talent.

Also, a source emailed me today showing me a link at Baseball Prospectus where author Kevin Goldstein reported Wednesday:

"The Pirates would like to take Wieters here, but a request submitted to ownership to spend big money was quickly denied."

Over the last 4 hours before posting this I've received a lot of email all pointing me to that article. Ok, where there is smoke there is fire. So what?

For now, I'm going to hold onto hope, as you should do too. Let's judge Bob Nutting and David Littlefield on their draft picks after the draft, not before.