Justin Culver's Pittsburgh Pirates fan blog

I'ts about time.

Zach Duke, for the first time since his rookie year in my opinion, pitched the way he knows he can pitch. By going 9 relatively easy innings, and getting the shutot, Duke is putting together a strong case for why he should still be considered a candidate for the starting rotation next year. Couple this with his outing against the Cubs last week in which he allowed only 2 runs in 8 strong innings, and he has now allowed only 13 hits and 2 runs over his last 17 innings of work, dropping his ERA by nearly 1/3 of a run.

But to be fair to Duke, he has not pitched as poorly as his record and ERA would indicate. He has allowed a large amount of hits, 206 over 168 innings pitched, but he has been given poor run support in quite a few starts as well. Over his last 8 decisions not counting the 7-0 shutout last night, he has been given only 21 runs of support over 8 starts, less than 3 runs per game. Mind you, in that time, Duke has been giving up a fair amount of runs, but without any form of offense, it's not exactly like Duke has lost games entirely on his own.

Continue reading "Duke Nuked 'em"

I told a friend of mine recently that I would try to be more optimistic on here. He said that alot of what I wrote was negative and that he would enjoy it more if I was more upbeat. I am upbeat about a lot of things, but what I saw today from Craig Hansen is not one of them.

In case you missed it, Hanson came in to a 1 run game in the 8th inning this afternoon against Cincinnatti. Instead of doing what he was supposed to do; get three outs and move on to the next frame, Hanson failed...spectacularly.

Hanson walked the first batter he faced, which has become the standard for him. He only has 3 appearances as a Pirate where he didn't walk a batter. Now, a runner on first and no outs is not something to get up in arms about, and I was sure that Hanson would take care of business with the next 3 hitters. 

Continue reading "No trade backs"

With the Pirates continuously contemplating the trading of Jack Wilson, Pirates fans must be looking forward to the battle that will take the place at the shortstop positon. However, if last night is any indication, this may not be much of a battle at all.

Luis Cruz made his major league debut last night against Cincinnatti and that may be the biggest statement of all. Cruz got his first major league hit in his first at bat, a single to left, but other than that, his performance was modest at best. He missed a coverage at 2nd on a ground ball and had a hot shot slide right under his glove, but the fact that he got the first start of September and not Brian Bixler is what makes me curious.

Bixler has been touted as the shortstop of the future for a couple years now. However, his performance earlier this season in a 2 month call-up due to the Jack Wilson injury did little to help Bixler secure that claim. He struggled to a .178 average and committing numerous errors at both shortstop and second base. However, upon returning to AAA Indianapolis, he finished strong with a .280 average and much better defense, justifying his callup yesterday.

Continue reading "Short changed"

The Pirates welcomed an unusually high number of minor leaguers to the big leagues today as they called up 10 players from Indianapolis today for the start of their series against the Reds. Notable about the callups is the fact that they now have 18 position players as well as 17 pitchers, opting to go with a 6-man rotation the rest of the season.

The 17 pitchers are what interest me the most. Russ Ohlendorf, picked up in the Xavier Nady trade to the Yankees, will make his first start of the season tomorrow, pushing back Zach Duke a day. Going to a 6-man rotation also will help the team limit the innings of ace Paul Maholm, who is pushing for 200 for the first time in his career. 

Back to the 17 pitchers. Another notable thing about this group is the lack of John Van Benschoten, who, after being placed in a relief role upon his demotion, struggled to an E.R.A. of over 5.50, though much of that damage was done within his first three outings out of the pen. 

Continue reading "Armed and ready"

Upon hearing that the Brewers are seeking to retroactively give CC Sabathia a no hitter after he bobbled a ground ball by Andy LaRoche that was ruled an error, I couldn't help but wonder, "Are you kidding me?"

Not only does LaRoche's hit stand out in an otherwise dominant performance by Sabathia, where he struck out the Pirates 11 times and nearly had as many hits as the Pirates himself, but it stands out because of how simply it could have been an out.

The official scorekeeper stated that an above average defensive play would have been needed to get LaRoche out at first base. It became an above average play as soon as CC went to barehand it. If he had simply reached down with his glove, and then thrown the ball to first, there is no doubt in my mind that LaRoche would have been out. However, CC doomed himself by reaching down, and losing his grip. If he had reached with the glove and bobbled it, it would have been an error, as it was attempted to be fielded, but failed. The barehand instantly implies difficulty, and thats what made it a hit.

Continue reading "It may be just one, but it counts"

As the Pirate losing streak reached 8 last night, it's hard to not be indifferent to it all. When you've dealt with 15 consecutive losing seasons, you become almost immune to the disappointment. However, for some reason, I still hang on every pitch, I still get frustrated with every single run allowed, and I still get upset with every missed opportunity.

I hope that there are fans out there like me, fans to whom the Pirates still and will always matter, despite the record or score. These are the fans that need to be rewarded more than anyone else. The people who will go to the games despite the less than ideal matchups. Such as last night's game with Gorzo pitching. Everyone knows that he's done for the year. He has shown very little progress, as evidenced by his walk total yet again, though I will admit that he did give the team a quality start. 

Continue reading "Living on a prayer"

Wednesday afternoon at PNC Park, Instant Reply, the new "it" idea of Commissioner Bud Selig took effect. The system will be used to determine fair or foul home run balls, to detect fan interference or to determine if a ball cleared the fence. In order for a play to be disputed, the crew chief will go to an isolated area and view a television monitor that is connected to New York that records all plays. From there, he will determine whether or not a play is adjusted.

This seems like a positive idea that will eliminate many of the judgement errors that officials can make (hey, they're only human). However, I see this idea being short lived.

Major League Umpires take their jobs very seriously. Many have been making calls on the diamond for at least 10 years or more. Some have been there since the 1970's. To have instant replay instantly undermines their credibility as accurate judgement callers. At first, it will be just home run and interfered with balls that are under scrutiny by the replay system, but how long till base calls anywhere across the diamond are taken into consideration of replay, or plays at the plate, or (heaven forbid) balls and strikes? Major League Baseball needs to take this into consideration. Officials have been doing their jobs, without the need of replay, for over one hundred years, and there really haven't been too many needs for instant replay. In my opinion, you'll get at most, 20 plays per year that need to be reviewed. And of these 20 calls, I feel that 2/3 will have been correctly called by the umpiring crew and the replay system will simply validate that. The other plays will be changed and play will move forward, but not without a delay, which brings me to my second point.

Continue reading "Instant failure"

After the Pirates were swept by the Cubs yesterday afternoon in front of a crowd of only 15,000, I started to think about how this team has performed with its trade acquisitions. I talked about Andy LaRoche a few days ago and pretty much summed together that he was just a stop-gap in the long line of stop-gaps that has been the third baseman position. His recent 2-23 slump does nothing but make him seem like another bust of a prospect that the Pirates have been enduring for years (Anyone remember Chad Hermanson, Bobby Bradley, JVB, and Brian Bullington?).

Now i'm going to take a look at the rest of the MLB haul the Pirates got with the departure of Jason Bay; Craig Hanson and Brandon Moss, both from the Boston Red Sox organization. First, Hanson...

Craig has done nothing to endear himself to Pirates fans, let alone help them forget about the production they could be getting out of Jason Bay, prior to his demotion on Tuesaday evening to AAA Indianapolis, the big right-hander had thrown a whopping 10 innings and produced all of 12 walks, 3 strikeouts, and 9 earned runs allowed for a wonderful earned run average of 8.10. Now, with Boston Hanson's numbers weren't spectacular either. In 30.2 innings, he had allowed 19 earned runs with 23 walks and 25 strikeouts for an ERA of 5.58. Now, many baseball people seem to think that Hanson's power arm will be a great asset out of the bullpen, to me, its looking like he's just going to get hit hard every time out. Unless he works himself out over the course of the rest of the season and possibly winter ball, he will be hard pressed to be anything more than a rarely used reliever.

Continue reading "Don't unpack your things just yet"

Announced this afternoon was that the Pittsburgh Pirates placed their number 1 draft choice, third baseman Pedro Alvarez, on the restricted list. Frank Coonelly, the Pirates President, made the decision to place Alvarez on the restricted list due to the fact that super-agent Scott Boras has contended that the Pirates need to re-negotiate Alvarez's contract before he will commit to signing it.

Alvarez and the Pirates had agreed to a contract that would pay the young third baseman a 6-million dollar signing bonus that would dwarf any bonus the Pirates had ever paid before. Apparently, 6 million dollars is not good enough for Scott Boras. He is now demanding that the Pirates pay an additional $200,000 in order for them to sign his contract. Boras also contends that the deal struck with Alvarez did not come until after the August 15th deadline to sign drafted players, making the agreement null and void.

Continue reading "The Devil and Scott Boras"

Instead of writing about the beatdown that was the Pirates 12-3 defeat to the Cubs, I wanted to go a different route today.

My father enlightened me to an article about Andy LaRoche earlier today. In the article, it states that LaRoche has made 6 errors in a mere 18 games, very similar to the error streak our shortstop du jour had back when Jack Wilson was out. His remarks about how LaRoche was just a temporary stop-gap in the third base line made me wonder... How many jobs will Pedro Alvarez cost current players in the Pirates organization?

It has already cost Jose Bautista his job, as he was traded the other day to Toronto for AAA catcher Robinson Diaz. That makes one down, but how many more will depart as a result of Alvarez signing and living up to his potential? Next up will most likely be LaRoche, but he will only go if Neil Walker, our former studly minor league prospect, can live up to his billing, or at least hit .260 at AAA Indianapolis (He's currently hitting .241). Once LaRoche departs, or switches positions, which was discussed before the trade was completed, that leaves Walker. If Walker cannot outdo LaRoche, which signs are pointing to that being a very real possibility, that will pave the way for Alvarez in late 2010 or starting in 2011. That will be 3 players ousted from either their position or the organization due to the arrival of Alvarez.

Continue reading "Get in Line"