The last interleague series of the year came in this past weekend as the Rays visited PNC. Tampa Bay has been one of the surprising teams this year in the majors with a 47-31 record entering the 3 game set with the Buc's and within a game of the Red Sox for the division lead. 3 games later, the Sox struggled in Houston and the Rays would take 2 of 3 from the Bucs and leave Pittsburgh with a half a game lead on the Sox. The Pirates looked moderate in a 3 game series that could of seen a sweep by the Rays if it wasn't for extra inning heroics by Jason Bay (AGAIN) and then were able to tie the ballgame on Sunday before losing 4-3. It wasn't much about the Pirates ability to lose this series, but the fact that the Pirates made some big changes in the rotation and bullpen when Osoria, Snell, and Dumatrait went down with 
injuries. The Bucs call up TJ Taubenheim who worked game two of the series and threw 6 innings of work, only giving up 2 earned runs. Now is not the time to worry about our .500 run for out Bucco's, do you remember when Zac Duke first came up in mid July back in 2005? He was talked about as a possible Rookie of the Year candidate. Jason Bay took those honors and the Pirates were riding high on talent. 3 years later, here we are in the same position. Except 3 years ago, it was the same Tampa Bay team that came to Pittsburgh in mid June and left after a Sunday afternoon with the Pirates reaching the .500 mark during mid season. Self destruction took care of any talk about a winning season run and the Pirates like every year played seller at the trade deadline and let players like Mark Redman and Dave Williams in what was a lob sided left handed rotation. Sort of like what it is today with Maholm, Duke, Dumatrait and Gorzelanny. That really doesn't have anything to do with 2008, yet those 2005 Bucs did lose 93 games that year and lets hope there 
is no comparison to this season.
injuries. The Bucs call up TJ Taubenheim who worked game two of the series and threw 6 innings of work, only giving up 2 earned runs. Now is not the time to worry about our .500 run for out Bucco's, do you remember when Zac Duke first came up in mid July back in 2005? He was talked about as a possible Rookie of the Year candidate. Jason Bay took those honors and the Pirates were riding high on talent. 3 years later, here we are in the same position. Except 3 years ago, it was the same Tampa Bay team that came to Pittsburgh in mid June and left after a Sunday afternoon with the Pirates reaching the .500 mark during mid season. Self destruction took care of any talk about a winning season run and the Pirates like every year played seller at the trade deadline and let players like Mark Redman and Dave Williams in what was a lob sided left handed rotation. Sort of like what it is today with Maholm, Duke, Dumatrait and Gorzelanny. That really doesn't have anything to do with 2008, yet those 2005 Bucs did lose 93 games that year and lets hope there 
is no comparison to this season. The Pirates got slammed to the turf in game 1 as the starting pitching was flawed and the offense, desite making a nice run at a tie ball game came up short and the Rays would tag the bull pen for some runs and win 10-5. The highlight of the series was on Saturday night when the Bucs would win a 13 inning thriller that was capped off by Jason Bay showing more emotion rounding first base than he has for the past 4 years he's been in Pittsburgh. The Pirates went for the series win on Sunday afternoon bring the game to a tie twice before giving up 2 runs in the 7th after Xavier Nady threw a ball into the 3rd row bleachers along 3rd base. Interleague play is over (except for the Yankees make up game), and to be honest about our Bucco's, they really didn't do all that bad. Let's just throw out the White Sox series and look at the other 9 games. They had a chance to win the series against both the Rays and Orioles and took 2 of 3 from the Blue Jays. They split the 2 games played with the Yankees with a game pending and the AL East isn't exactly the low point of the American League. Every team they played during the inter league series basically held a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of the teams payroll compared to the Pirates. It's nice to see some of the talent t
he Bucs own showing up at the ball park and putting up some good numbers. Keep your eye on Nate McClouth though, his batting average and production has really fallen off. It's almost scary to see that he once held a solid .300 average and was poking out his share of dingers, and now...well, it's in the high .280's and we've yet to see the power we saw during the months of April and May. They open back up post inter league play against the Reds and return to NL Central division ball, let's see if the Pirates can pick up the slack and pull back within the range of the .500 mark. They currently sit 5 back of reaching .500 and travel to Cincinnati and Milwaukee before coming back home for 3 game sets with Houston and St. Louis. Major League Baseball has thrown in the Yankees make up game for July 10th, that makes 10 straight games without a day off before heading into a much needed All-Star break.
he Bucs own showing up at the ball park and putting up some good numbers. Keep your eye on Nate McClouth though, his batting average and production has really fallen off. It's almost scary to see that he once held a solid .300 average and was poking out his share of dingers, and now...well, it's in the high .280's and we've yet to see the power we saw during the months of April and May. They open back up post inter league play against the Reds and return to NL Central division ball, let's see if the Pirates can pick up the slack and pull back within the range of the .500 mark. They currently sit 5 back of reaching .500 and travel to Cincinnati and Milwaukee before coming back home for 3 game sets with Houston and St. Louis. Major League Baseball has thrown in the Yankees make up game for July 10th, that makes 10 straight games without a day off before heading into a much needed All-Star break. 
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