The Bolts Are Coming Loose

"2 out of 3 there would be a nice stamp on that city for this time of year. "

-July 3rd, 2008

Sometimes, you need to just bite your tongue. I just learned that. The Pirates didn't stand a chance in Miller Park the moment they stepped foot off the plane. What made it even worse was the fact that the Bucco's had to wear these "patriotic" blue hats with the emblem laced with stars and stripes. It was a clash that would of made The Cure and the clashing in the 80's proud. It's been 30+ years since the city of Pittsburgh has witnessed their team sport a blue and it wasn't the best looking since then. It was a nice thought by Major League Baseball, but certainly wasn't thought out by teams sporting black and yellow.

Anyways, like I said. The Pirates were taken to the woodshed and back, except for the 2-1 heartbreak in the 9th on Saturday. Outscored 22-8 for the series, the offense struggled and the pitching looked like something out of the class A minors. Tom Gorzelanny continues to look pathetic, like he has all year and Zac Duke couldn't make it past the 3rd. Duke, luckily, was able to have some offense backing him up through the 2.1 innings he pitched. However, Danny Bautista, no relation to Jose I'm sure, threw 16 pitches in game 3. 15 of them were strikes and 2 of them never came back inside the field of play. You know your pitching is bad when Bill Hall's .217 average jumps 10 points and goes 7 for 11 in the series that makes him look like a Silver Slugger candidate. Hall somehow, with that average has managed to hit 11 home runs, however his 31 RBI's aren't all that impressive, meaning he lacks the nuts and bolts to come up with clutch hits with runners on. He's sort of like the Brewers version of Adam LaRoche, you know?

The Bucco's starting rotation has started to take a horrible form as they continue to spiral downwards. Ever since interleague play has been over, the starting rotation (besides Saturday's game) had put up a decent start. Paul Maholm went 8 strong that day giving up 1 run on only 4 hits. This may have been the best outting by Maholm this year. His ERA is still just above a 4.00 and after Zac Duke's last outting, he's sure to take over the lead in ERA for the Pirates starting rotation. That's not exactly stellar in the "bigs". The Pirates are DEAD LAST in ERA, hits given up, and WHIP rating. Meanwhile, the batting is still present and the Buc's rank in the top 7 in most offensive category's. Can someone tell me where this great young pitching staff we have is? We were told year after year that we were soon to have one of the best young rotations in the league and they're getting slapped around all over the place this year. Meh, whatever, they need a sweep at home against Houston for any hope, then host a make up game with the Yankee's.