Jair Jurrjens vs. Zach Duke, 1:35.

This was a nice step forward for Tom Gorzelanny, not only in that he only allowed two walks, but in that his velocity was better than it's been recently. He got his fastball up to 91 MPH, which still isn't where it was in 2006, but his velocity was still significantly better than it was a few weeks ago. The Bucs also turned four double plays, which involved some good timing, but it also had something to do with the fact that the Braves had twelve grounders against Gorzelanny versus just five fly balls.

Jason Michaels had three hits for the Bucs, making good, at least for today, on John Russell's bizarre idea to bat Michaels third.

The only piece of bad news is that Freddy Sanchez's shoulder troubles still linger -- he made a couple of awful throws to first.

Chuck James vs. Tom Gorzelanny, 7:05. Here's the box. With James, a lefty, on the hill, Jason Michaels starts in place of Nate McLouth, and Ronny Paulino catches instead of Ryan Doumit. Paulino hits lefties well, but that lineup still looks ghastly without McLouth and Doumit in it.

ESPN Deportes reports: 

The Florida Marlins and shortstop Hanley Ramírez agreed on a contract extension for six years and $70 million, according to a source who spoke with ESPNdeportes.com.

"It's a very convenient agreement for both parties," said the source Friday night on condition of anonymity. "Hanley secures his financial future and the Marlins secure one of the most complete players in baseball for a relatively good price."

The contract will be finalized after Ramírez passes the customary physical.

An official announcement is expected to come as early as next week, according to Florida media reports.

This deal buys out three of Ramirez' free agent years. If I were Ramirez, I wouldn't want to be stuck with the Marlins for six more years, with or without the new stadium, but $70 million is a lot of money. Time will tell if this means the Marlins are going to start another building phase after trading stars like Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle Willis, and Carlos Delgado in the past few years, or if they're just trying to buy some PR goodwill. Either way, they'll still need a massive infusion of cash to build a winner in the near future -- the pitching just isn't there, and their minor league system is merely decent.

As for Ramirez, $70 million is probably a pretty good deal for the Marlins, but it there are potential pitfalls. Ramirez is a terrible defender and won't be a shortstop in five years, so he needs to keep hitting.

Some notes from around the league:

-P- The Padres have released Jim Edmonds. I saw Edmonds play a number of times this year for San Diego, and he was just awful. In addition to hitting terribly, he played defense like he thought he was still 30 -- he'd run after the ball and come up a couple feet short, as if he hadn't adjusted to the fact that he can't run anymore. It was sad. The Pads called up our old friend Jody Gerut to take Edmonds' place. Gerut was hitting like crazy for Class AAA Portland, but mostly San Diego is just replacing one injury magnet with a younger one.

-P- The Jays have acquired Brad Wilkerson (on waivers) and Kevin Mench (from the Rangers for cash). Both are in the lineup tonight. Wilkerson will take a few pitches, but not much else. He was downright underrated as an Expo, augmenting his power with bunches of walks, but he began to decline once he left Montreal, and he hasn't had a good season since 2004. (If only a return to Canada were likely to help.)

Mench can probably still hit lefties a little, but he wasn't even very good in his prime years. The Jays haven't gotten anything out of the left field and DH positions this season, so there's really no harm in picking these guys up, but if the Jays can work their way back into contention, it still would be a good idea for the Pirates to see if they want Xavier Nady or Jason Bay. Keeping Frank Thomas around a little while longer might not have been a bad idea for them.

-P- Yovani Gallardo will have surgery on the torn ACL in his knee. That's obviously a huge blow to the Brewers, who were already dealing with issues with their rotation, the struggles of closer Eric Gagne, and slow starts by a number of key hitters. They look like a long shot to make the playoffs.

This one looked like one of those epic Pirates games where the team doesn't even look that impressive -- Ian Snell somehow allowed just one run despite six walks in seven innings, and the Pirates' offense didn't do anything that impressive, either. Still, the Bucs headed into the ninth with the score tied 2-2.

Something funny happened on the way to the Wagnerian fifteen-inning tragedy, however. Jose Bautista singled in the bottom of the ninth and, after a fielder's choice and another single by Doug Mientkiewicz, Brian Bixler wound up at third. No safety squeeze this time, fortunately, as Freddy Sanchez brought the winning run home with a single.

Sanchez had an .860 OPS in May heading into the game tonight, and he added a single and a double. At the tail end of April, MLB.com reported that Sanchez felt like he was ready to break out. There was no quote from Sanchez supporting it, so it was probably more PR-puffery than anything else, but so far it looks prescient. 

Tom Glavine and Ian Snell, 7:05. Here's the box.

One pretty interesting non-Michaels note in the Post-Gazette today:

The Pirates signed starter Juan Mateo, who spent half of 2006 in the Chicago Cubs' rotation, to a minor-league contract. Mateo, 25, rocketed through the Chicago system that year and went 1-3 with a 5.32 ERA in 10 starts for the Cubs, but shoulder trouble dropped him back to Class A last year.

Mateo's shoulder troubles weren't serious enough to require surgery, and he's not that old and was fairly interesting before 2007. In 2005, he mowed down the Florida State League as a 22-year-old, then pitched pretty well in Class AA in 2006. He doesn't have fantastic stuff and last year was bad, but the Bucs need all the free pitching help they can get.

We'll see pretty quickly whether this talk from the Bucs' front office about Morgan's "development" is even believable. The Pirates have Andrew McCutchen and Steve Pearce in two of their outfield spots. In the other is Kevin Thompson, who's Indianapolis' best hitter so far and probably next in the queue when the Bucs need a bench outfielder. Indy's already doing a bunch of juggling trying to play those three guys plus find occasional at bats for Craig Wilson, Adam Boeve and Jorge Cortes. If you're the Pirates and you know McCutchen and Pearce absolutely have to play, and you have Thompson tearing the cover off the ball and you already liked him enough in the offseason to add him to the 40-man roster, then how does Morgan get this development time? You can free up some by moving Pearce to first, but the Bucs already said a couple months ago that they wanted him to concentrate on learning the outfield. 

My guess -- and this is purely speculative, so take it with a grain of salt -- is that the Pirates' new management doesn't even view Morgan as a prospect. In an effort to seem open-minded after his exciting 2007 debut, they kept him on the roster at the beginning of this season, but they didn't play him, and he helped them out by playing badly when he did end up on the field. (Also, Nate McLouth went crazy, so finding a centerfielder doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore. ) If the Bucs had sent Morgan down after Spring Training, half the fanbase would have been furious. Now no one's mad and there won't be any pressure to start Morgan in Pittsburgh anytime soon, and all it cost the Pirates was a handful of bad at bats. My guess is that the Pirates' management probably won't exactly cry their eyes out if Morgan doesn't get a lot of playing time in Indianapolis, either.

Well, I guess I was wrong about Kevin Thompson. The Pirates have traded a player to be named to the Indians for outfielder Jason Michaels. Thunder actually predicted this a few days ago in a comment thread.

I've spent the past few days wishing the Pirates would send Nyjer Morgan down and add a couple of real hitters to their bench. Michaels doesn't qualify, I'm afraid; he was once a solid, undervalued contributor for the Phillies, but he hasn't done much of anything with the Indians the past few years. He draws fewer walks and hits for less average than he used to, and he's never had much power. This year he's hit .207/.258/.276 in 58 at bats. If he had done that for the Pirates, he'd have been adding to the stink emanating from the Bucs' bench. He's probably better than he's showed so far, but he's still more like unwashed socks than a can of Lysol. I'd rather have Thompson, frankly, but the article reports that he's suffering from "wrist soreness."

The Pirates aren't saying how much of Michaels' contract they're taking on, but it presumably isn't a whole lot, and I'm sure the PTBNL isn't a prospect. Still, this move probably has as much to do with Neal Huntington's Cleveland connections as with Michaels' ability.

The Pirates have demoted Nyjer Morgan, perhaps to replace him with Indianapolis outfielder Kevin Thompson, who's no world-beater but can handle all three outfield positions and hit a lot better than Morgan can. The Pirates claim this is about Morgan's "development," but one hopes they don't really think that; Morgan is what he is.

I'm already on record in support of this move, so I won't belabor the point. Instead, I'd like you to ponder, for a second, how many games the Pirates would have lost already if Jim Tracy were still manager and the Pirates were starting Morgan and Ronny Paulino instead of Nate McLouth and Ryan Doumit. What might their record be? 8-26? 10-24?