I get back to San Diego late tomorrow night, then fly east the next day, so thanks for tolerating my travel schedule, and things will be back to semi-normal soon. A couple of things:

-P- I got an email today asking who the Pirates' starting outfielders next year will be. At this point, your guess is as good as mine; the only player who I'd feel pretty comfortable writing in ink is Nate McLouth. It's not quite clear to me that Andrew McCutchen will be ready by the beginning of the season, but if he is, he obviously has to start. So it's important, to me, that we see as much as possible of Brandon Moss and Steve Pearce the rest of the season, while there are clearly spots open for both of them. Jason Michaels, fun as he is, shouldn't be in the lineup every other day. If McCutchen is ready at the start of 2009, the battle for the third starting spot may work itself out by the end of 2008 anyway. (If it doesn't, a Moss/Pearce platoon might be quite good.) One silver lining to clearly being out of the pennant race is the ability to try out players without much risk. The Bucs have already started both Moss and Pearce in a couple games since Moss was acquired, and hopefully they'll keep doing that. (By the way: homers by both Moss and Andy LaRoche today? Nice.)

-P- The Bucs just traded AAA infielder Josh Wilson to the Red Sox for a PTBNL. The Pirates can do that now that all their infielders are healthy; Wilson might well have wound up in the Luis Rivas role at the beginning of the season (and might actually have been better suited for the job), but he was designated for assignment in late March and sent to Indianapolis. This may be a hint that the Bucs won't be dealing Jack Wilson this August, although that was unlikely anyway.