Braves 11, Pirates 1: Another Blowout, But...

Well, Adam LaRoche is back to…well, being Adam LaRoche in May and April. He was hitless in this series, and looked bad doing it. Swinging at balls in the dirt, swinging right through good pitches, and looking at called third strikes. He constantly came up to bat with runners in scoring position and was terrible once again. This guy is the biggest rally killer I’ve ever seen. He can’t get an RBI hit to save his life. Get him out of Pittsburgh already! Expect it to continue against a really good Marlins’ pitching staff. About today’s game, I didn’t really think Duke was as bad as it looked. Sure, he was getting hit today, but Francouer’s hit was a dink of the end of the bat into centerfield. He really made one mistake all day to Martin Prado. He was trying to get the ball in on his hands, but left the ball out over the plate. Prado made him pay and hit a HR (I really like Prado. He can hit.) Yes, the hits were alarming, but I expect a better start next time out for Duke.

Look, I think Andy LaRoche will be fine. He just needed to get that first hit so he could relax. He’s coming in with a new team and wanted to show everybody what he could do after a disappointing second half once he was traded to the Buccos. He was pressing. He looks a lot more relaxed, and he will be fine. His brother is another story. It’s so frustrating watching him hit. He doesnt’ make any adjustments after seeing what a pitcher has got or after seeing how a pitcher pitched him in a previous at-bat. He fouls off every single good pitch he sees. If he doesn’t strike out, he rolls over and hits a weak dribbler somewhere on the infield. The only time he is going to get a hit is when he’s ahead in the count 3-0 or 3-1 (his double in the gap against Houston was on a 3-0 count). He can’t hit the outside pitch. It’s so frustrating to watch him, especially with runners in scoring position. He never comes through. I hope I’m wrong. I hope this series was just one of those series where things didn’t go his way, and I hope he gets back on track during the Marlins’ series. But from what I’ve seen recently and from his first two years here, I highly doubt it. The Marlins have a very good pitching staff, and are probably going to make Adam look worse than the Braves did this weekend.

if the bucs wanted to upgrade their bullpen, washington cut steven shell today, a 25 year old rightie reliever. shell is former angels prospect that fizzled as a starter and got off to a tough start this year, but he’s posted a 2.50 era over 54.0 innings in the big leagues with a 45/21 k/bb rate.

one also has to wonder what drove the nationals into full blown panic mode right now. i mean, it’s not like they didn’t know they’d be terrible.

umm..johnnycuff, why in the world would we want players that are already being cut by the NATIONALS?!?! If you can’t play for the Nats, you probably can’t play major league baseball. No thanks to any players that are cut by the Nats, but hey, then again we are the Pirates and we usually jump on other team’s scrubs.

I’m very confused as to why people said he was struggling and not looking like a big leaguer. Before he got hits, he had something like 17 plate appearances. To say he looked like he didn’t belong, you would think that he would have struck out in something like 9 or 10 of those PAs. He only had I think 3 K’s in those PAs while hitting the ball all over the field, just right at people. Things have now started to fall in for him.

He was bad for two months last year, but 20 PAs aren’t reason enough to give up on him and now he’s starting to hit it where they ain’t. He will be fine.

is the stat that concerns me the most. Our 3 – 5 hitters left something like 10 guys stranded out there. I know it’s only one game and I know based on the outcome those runs wouldn’t have a difference anyway but things change when you’re pushing runs across the plate and pressuring the other pitcher. It’s a ton easier to pitch when you’ve got a 6 run lead as apposed to a 2 or 3 run lead. I’m thinking that LaRoche and Hinske should be splitting some more time at 1B. Also, do you think that signing Pedro Martinez sounds like a crazy idea? I’m thinking his asking price would be too high for us. He’s still got to be good for 10 – 15 wins. That way we could can have stronger bullpen with Karstens/Ohrendroff out there as maybe a long reliever/fill-in starter. I’m probably talking crazy talk.

Interesting, given the amount of soccer talent in the country. Also, not cheap at $6.5 million.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Rays-wonder-if-soccer-mad-Brazil-can-produce-MLB?urn=mlb,157414