Astros 6, Pirates 4: Bucs' Offense Sputters Against Russ Ortiz

by Charlie on Jun 7, 2009 5:34 PM EDT Comment 4 comments

More photos » by David J. Phillip - AP

The Pirates catch Carlos Lee in a rundown on Sunday.

The Bucs allowed six runs today, but they at least looked interesting. Ian Snell probably earned another start with six innings and only three runs, although he allowed four singles and four doubles and generally looked like he narrowly avoided disaster. Three more runs were charged to Steven Jackson and Jesse Chavez, but I'll just chalk that up to being one of those things--even good relievers allow runs sometimes, and the more I watch Jackson and Chavez the more I think they really can be good relievers. Jackson got himself into trouble with walks, but he flashed an excellent splitter. And Chavez's stuff looked as good as I've ever seen it: his fastball touched 97 on FSN's radar gun, and he struck out Jeff Keppinger with an 89 MPH slider.

Andrew McCutchen had three hits, meanwhile, but the rest of the Pirates' hitters continued their unfortunate trend of struggling against pitchers they should be destroying. Starter Felipe Paulino left the game in the second with some sort of groin issue, so Russ Ortiz came on and pitched 4 1/3 scoreless innings, walking one batter and scattering four singles. Ortiz is terrible and has been for years, and yet this isn't the first time in the past few years that he's shut them down for a long stretch. After Ortiz left the game, the Pirates did manage to start rallies in the seventh and ninth, but Adam LaRoche grounded into a double play with the bases loaded in the seventh, and Freddy Sanchez fouled out to end the game in the ninth.

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Can’t comment on the game, since I hadda work today (and thank alla those who had the kind words in my absence), but I feel that we’re as strong as we were before the trade,and probably a little more so.

Also, thanks for updating the “Entrenched” & “On the Fringe” & “Prospects,” Charlie – I look forward to WTM’s assessments.

Free your ass and your mind will follow.

by cocktailsfor2 on Jun 7, 2009 10:04 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Todays game was a Pirates game. Full of blown opportunity.
As far as the trade and whether or not they’ve been as strong, well, it’s hard to be worse. Rather, more inconsistent. Behind the emotion of the McLouth trade is a glaring fact: he was hitting .251. Sure he lead the team with 9 HR but that’s not even good enough to be in the top 10 of the NL. He sits at #20 on the NL HR list. I didn’t like the trade initially either… but the Buccos aren’t going to get any better by keepin’ on keepin’ on. At least they didn’t trade him for some washed up 40+ yr old pitcher and get a bucket of cash with him.

by Jesse G on Jun 8, 2009 12:08 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs