There were a number of interesting stories in this one:

-P- Jack Wilson was pulled from the game with a calf problem after he came up lame while running out a single. I don't know how long he'll be out, but he did look like he was legitimately hurt. Freddy Sanchez had already been pulled from the game for more innocent reasons, so the Pirates had a middle infield of Chris Gomez and Luis Rivas. If Wilson has to go on the DL, hopefully Brian Bixler will be called up and allowed to start; I don't want to see Gomez or Rivas starting for any substantial period of time.

-P- I'm told that Sanchez was removed from the game at John Russell's "discretion." Well, that apparently took Russell's entire supply of discretion, because he let Zach Duke pitch forever in the sixth even though Duke seemed to be running up 2-0 or 3-0 counts against every batter he faced. Duke then let a string of batters reach base, leading the Bucs to allow all three of the Braves' runs in the sixth. Duke clearly should've been removed after Chipper Jones and Jeff Francoeur got on in that inning; I have no idea what Russell was thinking. Duke ended up throwing 117 pitches, including about 35 after he clearly had lost it. That ranks right up there with any dumb thing Jim Tracy ever did to Tom Gorzelanny, and it's worth watching going forward.

-P- Before that, though, Duke pitched decently. He didn't exactly rack up strikeouts, and that's definitely a source of concern, but his fastball had some life, and he didn't walk anyone.

-P- Mike Hampton was pulled before the game with a strained chest muscle, meaning his return from 263 arm surgeries has been postponed.

-P- In the tenth inning, Bobby Cox brought in Royce Ring to face Adam LaRoche, but instead of taking pitcher Chris Resop out of the game, he moved him to the outfield, then brought him back to the mound after Ring struck LaRoche out. I know these kinds of things happen every so often, but I've never seen it. It was pretty cool, like something out of the climax of a bad baseball movie.

-P- Several guys played well: Ronny Paulino made a good stop on a ball in the dirt and actually hustled down the line to reach on an error, although he also missed a chance to blow the game open by striking out with the bases loaded early on. Nate McLouth made a couple of fantastic catches; he looks great in center. And Tyler Yates looked good again, throwing 96-97 MPH fastballs by Chipper Jones like Jones had just been called up from the minors or something.

The Bucs managed to score a run in the 10th on an RBI single by Xavier Nady. Nyjer Morgan nearly undid that by missing a ball at the wall in center and allowing Mark Kotsay to come around for a triple, but Matt Capps managed to shut the door.

Like the first game, this one was as exhausting as it was exhilarating. This series leaves me with pretty serious questions about the Pirates' pitching, in particular, and I hope Wilson's okay, but I certainly feel satisfied from an entertainment-dollar perspective.

About stuff like this. Apparently, one good game makes you worthy of a long-term deal, even if you're 29, are blocking a prospect, and haven't had a solidly above-average season in your whole life.

One more thought before I head off to class: In 2002, John Smoltz was the Braves' closer. He allowed eight earned runs on April 6, then allowed just 22 more the whole year over the course of 80 innings. It still took him until the middle of June to permanently get his ERA below 5. How must Damaso Marte be feeling right now? Not only did he cost the Bucs a chance to win last night and narrowly avoid completely blowing the game before that, but he hasn't pitched more than 59 innings since 2004. His final line for the year is going to look pretty raunchy, almost regardless of how he pitches the rest of the year.

Well, there wasn't much to like about this one. Jair Jurrjens had no problems with the Pirates. He looked decent - his fastball regularly hits 93 and he has a very good changeup - but he wasn't throwing many breaking pitches, and hitters should've been able to settle it and rap out a few hits just on guesswork. But they didn't. Adam LaRoche was awful, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, and the bottom third of the lineup did nothing.

Tom Gorzelanny still managed to keep the Bucs in the game despite not really pitching that impressively, and the Bucs were down by one until the eighth. However, Damaso Marte went out again and pitched like he was trying to lose. He got one out, allowed four runs (including a long homer by Mark Teixeira) and now has a remarkable 81.00 ERA. Evan Meek made his major league debut after that, but it was hard to get a good look at him because he only threw nine pitches. It looked like his fastball is pretty good - 92 MPH or so with good movement. However, he still managed to give up two runs after allowing a three-run jack to Yunel Escobar.

On the bright side, Ryan Doumit had a good game, with two hits and a couple of good stops behind the plate, and Freddy Sanchez was good on both sides of the ball until an error late in the game. Also, Tyler Yates does throw hard.

A few bits of miscellany:

-P- If you happen to be looking for a place to convene online while watching the game, the new commenting system here at Bucs Dugout is the bees knees. Your comments upload instantly, and the comments autorefresh, so you don't have to reload the page every few minutes. I hope that won't be viewed as competitive or too salesman-like; I'm just pointing out that the new comment system is really cool.

-P- Hey Bucdaddy, I just can't get email through to your address. Could you send me an email from a different address?Thanks.

-P- Seriously, how does a photo like this get by Major League Baseball? Shouldn't someone be looking at these things?

1. NEW YORK METS: The trade of Lastings Milledge was unforgivably dumb, and they've got big problems at catcher and in the corner outfield spots (Angel Pagan started in left in the Mets' opener yesterday). There are also questions in the rotation - fifth starter Mike Pelfrey has done little in the minors to prove he's ready, and who knows what they'll get from Pedro Martinez. The core of this team, though, is so strong - David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and the newly-acquired Johan Santana can hang with any other team's best four players - that New York should be able to hold off the Phillies and Braves. If one of those four goes down for any extended period, though, all bets are off.

2. PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES: Another team with a very strong core and a questionable supporting cast. Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Cole Hamels are obviously great, but Hamels isn't a great bet to stay healthy. Which could be a big problem, since rotation depth is an issue - their third starter is Jamie Moyer, which tells you most of what you need to know. They've got some dubious players (like Pedro Feliz) in key roles and don't have a lot of minor-league talent that's likely to help anytime soon.

3. ATLANTA BRAVES: ESPN.com's pick of the Braves to win the World Series was a bad joke, but Atlanta is an interesting team, and they could sneak into the playoffs if the houses of cards the Mets and Phillies have built fall down. Like those teams, they have problems at the back of their rotation (Mike Hampton and Tom Glavine won't scare anyone, and it's too early to expect much from Jair Jurrjens). Unlike New York and Philadelphia, though, the Braves have decent contingency plans (including Jo Jo Reyes and Chuck James, both of whom will start the year at Class AAA Richmond). What they lack is serious star power - there's Mark Teixeira, Chipper Jones, John Smoltz and Tim Hudson, but Jones and Smoltz are big injury risks.

4. WASHINGTON NATIONALS: Not a great team by any stretch, but I'm going to make a point to watch 10 or 15 Nationals games this year. I watched maybe only five last year, and didn't really appreciate Manny Acta's awesome managing until I read the Nationals chapter in Baseball Prospectus 2008. Look at the Nationals' pitchers last year - it's stunning that they only allowed 783 runs, even in RFK. Only one pitcher threw more than 118 innings, and the Nats relied on so many no-name pitchers that looking at their staff can make you feel if you accidentally clicked on a Columbus Clippers page or something. Acta was a big part of the Nationals' overachieving, in that he used his relievers often and well and relied on unusual infield shifts, taking advantage of Ryan Zimmerman's outstanding range at third. Acta will have to pull off another zany high-wire act this year, but he'll have a couple more talented outfielders to work with (Milledge and Elijah Dukes), and Nick Johnson is back as well.

5. FLORIDA MARLINS: Almost as bad as the Giants, but in a different way. Sure, Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller are interesting, and they've got some other talented youngsters in Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla and Jeremy Hermida, but what else is there? Their starting pitching, which looked so promising after 2006, completely came apart in 2007, and now they're starting the year with a four-man rotation that includes Miller (who isn't ready yet), Mark Hendrickson (terrible), Rick VandenHurk (6.83 ERA last year) and Scott Olsen (5.81 ERA last year). Their defense is a disaster. They'll score some runs, but will give back far more with their arms and gloves. This is probably a 100-loss team.

Last night's game seems like it was interesting for all kinds of reasons. Unfortunately, I missed it - I was flying home while it was going on. I thought I might be able to catch some of it, but my flight got delayed, so I had to settle for a cool aerial view of the home opener at PETCO Park, which was going on while my plane was landing at the airport downtown. I'll hopefully be in the comment thread for the next game.

Anyway, one of the reasons the game was interesting was that Ryan Doumit started at catcher, even though the opposing starter was left-handed and Ronny Paulino pastes lefties. This actually doesn't surprise me a whole lot, and I suspect we're going to see a lot of Doumit and not so much of Paulino. Just a hunch.

Via Primer, this is a cool article that attempts to explain the differences between Jason Bay in 2006 and Bay in 2007 by using video to demonstrate differences in his swing. It's all very anecdotal, but the general idea is believable, and here it is: the 2007 Bay was having mechanical problems in that he wasn't planting his foot and rotating his hips in a seamless way.

I don't feel overly qualified to comment too much on this kind of thing, but you should take a look at the video and let me know what you think. The author never really makes the connection, but his observation about Bay's alleged mechanical problems is consistent with the possibility that most of Bay's struggles resulted from his left knee injury. If the knee was bothering him, it might have caused a hitch in his foot plant that would prevent him from generating power with his hips.

Hooray. McLouth had a much better Spring than Nyjer Morgan, and has won the job he already deserved. Morgan will make the team, too, as the Kevin Thompson cut suggested.

Luis Rivas has made the team:

Rivas is just awful and I don't want him in the starting lineup, period. He was kind of the Twins' equivalent of Jose Castillo - he showed some potential very early in his career, then spent years disappointing everyone. His statistics in Class AAA in 2006 and 2007 suggest he hasn't learned anything and may in fact have gotten worse. Let's hope Sanchez gets better very soon.

The cuts are unsurprising. When Dessens was signed to a minor league deal, there was some speculation that he had a good shot at making the team, but we've heard little about him since then. Fossum and Bayliss were unlikely to make the team in any case, and Bayliss' move off the 40-man roster was probably overdue.

The Thompson cut suggests that both Nate McLouth and Nyjer Morgan are going to make the team, which the Pirates had been hinting would happen. In a scenario where the lefty McLouth won the starting job, Thompson might have been useful as a right-handed bench bat, and if I were GM, I probably would've sent Morgan to the minors and kept Thompson. But it's not a big deal and I'm mostly just as happy to keep Morgan, as long as he doesn't start.

There are several good things from off the beaten path to read today, so away we go:

-P- I've never heard of the author of this piece about the ten best things about being a Pirates fan, but he obviously is a fan of the team - this is dead-on. An excerpt:

-P- Vlad has a really good article about former Pirate prospect Alex Ramirez.

-P- The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an article about the Pirates' streak of losing seasons. Expect to see lots, lots, lots more of these as the season progresses, unless the Bucs miraculously pull off a .500 season.

Until now, I'd thought that was kind of a Zen question, really, like "What did your face look like before your ancestors were born?" or something. Sadly, it isn't - the Giants "addressed" their middle infield problems today by claiming Jose Castillo from the Marlins. Ponder that, grasshopper.