The Trib cooks the statistics to exaggerate how bad Kip Wells has been lately. For whatever it's worth, Wells didn't look that bad yesterday - his pitches had good movement, and a lot of the hits he allowed were soft singles.
Still, he wasn't good, which weakens the Pirates' chances of getting something nice for him before the trading deadline. That may be a blessing in disguise - of all the Pirates I've heard mentioned in trade rumors recently, he and Craig Wilson are the only ones with any star potential. (For what it's worth, I think Wilson is what he is at this point; I'm just saying there might be some chance he'll improve.) Wilson's injury and Wells' struggles are killing the Pirates' chances of trading them for good, younger players, but they're also killing the chances that Dave Littlefield will trade them for a bunch of junk. I'd like to see Wells and Wilson in Pittsburgh next year, getting at least one more chance to blossom. I'm worried that Wells, especially, would suddenly become a top-tier starter if he were traded to another team.