-P- It appears that Chris Duffy may have been just stressed and upset about baseball in general, rather than with the Pirates in particular. As someone who's got a major paper due date and an hour-long presentation in the next ten days, I can empathize, but I've never up and quit anything for those sorts of reasons. Then again, I'm just a musician. Some might be inclined to think Duffy's crazy for passing on all the money he'd be making as a ballplayer, but if you hate what you're doing, money's not going to make you happy. Whatever's going on with Duffy, I wish him well.
-P- Elsewhere in the Post-Gazette, the Stats Geek has a fun column that mentions one of the more amusing/depressing Pirates-related occurrences of the offseason: message-board pining for Ty Wigginton. I never commented on his homer binge at the beginning of the season, because when the Pirates dropped him, I was of the opinion that there was no problem, because he wasn't any good. The last month has suggested that, indeed, he stinks. How awful does your team have to be, though, to have fans pining for Ty Wigginton? Elsewhere in the column, the Stats Geek composes a team of overpaid ex-Pirates that's a lesson in the dangers of spending on veterans, more than anything else.
-P- In last night's game, meanwhile, the Bucs made Orlando Hernandez look like Chris Carpenter, while Damaso Marte undid some decent work from Oliver Perez, who kept runs off the board despite being a little wild. The Pirates lost again.