The Pirates today optioned left-hander Tom Gorzelanny to Triple-A Indianapolis.
There was no immediate word who will replace Gorzelanny in the starting rotation. Right-hander John Van Benschoten is still with the team -– although he was rocked Wednesday for five runs in 2 1/3 innings against Cincinnati.
I don't know what's sadder--that Gorzelanny isn't pitching like a major leaguer at this point, or that it's not immediately clear that they have anyone better to replace him. Maybe Ty Taubenheim gets another shot?
In any case, maybe Gorzelanny will benefit from some work with a different pitching coach. I was struck by this bit from the Post-Gazette today:
During a sideline session before that start, Gorzelanny asked pitching coach Jeff Andrews if he should stop taking his arms over his head before beginning his delivery.
"He asked my opinion," Andrews said. "I thought there was a lot of excess movement that maybe didn't need to be there."
I'm sure I'm missing some context here, but this makes it sound like Andrews was really out of ideas. If Gorzelanny just suggests a major change to his delivery and Andrews just says "Sure," maybe Andrews isn't the best person to coach Gorzelanny right now.
There's no way to gloss over how bad Gorzelanny has been. He leads the majors in walks; he's tenth in the majors in runs allowed; his velocity is off. It's a little strange that he got sent down one start after an eight-strikeout performance against the Rays, especially since a bunch of the runs he allowed yesterday were allowed to score simply because John Russell left him in too long. But I can't really disagree that he shouldn't be in the majors right now; instead of sending him to the minors, though, I think the Pirates might consider just shutting him down for a while.