The Pirates earned a sweep yesterday with a 5-4 win over the Astros in Houston. The Sweep was the Pirates 1st ever over the Astros since their move to Minute Maid Park.
I wish I had more insight from what I saw,but a power outage here in town KO'ed my electricity until the 6th.
Which means I missed all runs except for the 9th Inning Homer by Craig Biggio off
Salomon Torres.
The funny thing about the Biggio homer was this-just as he went to the plate,I spoke that "Biggio seems to have had trouble getting around on the ball in the series."Next Pitch-Bang!
Tom Gorzelanny got the win over 5 Innings of work,although for just 5 innings,his pitch count seems a bit high.
Sorry not more in depth,blame the screw-ups at city power.
Tonight is the season opener for the Hagerstown Suns,but more importantly here-The
Hickory Crawdads are coming to town for the ONLY time all season.
I will try to talk about the Crawdads here,but be warned-I will complain OFTEN about the idiotic South Atlantic league schedule.
The Crawdads look pretty weak,if their record last year at Williamsport was any indication.
The hurlers look non-descript with possible exceptions being Michael Felix, Jared Hughes and Stephen Mcfarland.
Felix was the Pirates 2nd round pick last year from Troy State,he had a respectable ERA,but went 1-6(albeit on a bad team) and walked more than expected.
Felix should start games this year,but may be a reliever in the long haul.
Hughes had nice numbers at Williamsport,but was hit hard in his Hickory outings.
McFarland mostly pitched out of the pen at Williamsport and his numbers intrigue me as someone to keep an eye on.
I thought Pat Bresnahen had nice numbers at Williamsport and figured he would be the staff ace,but He surprisingly was skipped a step and will begin the season at High A Lynchburg
The infield looks be led by 3b Eddie Prasch (a returning Crawdad) and 2b Jim Negrych (a local player from Pitt).
Prasch improved over the 2nd half last year,but still could use some extra time at Low A.
Negrych seems to be a player that his bat will have to carry him through higher levels.
The outfield has the most controversial player in Jamie Romak.
Romak had a reasonably solid season for Rome in the SAL last year and was the other player acquired in the LaRoche-Gonzalez deal.
I would have thought that Romak would start at Lynchburg,but apparently Captain Dave and the crew have decided to start him at Hickory.
Either the Pirates look at Romak as a toss-in and dont consider him a real prospect or there is a logjam at the upper levels and he goes up ASAP.We will see.
During a visit to Williamsport last season,I had a few fans tell me that they thought Alex Presley was the best player on a bad team.His numbers dont seem to be anything special,but hey-I am open minded!
James Boone returns after a injury-plagued 2006.Boone was the Bucs 3rd rounder in 2005 and needs a big year at the age of 24 to still be considered a prospect.
Ill try to give a game report tomorrow and maybe a picture or two as well.
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