Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Gorzelanny dominates,Quinn finally signs.

Tom Gorzelanny fanned 9 Diamondbacks in 7 innings and was helped by quite a few Arizona miscues as the Pirates won the opener of their road trip in Arizona 8-3.
Gorzelanny allowed 3 hits to young newcomer Justin Upton,but only 1 to the rest of the Rattlers on his way to his 10th win of the year.
It was the first appearance since July 25 for the lefthander,who left that game with shoulder fatigue in the 3rd inning.
Tonight,he certainly looked sharp and rested.
The suddenly hot Ronny Paulino led the Pirates with 2 RBI,while teammates Jack Wilson,Nate McLouth,Jose Bautista and Freddy Sanchez all finished with 1 apiece.
Series continues at 9:35 in Phoenix.

Brady Quinn finally reached an agreement with the Browns and is expected to be in camp today.
Quinn agreed to a deal that is worth $20.2 million, with $7.75 million guaranteed and could reach $30 million with incentives.
Quinn got the money he wanted,but likely has lost any chance for a large amount of game action this year.
The process begins today.
Is Brady Quinn a player to build around?or another overrated Notre Dame player that is just the next in Cleveland disappointments?

Pitching Matchup

Pittsburgh: Paul Maholm (7-13) at Arizona: Byung-Hyun Kim (6-5)

Bullpen Notes

The New Jersey Devils signed former Islander forward Arron Asham to a 1 year deal.
Asham scored 11 goals and 12 assists last year on Long Island and adds grit to the New Jersey forwards.

Wake Forest is expected to name Dino Gaudio as the replacement for the late Skip Prosser tomorrow in Winston-Salem.
Gaudio was Prosser's top assistant at all levels,but was a failure as a head man at both Loyola (Md) and at Army.
Cannot bash Wake though at this point,simply no other candidates available at this time of year.
Wake Forest almost was forced to take someone off Prosser's staff.

On the signing front

Had a good evening last night in Frederick catching up with the Potomac Nationals.
Every player signed and had no problems doing so.
I had a chance to spend a few minutes each with pitchers Marco Estrada and Cory Van Allen and talk a bit.
Of course,both signed their Suns cards as well.
Both great guys and missed in Hagerstown for sure.
The game finally enabled me to get all the Suns stars from their team set that moved up to Potomac.
Chris Marrero,Justin Maxwell,Mike Daniel all signed their Suns and Potomac cards.
I asked Mike when their pictures were taken for the Potomac set and he said they were snapped on their 1st day with the P-Nats in Winston-Salem.
The odd thing was this-Brett McMillan was promoted with them on the same day and traveled with them to North Carolina,yet McMillan was not in the set.
Odd.
Another great catch was the Nationals 1st pick this year in Ross Detwiler.
Ross signed his USA baseball card and seemed like he was enjoying his first day in High A ball,as he was promoted earlier in the day.
Plus former Sun Marvin Lowrance,who I had no cards of when he was here,signed a few as well.
Marvin is a great guy with a cool sense of humor.
Plus,I love his choice in music for his plate appearances-"Big Bad John" by Jimmy Dean.
I wish I had asked him why he uses that,would have made a cool bullpen note.
Former Pirate and current Potomac pitching coach Randy Tomlin signed a few for me as well.
Always good to add Buccos to the collection.
Ryan was on television offering his opinions on Barry Bonds before the game on the Fox affiliate in Washington.
He is now quite the star.
The only downside of the day?
I couldn't stay for the game,got called into work early.
Bummer.

Thanks for a very helpful reader for their helpfulness in Frederick.
They wish to be unnamed,but I just wanted to thank them for their help.

Until next time

Photo Credits
Gorzelanny=AP Photo-Matt Yorl
Quinn-Icon SMI-Ron Schwane
Van Allen-Baylor University

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