Welcome to Bizarro World!

The title says it all.
The Pirates blasted the visiting Birdos into the Ohio River 15-1 and how they did that was just amazing.
A grand slam homer from Ronny Paulino?
A 1 run,4 hit pitching performance from Tony Armas?
A total of 3 homers on the night with 15 runs and 20 hits?
Nothing negative that I can say tonight other than it was just one of those nights that the world turns upside down.
Tony Armas pitched like we thought he could after his signing and picked up his first win as a Pirate (1-3).
Armas fanned 5 in his 6 and a third inning stint and most importantly only walked one.
Armas has seemed to have problems getting the ball where he needed to all season and tonight was able to avoid those problems.
Armas made the most of his only start as Matt Morris will likely grab that spot in the rotation.
Ronny Paulino(6) quickly changed the boos left over from the night before into cheers with his 1st inning homer with the bases loaded to deep left.
Adam LaRoche(15) and Jack Wilson (5) also hit homers for the Buccos.
I would not want to say that this is the turning point or anything,but for one night-things were not quite so bad for Pirate fans.
The series ends today at 12:35.

The Hagerstown Suns beat the visiting Augusta Greenjackets in both games of a twin-bill by the same score of 3-2.
Our favorite Sun Erik Arnesen allowed just 1 run over 5 innings to win Game 2 and even his season tally at 5-5.
I missed the games due to personal issues,but I will be there tonight to see the finale vs Augusta.

Pitching Matchup

St.Louis: Anthony Reyes (1-10) at Pittsburgh: Shane Youman (2-3) 12:35

Bullpen Notes

Two great reads from the Post -Gazette on the trade deadline.
This is analyzing the nuts and bolts of the Matt Morris deal and the other about the failed swap that would have moved Jack Wilson to Detroit.

The thing that I am puzzled by on yesterday's dealings is this-the Tigers were apparently offering 2 nice prospects,but the Captain wanted to haggle over dollars.
But from all reports had no trouble giving the Giants everything they wanted on the Morris contract.
Add them up and what do you get?
A panicked GM that is playing for the last 2 months,not the long term.

Over in Rice a Roni land-the Giants fans are ecstatic over moving Morris and his hefty salary and GM Brian Sabean was quoted from a radio chat that the "PTBNL will be a pretty good player".
Scary stuff.

All-around nice guy Buddy Bell resigned from managing the Royals at the end of the year.
I will always like Buddy and believe that he managed some of the worst teams(talent-wise) of the last 25 years between these Royals teams and the Tigers teams he managed in the past.

The New Jersey Devils locked promising forward Zach Parise up for the next few years with a multi-year contract.
Great move keeping the young scorer for a decent period of time.
Defenseman Paul Martin still needs to be re-signed and then GM Lou Lamoriello can work on a few role players to finish up the roster.

Photo credits
Pirates-AP Photo-Gene Puskar
Bell-AP Photo-Chris O'Meara
Parise-Getty Images-Jamie Squire