Tom Gorzelanny pitched well in his attempt for his 15th victory,but settled for a no decision in the Pirates late inning rally to top the Milwaukee Brewers 7-4.
Gorzelanny allowed just 2 runs in his 6 and two thirds stint,but reliever Francisco Osoria was unable to protect the 4-2 lead as the Brewers scored 2 runs off Osoria in his one-third of an inning.
I could certainly tolerate never seeing Osoria again after this season for sure.
Ronny Paulino's single gave the Pirates the lead in the 8th and Josh Phelps blasted a two run triple in the following at bat off Derrick "Grrr..Tighten bolts" Turnbow to add the insurance runs.
Steven Pearce finished with 2 RBI on the day,while Freddy Sanchez and Jose Bautista each knocked in a run.
John Grabow got the gift win after pitching a third of an inning and moved to 3-1,while Matt Capps pitched the 9th and earned his 16th save.
The win keeps the Pirates pipe dream of avoiding the losing season alive.
The Pirates are off tomorrow before a three game series in Houston this weekend.
Now a few words on the canning of the Captain(I wish his wifes name was Tennille).
I have been asked by many people about my happiness with the firing of Dave Littlefield and yes,I was pleased.
But it only makes a difference if the Pirates make a good hire to replace Littlefield.
After all,Pirates fans were sitting here six years ago and were thrilled to see Cam Bonifay go and this new guy from Florida come to Steeltown and fix the mistakes of Bonifay.
Instead Pirates fans got someone worse than Bonifay and that was damn difficult to find.
Littlefield did make a few good moves and in order to be fair,I will present them first.
1) Obtaining Freddy Sanchez from the Red Sox.
The Captain did acquire a batting champion for basically Jeff Suppan and bringing him here gives him credit.
However,keep in mind that Littlefield also paid big bucks to Joe Randa to third in 2006 because he thought Sanchez was a nice utility player and was not a full time player.
Points for bringing Freddy to Pittsburgh,but loses a few for waiting so long to give him a real chance to play,losing production time from Sanchez and flushing money away on Randa as a result.
If Randa would not have gotten hurt in 2006-we still would not know how good Freddy Sanchez is!
2)The Jason Bay deal
The Captain did add Jason Bay and Oliver Perez for the only blue chip Pirate that Littlefield could trade in Brian Giles.
As far as production goes Bay for Giles would have been a good deal,but including Perez's electric arm would have been an awesome acquistion.
But after Jim Tracy and Jim Colborn screwed Perez up by trying to change a strikeout pitcher to a contact one (Brilliant move,genuises),Perez was moved to New York for Xavier Nady.
Nady has been a reasonably solid Pirate,but Perez has returned to past glory and been a terrific Met.
A good deal that could have been better.
3) Adam LaRoche
Littlefield did manage to add a solid 1st baseman in LaRoche for Mike Gonzalez in a deal that I would have made,but even here,he still bobbled the ball as he threw in Brent Lillibridge into the deal.
Lillibridge could be on the Braves roster in 2008 and would have been a cheap replacement for Jack Wilson,if he is dealt.
Still a good deal,but could have been even better.
That about covers the Captain's good moves.
The bad moves?
A far longer list,but here goes and not always in order.
1) Chris Young
The Captain paid Young a 1 million dollar bonus to leave Princeton.
After a small period in the system,Young was traded to Montreal for Matt Herges.
Young is now one of the best starters in the league.
Herges did have a productive year or two after the deal.
But they were in San Francisco.
Herges was released in his FIRST spring training in Pittsburgh.
But didnt Littlefield believe in building with young pitching?
And that leads us to number 2.
2) Drafting College Pitchers
These could be many numbers,but I will condense the screwups into 1 spot.
Bryan Bullington and Brad Lincoln each suffered injuries and Bullington's ceiling was limited to begin with.
Paul Maholm has improved this year,but still projects to be average at best,while Daniel Moskos has been pounded at State College.
All "safe" picks brought to you Pirates fans by Captain Dave.
3) Aramis Ramirez
The Captain was ordered to move Ramirez to save money and I realize that he was going to get nothing resembling top dollar in return.
But couldnt he have gotten more than journeyman Jose Hernandez,faded prospect Bobby Hill and minor leaguer Matt Bruback?
Bruback was so good the Pirates waived him 2 weeks after bringing him in.
4)Rule V
Without getting into detail,the Pirates lost 5 of the first 6 players taken in the rule V draft of 2003.
What makes this even more laughable is these facts-that Littlefield protected only 37 of the allowed 40 to "have room for free agents" and some of the classic stars that were protected such
as Joe Beimel,Jason Boyd,Carlos Rivera and Mike Lincoln etc.
Lincoln was then waived before spring training.
In hindsight,only Chris Shelton appears to be even a minor loss because Littlefield was able to re-acquire Jose Bautista,but no matter what,the Pirates looked either bush league or ridiculous.
You make the call.....
But Bautista leads to this............
5)Kris Benson
In 2004,Kris Benson was pitching as well as he ever had and his contract was up at the end of the year.
This being Pittsburgh,you knew he had to be traded to get any value at all for him and Benson was the best available pitcher on the market.
So numerous teams were making offers and one was the Phillies,who had a prospect that seemed to be stuck at AAA since the Phils had Jim Thome at 1st.
You may have heard of him...fellow by the name of Howard.Ryan Howard.
So your Pittsburgh Pirates were offered RYAN HOWARD for Kris Benson and Littlefield passed.
I think there were two reasons and one is well known while the other is speculation on my part.
But I would wager it is correct.
Sources close to both sides confirm that the Pirates passed on Howard because he thought the Bucs had a similar player to Howard in Brad Eldred.
Really-in the mind of Dave Littlefield-Ryan Howard=Brad Eldred.
If that does not tell you about the skills of the Captain-nothing will.
The other reason is this.
In the six months following the Rule V fiasco above,Littlefield had been roasted by media,fans etc for the stupidity of the whole thing and he decided that he HAD to get Jose Bautista back to settle things down a bit.
Bautista had been passed from Baltimore to Tampa to Kansas City because of the rules of Rule V and Littlefield had made it an imperative for any team that wanted Benson had to get Bautista.
So the Mets swapped prospect Justin Huber to the Royals and then sent Bautista and Ty Wigginton to Pittsburgh.
Wigginton would become a useful player elsewhere,but his most notable achievement in Pittsburgh was running over and destroying the career of catcher Koyie Hill one night in Arizona.
So in order to bring back a player that should have never been exposed to begin with,the most valuable deadline chip of that season was gone for a journeyman and a minor leaguer that should have still been in the organziation anyway.
I am getting a headache.
6) Jason Schmidt.
Littlefield's first chance to show his GM chops came after getting the job as Jason Schmidt was in the same situation as Benson would be a few years later.
To be fair to the Captain,the Jason Schmidt that became a top of the rotation starter in San Francisco was not of the same caliber in Pittsburgh,but he still was a coveted hurler around the 2001 deadline being just 28 years old.
The return?Crappy outfielder Armando Rios and long man Ryan Vogelsong.
Rios didnt last long,but Vogelsong sure did as the Pirates gave him every chance to show his abilities before he quietly went to Japan after 2006.
Schmidt? Well,he never won fewer than 11 games in his stint with the Giants and only once had an ERA over 4.
Again-the Captain had to move Schmidt or get nothing in return,but all too often in these deals-nothing would have been just as good.
7) Garbage Free Agency
Littlefield made a living dumpster diving among faded free agents.
Some were guys that used to be near-stars such as Reggie "25 votes" Sanders or Kenny Lofton,some were role players like Joe Randa or Matt Stairs,some were even guys who once had great years like Jeromy Burnitz or Raul Mondesi,some were players that once were hot prospects that didnt work out such as the current Buc Tony Armas and some were just wastes of space from the time that they got off the plane like Randall Simon or Chris Stynes.
It didnt matter because Littlefield would trot these guys out every winter and behave like these signings were finally going to close the competitive gap.
Sure...............
To be fair to Littlefield,once in a while some of these guys were actually productive.
Reggie Sanders had a huge year in Pittsburgh as he hit 31 homers,but instead of moving him for young talent to a contender,The Captain kept Sanders all season and watched him walk away to St.Louis for nothing.
Oh well,at least they didn't get Ryan Vogelsong for him.
But usually the return from these guys were poor such as Mondesi leaving the team for good after 3 weeks saying he wanted to retire.
Littlefield then released Mondesi,who then shortly signed with the Angels,his love for the game quickly renewed.
Pirates return? 0.
But again that beat watching Ryan Vogelsong try to pitch for 5 years.
Randall Simon was another waste of time and money.
Simon was a favorite of Lloyd McClendon,so fans got to watch Simon's fat ass waddle to first and run slower than a dead box turtle that was thrown to first base by a 95 year old woman.
I swear,if I could choose Dave Littlefield's penance for his tenure,it would be to force him to watch Randall Simon tap balls to second and wobble down the first base line 24/7 for about 3 years.
We had to see it,he should too!
I could give more examples,but you get the point.
My head is really killing me now!
8) Indianapolis has a strong bullpen!
For a while,it seemed like every time the Pirates made a deal it was to add a bullpen arm to the AAA Indianapolis Indians.
Such as the Summer of 2006 when the Pirates made 3 deals,the Perez-Nady deal mentioned above and these two moving Sean Casey,who was the big acquistion of the winter of 06 and Kip Wells.
After all the PR about bringing Sean Casey home to Pittsburgh,he lasted 3 months in the Steel City before moving to Detroit for minor league reliever Brian Rogers,while Wells was shipped to Texas for Jesse Chavez.Chavez is (C'mon Guess) a reliever who was added to the Indy roster.
Rogers was ripped in his cameo in Pittsburgh earlier this year,while Chavez has not even gotten that far yet.
But I bet the Indianapolis Bullpen was loaded!
As most Pirates fans wish they were during the Littlefield Era.
9) Benito Santiago
As noted above,most of Littlefield's trades that were veteran for prospects didnt work out,but neither did his prospects for veterans either.
Santiago was once an excellent catcher,but his skills were badly faded and was seemingly playing out the string with Kansas City before Littlefield saw him as the answer to the Bucs catching woes.
So the Captain shipped minor league pitcher Leo Nunez to the Royals and brought Santiago over to the Pirates.
Benito lasted 6 games in Pittsburgh and failed to knock in a run before being released and never playing another game anywhere.
Rumor has it that the reason for the release was that Santiago told Littlefield and then manager Lloyd McClendon that they had no idea what they were doing.
That led to the release.
Nunez has shown flashes of being a decent pitcher for KC,but we did get to see Benito Santiago in Pirate Gold for a week so I guess it was worth it.
10) the 2001 Draft
When Littlefield became the Pirate GM,the 2001 draft was already history under Mickey White and the Pirates were working on exceeding slot value for a couple guys you might have heard of.
Both Jeremy Guthrie and Stephen Drew were both reportedly close to signing with the Pirates until Captain Dave saved the day by ending talks.
Suffice it to say,the Pirates signed neither of these quality players,Mickey White was soon out of a job replaced by Ed Creech.
Damn,this is depressing............
and one for the road..........
11) I dont like this guy.....
Some players production didn't matter nor did their talent,their hustle or their popularity.
The only thing that mattered was the fact that they weren't the Captain's type of player.
The two most notable of these were Craig Wilson and current Pirate Ryan Doumit.
Wilson spent three years performing well in limited time before he was finally was given 500 at bats and responded with 29 homers.
Wilson was not the same player by the time his Pittsburgh stay was winding down,most likely because his abilities were constantly beaten down by Pirate management.
Littlefield always had a reason for not playing Wilson and it seemed like a new bum of the month was constantly brought in for the reason of not playing Wilson.
Seems like a similar road is taking place now with Doumit,who doesn't seem to be a management favorite like the current catcher Ronny Paulino is.
I could likely do 10 more of these.
If you liked this and want more-Let me know!
Photo credit
Pearce-Gene Puskar-AP Photo
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