Bullpen Notes galore and Pirates lose again

The anemic Pirate bats wasted a solid game from Zach Duke and lost to St.Louis 6-1.
Duke allowed just a single run over seven innings and was not involved in the decision.
Zach scattered 8 hits over the effort and did not walk a batter,while fanning 4 Redbirds in his last game of the season.
A very well pitched game and a good way to end a disappointing season for the Texan.
Hopefully,this can be a springboard for the return of the pitcher we saw in 2006.
John Grabow got the deserved loss as he allowed 4 runs in just a third of an inning and walked 4 Cardinals in that span.
Grabow drops to 0-4 on the season and hopefully this will be his last appearance as a Pirate.
The previous regime had a far higher opinion of Grabow than I do and hopefully Neal Huntington will see things my way and move this guy along.
The Pirates only RBI goes to Matt Kata (?) on a 6th inning single that tied the game at 1 and at least got Duke off the hook for the loss.
Cardinals and Pirates hook it up again at 7:05 tonight as Tom Gorzelanny gets one last chance at win 15.

Pitching Matchup

St.Louis: Adam Wainwright (13-12) at Pittsburgh: Tom Gorzelanny (14-9) 7:05

The Ohio State Buckeyes travel to the Metrodump for the final time to battle the Minnesota Golden Gophers tonight at 8:00.
The on-campus stadium that is being built currently at Minnesota will host the next Buckeye visit to Minneapolis in 2010.
On paper,this looks like a mismatch,but then again,this isn't Football Mogul,so you gotta play the game.
I will take the Buckeyes big though=Ohio State 42 Minnesota 13

Bullpen Notes

Hopefully last night will be the swan song for those horrid Pirate Red jerseys.
Toss them on the same scrap heap as the "we will' slogan.......

The Ashland Arrows invaded Millersburg and smacked the West Holmes Knights around in a 34-8 beating.
Taylor Housewright tossed three touchdown passes to Logan Kerr and only a West Holmes kickoff return for a touchdown allowed the Knights to avoid the shutout.
The Arrows remain tied for first in the Ohio Cardinal Conference with the surprising Lexington Minutemen and return home next week to Community Stadium for a game vs the Orrville Red Riders next Friday night.

Anyone else finding this New York Met collapse funny beyond belief?
I am an avowed Phillies hater,but a anointing of the Mets was done way too soon and it is always fun watching New York teams fall apart.

Tonight's WBC Middleweight title fight between Jermain Taylor and Kelly Pavlik ought to be quite a good one.
Champion Taylor has been criticized for some pedestrian efforts in his three title defenses and Pavlik looked very impressive in starching top contender Edison Miranda in his last outing.
Taylor's trainer Emanuel Steward sounds very confident in Taylor,but sometimes Steward's confidence has proven to be false talk.
This really is a toss up fight,but I will pick Pavlik with a 10th round stoppage in a good battle that may have Taylor ahead on the scorecards at the ending of the bout.

Spent some time this week with two new shows from NBC in "Life" and "Journeyman".
Life was actually quite interesting,Journeyman not as much so.

ESPN and its long time failure "First Take" is certainly more tolerable when Sage Steele is replacing the annoying Dana Jacobsen.
Steele recently came to ESPN from Comcast Sports Net in Baltimore.

And finally there will be a heavyweight fight on October 6th as Jameel McCline will be filling in for Oleg Maskaev against Samuel Peter.

Photo Credits
Duke-Don Wright-AP Photo
Arrows/Knights-Duane Martin-Ashland Times-Gazette
Helmets-The helmet project
Steele-Unknown