Sunday, June 22, 2008

Pirate power surge leads to 6-3 win

The Pirates were only able to bang out five hits against Toronto pitching,but three left the yard and all three had a runner on base when they were hit,so the Pirates walked away with a 6-3 victory over the Blue Jays.
Jason Bay gave the Pirates a lead that they would never surrender with a first inning homer (15) and Raul Chavez hit his first homer since Richard Nixon was President (just kidding) to give the Buccos all the runs that they would need.
Jose Bautista would add some insurance runs with his 4th inning longball (8) to finalize the Pittsburgh runs for the evening.
Bautista finished the night with 3 hits in as many at bats.
Paul Maholm evened his record at 5-5 in earning the victory in a seven inning outing that he allowed all three runs in.
John Grabow pitched a scoreless eighth and Matt Capps duplicated the feat in the ninth in picking up his 17th save.
Toronto's big move was in the seventh,when they scored two runs to cut the score to 6-4,but Nate McLouth ended the inning by throwing Rod Barajas out at home plate.
The Pirates will go for the sweep today at 1:35.

Pitching Matchup
Toronto:Dustin McGowan (5-5 4.15 ERA) at Pittsburgh:Ian Snell (3-7 5.84 ERA) 1:35

Bullpen Notes

The Pirates placed Phil Dumatrait on the disabled list and added T.J.Beam from Indianapolis.
Dumatrait is listed as having left shoulder problems.
Could it be that maybe his problems going past five innings were an injury issue?
In event,Battlin Bob is now officially in mourning.
Beam has been downright dominating for the Indians lately and deserves the callup.
Check these numbers out-three earned runs in his last 22 1/3 innings and a 2.02 ERA on the season.
The 27 year old Beam will have to be placed on the 40 man roster,so someone will have to be taken off the 40 man or placed on the 60 day disabled list.

No idea on who will replace Dumatrait in the rotation,but the only alternatives that I see are either John Van Benschoten or Bryan Bullington from Indianapolis.
Neither exactly excites me.

Looks like Terrelle Pryor's decision to attend Ohio State means the end of the line for Antonio Henton.
Henton has decided to transfer to 1-AA Georgia Southern and be eligible to play immediately for his home state Eagles.
Henton is the second quarterback to transfer since Pryor's commitment as Rob Schoenhoft transferred to Delaware.
The big winner in the all of this could be former Hickory Crawdad Joe Bauserman,who has seen his only competition for the role of experienced backup eliminate themselves from the program.

Has any team blown it as badly with uniforms as the Blue Jays?
I mean,some teams have had bad uniforms,logos and hats and gotten worse,but in my remembrance no one has went from great to bad in baseball in a long time.
Note to the Toronto organization-If you are the Blue Jays,your caps should be blue and your Blue Jay should not look like a chicken.

Until tomorrow.

Photo Credits
Chavez:Gene Puskar-AP Photo
Beam:Topps
Blue Jays:Unknown

1 comment:

Mike said...

No..I'm not in mourning..if anyone can help the Buccos, Then i'm happy..I had to wonder Why Dumatrait looked so horrible(or worse then usual if your RS lol)And Brad Lincoln would be a better choice then JVB,personal issues aside lol