Oswalt dazzles Pirates

For those of you voting for shorter recaps and more thoughts,here is one for you.
The Houston Astros and Roy Oswalt dominated the Pirates and shut them down and out 3-0.
Not much on the Pittsburgh side to recap other than Zack Duke getting the loss and now is 5-14.

Five Thoughts

1) One would have thought that Hurricane Ike was closer than it actually was to Houston at game time last night.
The Pirates offense looked to have already been on the plane before the game and a cancellation might have been their best offense against Oswalt.

2) Roy Oswalt might be the most underrated elite pitcher in the game.
When he is on his game,few teams can have a prayer of beating the righthander from Mississippi.

3) Oswalt was so dominant that he retired 20 Pirates in a row after Luis Rivas flared a single to left in the first,Oswalt was thought to have peaked for his career after a slow start this season.

4) This game could have been far worse,but three relievers that have ERA's of six or over (Salas,Hansen and Chavez) managed to toss three shutout innings and another surprise as well.
No walks from Craig Hansen.

5) I hate to say this,but it is hard to watch some of this stuff with football here and hockey on the horizon.
This would be so much easier to watch,if we were watching more younger guys and less of Luis Rivas,Jason Michaels and Chris Gomez........

Bonus Round: I am not positive on who has the idea of playing these guys,John Russell or the front office,but I would guess Russell

Pitching Matchup
St.Louis:Joel Pineiro (6-5 4.92 ERA) at Pittsburgh:Paul Maholm (8-8 3.74 ERA) 7:05
Some reports have the Cardinal starter as Brad Thompson,but more have Pineiro listed...

Bullpen Notes

Tom Gorzelanny indeed is finished for the season.
The Pirates will fill his rotation spot with Jimmy Barthmaier.

The Pirates will be sending seven players (a pretty high number) to the Hawaii Fall League.
Our player of interest is blog favorite Eric Krebs,but Krebs will joined by Jim Negrych,Brian Friday and Miles Durham from Lynchburg.
The other three Pirate farmhands on their way are pitchers Moises Robles,Harrison Bishop and Kyle Bloom.

The New Jersey Devils finally got their contract renewal finished with Rod Pelley to get him into camp.
From all writings,it was not a holdout,but just a contract language deal.
The Devils also made a swap of minor leaguers with Phoenix sending defenseman Sean Zimmerman to the Coyotes for left wing Kevin Cormier.

The Ashland Arrows open conference play tonight against the Madison Rams and hope to even their record at 2-2 on the year.....

For those of you wondering why I haven't been giving the photographer credit on pictures,it isn't because I became lazy.
Yahoo has begun crediting only the organization,so therefore I do not always know who took the picture.
We will continue crediting when we have the information.

Photo Credits
Oswalt-AP Photo