Pirates stay in Lynchburg,Hansen wild again.

The Pittsburgh Pirates agreed to a two year extension with the Lynchburg Hillcats yesterday and ensured their keeping their High A level franchise in the Carolina League.

The Pirates are now set in their affiliations through the 2010 season.

The South Atlantic League has one opening in Hickory,which will be filled by either Seattle or Texas,while the Carolina League has one opening in Winston-Salem,although the White Sox could still return there,there are other teams that still need a High A franchise.
The Reds,Mariners and Giants are the teams,but I cannot see the Giants leaving San Jose,so they are likely out.
The Reds would be preferred by me from a signing standpoint,but we will have to wait and see.

The Pirates lost to the Dodgers on a getaway day 4-3 in 12 innings.
Losing pitcher Craig Hansen (1-4) walked the bases loaded for T.J. Beam,who then allowed the game winning hit.

Shawn's Thoughts
1) We are rough on Nyjer Morgan here,mainly because he seems like the baseball version of an overpushed wrestler,but cannot blame him for his reckless out at the plate in the 10th inning.
Coach Tony Beasley told him to take off and even in Little League-if you do what you are told and get tossed out-it is the fault of the coach.

2) Craig Hansen has walked 20 batters in his 15+ innings as a Pirate.
Big time wildness problems.
Would hate to see that kind of arm be out of the game due to an inability to throw strikes.......

3) Paul Maholm usually is the Pirates best control pitcher,but he walked six yesterday in seven innings.
Onset of tired arm syndrome???

4) Back to Morgan,I had to watch the game on the Dodger network and they seemed to love him.
Charley Steiner brought out all the cliches' one uses to describe Morgan "Speedball,Sparkplug,hustler etc".
Interested Los Angeles??

5) I think I might start a logo for Steve Pearce Held Hostage,you know like the networks use a clever sentence for anything that goes on for more than a few days???

Pitching Matchup

Houston:Randy Wolf (10-12 4.58 ERA) at Pittsburgh:Ian Snell (6-11 5.69 ERA) 7:05

Bullpen Notes

CFL fans are in mourning as one of the all time great passers in the league passed away at the age of 69 yesterday.
Ron Lancaster spent all but one of his 17 seasons in the CFL with the Saskatchewan Roughriders,leading them to five Grey Cup and the championship in 1966.
Lancaster also coached Edmonton to a Grey Cup win in 1993 and led the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to the 1999 Cup.
The Cats have been nowhere near as good since then.
Ron Lancaster was the Cats boss when I was able to see almost every Ti-Cat game and was an excellent coach and competitor,but a good person when the game was over.
The kind of coach that I enjoyed having as part of my team.
Best wishes to the Lancaster family....

The Ashland Arrows travel to Wooster tonight to battle the 3-1 and suddenly resurgent Generals.
Wooster was the bully of the OCC during the first few years of the conferences existence..

On the signing front.
Jason Christensen sent me a card of former Dodger Jon Weber and two wins off Ebay that netted Basketball great Connie Hawkins and a USA card of Pirate farmhand Robbie Grossman.

Photo Credits
Hillcats:Lynchburg Hillcats
Morgan:AP
Lancaster:Unknown