Duke,Rain and on the signing front!

The Pirates behind an excellent effort by Zach Duke (6-4) , a timely first career homer by Jason Jaramillo and some effective hitting from the left side were able to upend the Mets on Tuesday 3-1.
Matt Capps tossed the ninth for his 12th save of the term.
The Pirates were rained out last night by some thunderous rainstorms and the game will be made up in July.
The series concludes this afternoon,weather permitting as rain is again in the forecast.

Pirate Hooks

1) I know that most of you want to hear about my take on tonight's trade that sent Nate McLouth to Atlanta in a shocking move that has the Pirate fan base talking all night.
However,that will have to wait shortly as I collect my thoughts on the deal.
It is a possibility that both this and the McLouth post could both be waiting in your inbox in the morning for those of you on the mailing list....

2) McLouth did leave the Pirates in style in what turned out to be his final game with his RBI double off the notorious lefty eating Johan Santana that proved to be the winning run and his gunning down of Jeremy Reed at the plate with a strong throw from center.

3) Zach Duke continued his return from career threatening ineptitude with another excellent performance.Duke's seven inning,one run evening was the 8th of the season (of 11) that he allowed two earned runs or less.
Is Joe Kerrigan a miracle worker?Or was Jim Colborn that awful in changing Duke's mechanics around?

4) Speaking of Colborn,any chance of him heading to Colorado now that Jim Tracy is the new boss with the Rockies (snicker) after the firing of Clint Hurdle?
I rarely see the Rockies,so not sure on Hurdle,but JIM TRACY????

5) Jason Jaramillo's first career homer off Johan Santana was a bomb,the sound off the bat sounded like those old baseball radio recreations where the sound guy smacks a drumstick (non chicken variety) off a block of wood!

Bullpen Notes

Looks like the Hub City is going to get hosed again as an announcement could be made as soon as this week that Rockville Maryland is going to build a new stadium in order to attract an Atlantic League team.
No word on whether the indy circuit has promised Rockville a team or not and no word on any state funding will be obtained to pay for some or all of the facility.
The proposed stadium would be the seventh new park built in the last 20 years,while the Muni continues to crumble....

On the signing front

A quick catchup on the Hickory Crawdads and Kannapolis Intimidators from their last visit to Hagerstown.
Hickory was a team that I had very little for,but was able to get what I needed.
The big catches were pitchers Martin Perez and Yoon-Hee Nam and third baseman Matt West.
West signed,but didn't seem overly thrilled with it.
Former Yankee and Cub Brian Dayett is the Crawdad hitting coach and was a super signer and spent time talking as well.
Dayett gets our highest grade!
Kannapolis brought a few prospects as well with two of their top prospects being very nice and signed everything as outfielder Sergio Morales and former Brave product Jon Gilmore were excellent.
Gilmore was obtained from Atlanta as part of the Javier Vasquez trade.
Other notable ChiSox farmhands were outfielder Justin Greene and shortstop Tyler Kuhn...

Time for some thanks to be tossed out to various people that have helped me out lately.

Thanks to:
Tom O'Brien and Jason Christensen for their massive help from their various Eastern League bases.
Tom and Jason have helped me a lot this season with things that I would have never gotten without them.

Dave Sloan for not only nabbing me a DVA Potomac Nationals set,but getting the vast majority of them signed for me as well.
Even Michael Burgess was included!!!

Mike Treadwell for tossing me a Brian Dayett Nippon Ham Fighter card,so I didn't have to spend time in the less than weather proof confines of my card storage.....

And finally to Ryan,Battling Bob and "Big Bob" for their help with Pedro Alvarez over the two Lynchburg trips to Frederick.
It was only with their help that I was able to get caught up (for now) with the Hillcat powerhitter.

Photo Credits
Jaramillo:Don Wright-AP Photo
Dayett:Topps