Iron Gloves and Scatter Arms

Three errors handed the Oakland Athletics two runs and they needed all of them to escape with a 3-2 win over the Pirates.
Evan Meek dropped to 3-2 with the hard luck loss,while Lastings Milledge finally hit his first long ball of the season in the defeat.
The Pirates have now lost six in a row and have lost 18 of their 20 contests.
Pittsburgh now visits Wrigley Field tonight for the first of three tonight against the Cubs.
Paul Maholm (4-6) for the Pirates while Chicago counters with Randy Wells (3-6).

Pirate Hooks

1) Ross Ohlendorf's throw on a pickoff move cost the Pirates a run as the huge patch of foul territory in Oakland allowed Cliff Pennington to move from first to third instead of stopping at second.
Garrett Jones then threw the ball away in an attempt to throw Pennington out at third and Pennington scored the A's first run.
That immediately brought to mind when I would have my runners do a similar thing in youth baseball in an attempt to manufacture runs by forcing the opposition to make their throws count.
Rarely figured I would see that in the bigs.

2) As bad as that play was ,it didn't cost the Bucs as much as another error.
Evan Meek retired everyone he faced in two innings,whiffing four,but he didn't get to put Kurt Suzuki away after a routine pop up to Jason Jaramillo was dropped in foul ground.
Suzuki then homered to left with what proved to be the game winning run.
Errors happen and I generally like Jaramillo in his role as backup backstop,but when you aren't hitting .200 and cannot carry your weight even with the glove,what is your value to the team?

3) Other than the poor pickup throw by Ohlendorf and being late covering on first in another inning,very few bad things can be said about allowing just two hits over six innings and both runs being unearned.
This does give me the chance to complain about pitchers being allowed unearned runs despite them making an error though.
One of the few baseball rules that I just cannot stand.

4) Lastings Milledge finally hit his first homer and the tossing the monkey off his back in pantomine was pretty funny,but if Milledge could add even the past power he showed it would be good for the Buccos.
Not just for the production,but it might wake John Russell up from his apparent crush on the seemingly shot Ryan Church.

5) Andrew McCutchen wasn't immune on this day as he dropped a fly ball that eventually scored Oakland's second run.
It was a long run,but it was in his glove and should have hauled it in.

6) 2-18 overall in the last 20 and 17 road losses in a row.
I couldn't add more to that,if I tried....

7) Even though I missed Saturday's game,I liked the 70's uniforms worn by both teams.
Nothing I need to see all the time,but neat to see every year or so...