Pirate cleaning....

It has been almost a week since I wrote about the Pirates as the team took two of three from Houston and the first game of the Dodger series from Los Angeles before dropping the last two.
Just adding a few notes to catch up and get back to normal
The series concludes tonight and Pittsburgh hits the road for the next week with three games in Milwaukee and two each in Washington (anyone up for Tuesday's afternoon game?) and Cincinnati.

Pirate Hooks

1) The most memorable part of the Astro series was Ryan Doumit's game winning three run homer to win Sunday's game.Doumit has played well thus far as part of a surprisingly productive platoon with Chris Snyder and might be gaining value as a prospective trade chip for a contender that needs a catcher later in the year.

2) James McDonald was dynamite on that day with a scoreless game over six innings and allowed just three hits.McDonald seems to be rounding into form and was robbed of a well deserved win in this one.

3) After a smoking hot start,Jose Tabata has struggled at the dish of late and I think I can place the reason.
Tabata looks to me to be trying to go power crazy after a few homers and his contact has suffered since.
I remember being a kid and having so many people say roughly this "Hit the ball hard and the power will come".Sometimes this game can be the peoples game....

4) After Monday's win got the team over .500 (the two losses have since dropped them under),people seemed to get excited.
Not me-I want either a contender or another year of top quality talent added to a still lagging farm system.
I don't get excited about mediocre baseball....

5) The only roster move was Mike Crotta to the DL with elbow soreness and Jose Ascanio up to replace Crotta on the roster.
Tough break for Crotta,who is headed to Bradenton to rehab the elbow.....

Back to normal with game coverage tomorrow!