Pirate cleanup

Time to catch up on a few Pirate thoughts after a few days of catching up on non-Bucco issues.
I would like to add thanks to the nice comments on both Facebook and via email for the Bryce Harper related post.
Those are the type of notes that make this worth doing and they are appreciated.
Instead of getting in depth on specific games over the Arizona series and the slamming at the hands of the Mets,I'll do a general overview and try to return to normal for the next game.

The Pirates have severe issues at catcher with the likely season ending injury to Chris Snyder,who injured his back sliding into second in the Arizona series.
Adding that to the already injured Ryan Doumit and the injury to Jason Jaramillo at Indianapolis,the Pirates are stuck with using Dusty Brown and Wyatt Toregas as the catchers,which is not even an average platoon for AAA,let alone for the Pirates.

Should Pittsburgh pursue a stopgap catcher during the absence of both players?
As bad as the Brown/Toregas platoon is going to be with the stick,I would hate to see the Pirates swap something of value for what basically be about 4-8 weeks of an average backstop.

The Pirates needed to help the bullpen from the left side and brought Tony Watson up from AAA Indianapolis to fill the void left by Joe Beimel's trip to the DL.
Jose Ascanio was designated for assignment after an ERA over 7.00 sent him off the 40 man roster to make space for Watson.
Ascanio was a piece of the giveaway of Tom Gorzelanny and John Grabow to the Cubs and frankly,never did much for me.
Just another hard thrower with little idea of how to pitch.

Evan Meek is headed back to the DL with shoulder soreness and he is headed to the dreaded Dr.James Andrews to take a look at the shoulder.
Meek was replaced by Tim Wood on the roster,who has posted excellent numbers at Indianapolis with an ERA under three and averaging a strikeout per inning.
Wood tossed a scoreless inning in the loss to the Mets.

Meek's loss added to the injuries that have weakened a surprisingly effective bullpen thus far.
Joel Hanrahan has become one of the better closers in the league and pitchers such as Chris Resop and Jose Veras have successfully filled their roles as well.

It did not take much to see that Charlie Morton was going to have a long night.
Morton was keeping the ball far higher than normal and was having issues keeping the ball in the strike zone.
Morton was through after four innings.

Pedro Alvarez continues to have issues with an injured quad and has ceased playing in Florida.
Alvarez has struggled all season,but the Pirates need to take this slow and make sure when Alvarez returns,it is not too soon and create a chronic injury.

The Pirates also made me think back to the past even though I didn't see the Andrew McCutchen walkoff homer against Arizona live.
It reminded me so much of the early 90's teams that never seemed to be out of a game and at first thought,made me think of a Barry Bonds walkoff shot at Three Rivers Stadium.