Sunday, July 08, 2007
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The braintrust gets a gold star for sticking with Tom Gorzelanny this spring.
Click photo for larger image.
From the high of the opening sweep in Houston to the low of that comedic catastrophe at Yankee Stadium to a modest surge leading into the All-Star break that begins tomorrow, only this much has stayed steady through the Pirates' 2007 schedule:
A 15th consecutive losing season, one shy of matching Major League Baseball's record, remains the course.
A look back at the extremes ...
* Best victory: The opener has yet to get topped. The Astros had a 2-0 lead, but home runs by Nate McLouth in the eighth, Xavier Nady's tying shot with two outs in the ninth and Jason Bay's two-run blast in the 10th made for a rousing start.
* Worst loss: Marty McLeary, anyone? The Pirates were ahead of Arizona, 7-1, at PNC Park on May 19, but that lead disintegrated when Tony Clark tagged McLeary for a grand slam that started a five-game losing streak.
* Best position player: No one is calling Nady a platoon player anymore. Nor is anyone complaining much about the Oliver Perez trade, for that matter. Nady is on pace for 28 home runs and 90 RBIs, has played error-free in right field and has been credited with being a vocal leader on a team in need of that trait.
* Worst position player: Ronny Paulino, at least compared to where he was last season. He has lost nearly 100 points off his batting average from his rookie year and, seemingly, has dropped that many balls sent his way.
* Best pitcher: Good luck picking between Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny.
* Worst pitcher: Tony Armas. And not just because his $3.5 million contract leaves the Pirates with next to nothing to show for $14 million spent on their past four free agents, including Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa and Roberto Hernandez last season.
* Best personnel move: Management, especially Jim Tracy, standing behind Gorzelanny through a nightmarish spring.
* Worst personnel move: All of the ones that were not made by general manager Dave Littlefield to improve the team during the season. It has been 10 years since the Pirates acquired a player -- Shawon Dunston in 1997 -- during the season with a specific aim of upgrading the roster for that season.
* Best quote: Courtesy of a very loud Snell, June 23 in Anaheim: "I [expletive] hate this. And you can put that in the paper. I [expletive] hate losing. I hate when the team doesn't bring out its full potential. And if they fine me, fine me. I don't care. Because this is getting stupid."
* Worst quote: Judging by the negative public response, it was Littlefield's statement the next day that the Pirates' fundamental play was "better" than last year.
* Best play: Chris Duffy's sensational catch May 23 in St. Louis, when he reached over the wall, his arm stretching and snapping like Plastic Man, to rob Juan Encarnacion of a home run.
* Worst play: Paulino declining to slide into home plate and getting tagged out June 7 in Washington. It was emblematic of the all-too-frequent lapses in effort and focus that were the team's unquestioned black mark of the first half.
* Best strategic decision: Tracy's bold benching of Jack Wilson for four days in mid-June got his shortstop back on track. Maybe more important, it sent a powerful -- and necessary -- message to the clubhouse that performance was a prerequisite for playing time.
* Worst strategic decision: Tracy summoning McLeary to face Clark. Within 24 hours, McLeary was in the minors. Within a month, he was off the 40-man roster.
* Proudest development in the minors: First baseman Steve Pearce, an eighth-round draft pick in 2005, has emerged as a legitimate thumper, that rarest of commodities in the Pirates' system. He has 22 home runs and 75 RBIs with Class AA Altoona and Class A Lynchburg.
* Most ominous development in the minors: No one who saw Andrew McCutchen play baseball before this season could explain his batting average being at .241.
* Best story: The Masumi Kuwata saga. How else to explain the dozen Japanese journalists chronicling his every breath daily?
* Worst story: Any rift between the Pirates and Salomon Torres, one of their top performers and citizens, is a negative on all levels.
* Most legitimate news: The Pirates passing on top prospect Matt Wieters in the June draft solely because they did not like his asking price focused public attention -- no, wrath -- on a far more meaningful facet of the team's operations than that which usually gets discussed.
* Most inflated news: The June 30 protest, judging by the result.
* Greatest in-season progress: Adam LaRoche, from the worst everyday player in the majors for a month or so to his current tear.
* Greatest in-season regress: Where have you gone Zach Duke, Duffy and even Bay?
* Most encouraging sight: A fastball leaving Matt Capps' right hand.
* Most frightening sight: A throw from the outfield to the plate. Either end of it.
* Best ownership move: Bob Nutting and Kevin McClatchy traveled to the Dominican Republic to examine first-hand why the team has fared so poorly in producing Latin American talent under Littlefield.
* Worst ownership move: No one can -- or is willing to -- explain why the Pirates are spending $25 million less in major-league payroll than Milwaukee, a team based in a smaller market with similar revenue streams.
* Most underappreciated statistic: Damaso Marte's ridiculous work against left-handed batters, who are 4 for 42 against him with 17 strikeouts.
* Most overblown statistic: Tracy's repeated citations of runners in scoring position will not take on true meaning until ... well, the Pirates have more runners. Their .316 on-base percentage ranks 27th of the majors' 30 teams.
* Reason to believe the Pirates can achieve 82 wins: Snell wants them to.
* Reason to believe they will not: Those seven letters stitched across the front of their jerseys.
(Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@post-gazette.com.)
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