Analysis: What happened to Pirates' pitching?

By Dejan Kovacevic, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/?_s_icmp=nav_sports
Monday, August 8, 2011

PITTSBURGH - AUGUST 07: Kevin Correia(notes) #29 of the Pittsburgh Pirates is pulled by manager Clint Hurdle #13 in front of teammate Ryan Doumit(notes) #41 during the game against the San Diego Padres on August 7, 2011 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

So, what went wrong?

The obvious culprit in the Pirates' epic collapse, including the 7-3 loss to San Diego yesterday at PNC Park that extended a losing streak to 10 games, is the pitching that led to their stunning ascent to the top of the Central Division.

And the equally obvious explanation would appear to be fatigue, even if those taking the mound disagree.

"I wouldn't say that at all," Charlie Morton said. "I mean, you always get tired. Baseball's a game of peaks and valleys. But being tired as an excuse? No."

"Hey, I felt like Nolan Ryan last time I went out," Jeff Karstens said of his nine-run blow-up Friday.

Still, the results have been as cruel as the clear correlation: On July 25, the Pirates were 53-47 and in first place, the pitchers owning a 3.17 ERA. Since then, they are 1-12 and 10 games out of the race, the ERA at 6.19 for that span.

Some of that simply must be fatigue, as others in the organization will attest. But dig deeper with some advanced metrics, and it's easy to see there is an element of the Pirates' pitchers having been due some serious comeuppance:

• Through July 25, opponents had a .289 batting average on all balls put in play (BABIP), a statistic that distinguishes how much help a pitcher gets from his defense or from mere good luck. That figure was below the National League median of .295. Since July 25, it's a whopping .349.

• Some aren't even staying in the park. Through July 25, opponents homered on 9.2 percent of all fly balls, right around league average. Since then, they have homered on 15.2 percent, by far the worst such total in the past two weeks.

• The Pirates' pitch-to-contact staff averages just 6.3 strikeouts per nine innings, second lowest in the majors, which puts heavy pressure on the defense and on the pitchers to keep the ball in the ballpark.

• The Pirates have stranded 76 percent of their runners, second-best rate in the league, and that tends to be unsustainable.

"They'd all been so good for so long." general manger Neal Huntington said. "A variety of factors came together at one time and ... well, we've gotten our heads handed to us more often than we'd like."

About a month ago, management met to prepare for this possibility, based on the numbers.

"Our organization deals in a lot of those metrics, and we talked about how we'd pitched for three or four months and the expectancy as we moved forward," manager Clint Hurdle said. "Especially with a pitch-to-contact staff, you expect more contact, so you could anticipate more offense from the opponents. But, to the degree we've seen lately, it's been way more."

It has been 15 home runs in the past six games, one into the Allegheny River and several other moon shots. And even the weak-hitting Padres scored 28 times Friday and Saturday.

"Water finds its own level, as they say," Hurdle said. "If the water is really high, it's going to dip."

Although the pitchers are reluctant to acknowledge fatigue, pitching coach Ray Searage is not. But he doesn't point to arm fatigue.

"What I'm seeing is that our legs are a little bit tired, and that's going to relate to your arm," Searage said. "That's why they call these the dog days of August. We basically laid it all out there for the first three or four months, and you're starting to see that now."

Karstens has been the Pirates' best starter, but he also has stranded an incredible 85 percent of runners, and 17 of his 21 home runs were solo shots. All that boomeranged Friday, when nine of his 10 runners touched home plate and Chase Headley belted a grand slam. Karstens already has exceeded his innings total from last season, though not his pitch count, and he will need to show he can handle a full season.

"That's not an issue at all," Karstens said. "We'll all show that."

Maholm has been next best, but the Padres lit him up for seven runs in 6 2/3 innings Saturday, and his ERA swelled from 3.17 to 3.54. Kevin Correia, after a strong two months won him an All-Star invitation, now has a 4.78 ERA. Morton lost his dynamite sinker sometime in late May and didn't rediscover it until this past Wednesday. And James McDonald has been inconsistent and inefficient.

"This is something we're going to have to learn from," Searage said. "Some of these guys are experiencing this for the first time. My job is to stay positive."

In the bullpen, closer Joel Hanrahan has remained strong -- on those rare occasions he pitches, anyway -- but Jose Veras, Chris Resop and Daniel McCutchen have worn down, perhaps not coincidentally beginning with that 19-inning loss July 26 in Atlanta.

But this has been about the starting pitching, for better or worse, as those in the rotation seem to realize.

"It's on us," Maholm said. "We're the ones who go out there and pitch. We're going through a rough stretch. No one is happy, from the fans to anyone who plays the game. We have to turn it back around."

Get a grip on expectations

By Dejan Kovacevic, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/?_s_icmp=nav_sports
Monday, August 8, 2011

PITTSBURGH - AUGUST 07: Garrett Jones(notes) #46 of the Pittsburgh Pirates misplays a ball in right field while avoiding a collision with teammate Neil Walker(notes) #18 during the game the San Diego Padres on August 7, 2011 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

Kevin Correia fell apart after two outs, Daniel McCutchen's wild pitch to a pitcher scored a run, the hitters kept flailing, the infield throws kept sailing, and 35,601 left PNC Park yesterday with long faces.

Add it up, multiply by 10, and that's pretty much the impact of the 7-3 loss to San Diego that carried this mega-meltdown into double digits and capped maybe the most deflating homestand in the franchise's 125 years.

"Honestly, something like this, losing 10 in a row, that's tough under any circumstance," shortstop Brandon Wood told me in another music-free clubhouse. "But to do this after being in first place ... man, that hurts."

It has stung the fan base, too, including the newcomers. And some are outright angry, barking on talk shows, booing rookies, blaming the manager for unsalvageable lineups, calling Jerry Meals' safe call a curse and ... well, maybe this is a good time for everyone to get a grip.

Refocus on 82, I say.

An 82-win season remains in reach at 54-59, and it would be a shame to see this group come this far only to lug that ignominious streak into a 19th year. Eighty-two wins would represent a 25-game improvement over 57-105 last year, matching the greatest in franchise history set in 1891-92.

Here are 10 areas, in order of importance, the Pirates still can address to view this season as a success:

10. Stop the bunts. Now.

Yeah, this is small, but there is something terribly incongruous about an offense with Major League Baseball's fifth-lowest on-base percentage, .245, having the second-most sacrifice bunts (59) and fifth-most caught-stealings (38). And this is to say nothing of other baserunning blunders.

Whatever school taught Clint Hurdle his bunting philosophy was boarded up long ago. Outs are gold.

9. Sign the No. 1 pick.

It's been under the public radar because of the major league team's rise and fall, but the Pirates have until a week from today to sign No. 1 overall pick Gerrit Cole, the flame-throwing right-hander from UCLA. That could cost into eight figures and represent the greatest single expenditure in franchise history.

This isn't optional.

8. Extend Neal Huntington.

I know team president Frank Coonelly has tried to downplay his general manager working deep into a lame-duck season by saying, "I expect Neal will be here for many years to come."

Fine, so grab a pen and get it done. It's starting to get weird.

7. Get rid of Joel Hanrahan.

Or threaten to do so, anyway.

Huntington's first task once he gets extended could be to issue a use-Hanrahan-or-lose-him decree to Hurdle, who inexplicably, indefensibly allowed his All-Star closer to fiddle -- just 41/3 cameo innings out of 125 innings pitched these past 13 games -- while the season burned to the ground.

It's about wins, not saves.

6. Settle the outfield.

When Jose Tabata and Alex Presley return, their performance could help dictate the Pirates' offensive approach for years to come: Should Huntington build an outfield on speed or power?

I know this: I want to see more of Presley, even if Ryan Ludwick sits.

5. Fix Pedro Alvarez.

Even if it means sending him down the rest of this month.

I've maintained from the outset that nothing in 2011 matters more to the Pirates' future than Alvarez, their only power-hitting prospect, making significant strides. Nothing has changed that view, but much more time at the Mendoza Line -- he's at .206 -- could begin to change the outlook.

4. Sustain the starters.

Correia is a shadow of an All-Star, Charlie Morton and James McDonald can't get through six or seven innings, and even Jeff Karstens and Paul Maholm have shown kinks. We'll know before long if the team's most instrumental area was a mirage.

3. Beat the Brewers.

At least once, you know?

Hurdle and his players have blown through a lot of barriers, but this one will be wholly intact when they reach Milwaukee next weekend: The Brewers have won all five meetings this season, 33 of the past 36.

2. Make the playoffs.

This is absurd, of course, with the Pirates now 10 games back. But there's no good reason for this group to shift focus. The next 16 games are against the other three teams atop the Central Division, and a surge would at least restore some of that contending feeling.

Besides, as Hurdle said yesterday when I asked about long-term goals, "Hey, we're not dealing with today's game well."

1. Win 82.

I'll save you the math: They need to go 28-21 the rest of the way.

Ex-Pirate Jackie Hernandez, a captivating champion who made a lasting impression on me

By Joe Capozzi
The Palm Beach Post
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/sports/
Aug. 7, 2011

MIAMI — The last time I could recall seeing Jackie Hernandez, I was sitting in front of a bulky television set with my family in suburban Pittsburgh. I was 7 years old, but I remember it clearly because it was the moment I became addicted to baseball.

On the TV screen in our living room, Hernandez, the shortstop for the Pirates, glides to his left behind second base. He cuts off a grounder up the middle at the edge of the outfield grass, plants his feet, and fires to first base.

Bob Robertson catches the throw and thrusts his arms into the air. Then, my parents and two brothers and I see something I had never seen before - players jumping for joy and piling on top of each other.

Caught up in the excitement, we grab pots and pans from the kitchen and run into the street to bang them together, our way of celebrating the Pirates' World Series victory over Baltimore on Oct. 17, 1971.

Nearly 40 years later, I'm captivated by Hernandez again.

He's 70 years old and sitting on a folding chair at a batting range five minutes from Sun Life Stadium. A cigarette between his lips, a thermos of Cuban coffee at his feet, he's pulling baseballs from a bucket and flipping them to teenagers swinging aluminum bats.

His hair is gray and a goatee frames his mouth, but he has the same wiry frame I remember in the No. 2 uniform of the '71 Bucs.

"I wanted that ball. I wanted to make that last out. Ain't nothing better than that in baseball," Hernandez shouts from his stool, recalling the last play of Game 7 of the World Series. "That was the best thing that ever happened in my life in baseball.'

Hernandez was never an All-Star or a Gold Glove winner. He batted just .208 over nine seasons, from 1965 through '73.

But he was the kind of scrappy player who made a lasting impression on my childhood in the same way Glenn Beckert did for a kid growing up in Chicago or Bobby Tolan for a kid growing up in Cincinnati or Bud Harrelson for a kid in New York.

"We celebrated for three days in Pittsburgh," Hernandez shouts through a stream of "pings" as his students swat balls into a net. "You know how (the travel time from) the airport to downtown is 40, 45 minutes? Took us five hours to get there, because from the airport to downtown there were cars and cars and people and people.'

Hernandez credits the great Roberto Clemente for getting him to Pittsburgh. After playing together in the Puerto Rican winter league, he says Clemente put in a word with the Pirates front office about a shortstop they should go after.

After Pittsburgh got Hernandez in a trade with the Kansas City Royals before the '71 season, he made an error in one of his first games for the Pirates.

"Ball went right through my legs and we lost the game,' he says. "When I got to the dugout, I was crying. Clemente put his arm over my shoulder and said, 'No, no. You don't need to do that. We back you up here.' After that, my head was up every minute.'

Hernandez returned to Pittsburgh in June for a 40th anniversary celebration when the Pirates hosted an interleague series with the Orioles.

He still sees many of his old teammates and baseball friends in Miami. They often visit the batting range he has operated for 17 years with close friend and Cuban countryman Paul Casanova, a catcher for the Washington Senators and Atlanta Braves from 1965-74.

An hour into his lesson, Hernandez stamps out a cigarette and tells his kids to take a break. It's time for him to pose for a photographer, who instructs him to hold a bat.

Four snaps into the shoot, Hernandez suddenly drops down to bunt, momentarily startling the photographer the same way he used to surprise Bob Gibson or Tom Seaver.

"This was my specialty,' Hernandez says, grinning between hunched shoulders.

And for a moment, it's 1971 again.

Steelers must sustain fear factor

By Dejan Kovacevic, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/?_s_icmp=nav_sports
Friday, August 5, 2011

LATROBE, PA - JULY 29: Troy Polamalu(notes) #43 of the Pittsburgh Steelers watches his teammates during training camp on July 29, 2011 at St Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

Troy Polamalu isn't about to pull aside some rookie here at St. Vincent College, grit his teeth and grill the kid on how the Steelers' defense instills fear in opponents.

"I don't think it's something that's ever talked about," Polamalu told me before practice the other day. "I think that when people come here ... you just see right away that they don't fit in. Like, we don't have raw cover corners here. I've seen great cover corners in these camps who just didn't make our team."

So, I came back, how does one fit in?

"I just think we play football in its purest form," he said, "and that's hitting and tackling, regardless of what the rules may say."

Polamalu laughed, but this topic isn't shaping up to be a joke this season. Ask me, and there is no more pressing priority for the Steelers in 2011 and beyond than retaining that fear factor within the NFL's new guidelines for hitting.

We're talking about the very foundation of a half-century of football excellence, from the drafting of "Mean" Joe Greene to the toothless snarl of Jack Lambert, the fury of Mel Blount, the dark disposition of Greg Lloyd, the hot-headed rants of Joey Porter and, yeah, even those fans' hoagie sales last year aimed at paying James Harrison's fines.

Is it any wonder the Steelers griped more about Roger Goodell than the other 31 teams combined in advance of the labor agreement, not least of which was their team-wide rejection of the pact yesterday?

They're defending their identity.

"The Steelers do have that mystique, but you've got to keep that through your play," said Ryan Clark, the hard-hitting safety and union rep who is by far the loudest of those protesting mouths. "It's very important for teams to know that you can't come across the middle and not be hit, for teams to know you can't run away from James Harrison because he'll seek you out. That's who we are."

As only he can, Clark digressed deftly into a boxing analogy.

"It's kind of like that Mike Tyson mystique. Before Buster Douglas beat him, nobody even wanted to step into the ring with him. But once Tyson lost, then people felt like there was a blueprint. They wanted to get into that ring. That's why you can't let go of what you've got."

He's right. At the veteran level, the hardest hitters must maintain the same approach, even as they adjust away from the head, away from opponents deemed vulnerable. They still need to hit to hurt.

Harrison, of all people, provided the best example late last season. He hated the fines to the point of threatening retirement, but he didn't tone down his aggression even as he picked up no further punishment despite all eyes watching.

Funny thing is, the man won't admit that he or the Steelers changed a thing. Nor that they should.

"That's just our defense," Harrison said. "We're going to play the game within the rules, whatever the changes may be or even if they make any more. We're going to go out and hit people in the mouth. Every year, it's a different thing they're saying you can or can't do. It's no different than any other year."

Hey, whatever works. If Harrison takes a pay-to-play mindset into the game but still keeps the new guidelines in the back of his mind, he'll remain a dangerous — and feared —player. Sounds like it might be workable for all of the team's hardest hitters, actually.

"We've just got to go out there and play," Clark said. "Let them worry about what's legal or not."

The earliest stages of camp have set the tone, judging by coach Mike Tomlin's terrific assessment of one session this week: "Some licks were passed. In some instances, the hits were high technically. In others, we weren't violent enough." Lawrence Timmons leveled Rashard Mendenhall in one drill. Harrison was banging shoulders with rookie running back Baron Batch in another.

The latter might have been one of those silent indoctrinations Polamalu described.

"Oh, we all know as rookies, believe me," said Cam Heyward, the first-round pick and iron-headed defensive end. "If you want to play for this team, you've got to be aggressive. It's almost like a rite of passage: Show no mercy."

When the Steelers do, you can kiss that half-century of excellence goodbye.

Just ask the guy who started it all.

"This 'D' needs to be who they are," said Greene, observing in camp as a special assistant. "This isn't tennis. This isn't golf. It's a rough, tough game. You need to make guys afraid to line up against you. These players will do that, and they'll adjust. You'll see. They just need to think out there."



The new rules

The NFL's new safety guidelines, approved in May, prohibit "forcibly hitting the neck or head area" of any player. They also prohibit hits against a player in a "defenseless posture," which was redefined as the following:

>> A player in the act or just after throwing a pass

>> A receiver attempting to catch a pass or one who has not completed a catch and hasn't had time to protect himself or hasn't clearly become a runner

>> A runner whose forward progress has been stopped

>> A kickoff or punt returner attempting to field a kick in the air

>> A player on the ground at the end of a play

>> A kicker/punter during a return

>> A quarterback any time after a turnover

>> A player who receives a blindside block when the blocker is moving toward his own end-line and approaches the opponent from behind or the side

Source: NFL

Too early for Pirates' epitaph

By Joe Starkey, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/?_s_icmp=nav_sports
Thursday, August 4, 2011

PITTSBURGH - AUGUST 03: Ryan Doumit(notes) (R) #41 of the Pittsburgh Pirates, fresh off of the disabled list, and teammate Chris Resop(notes) #30 sit in the dugout while watching the game against the Chicago Cubs during the game on August 3, 2011 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

A colleague wondered if I'd come to PNC Park on Wednesday night to bury the Pirates.

"No," I said. "They still have 54 games left."

Earlier, a radio caller had asked the following question: "What makes you think the Pirates are a contender?"

Me: "The standings."

It was, after all, only Aug. 3. And there was, after all, still 33 percent of the season remaining. And the standings, after all, looked like this:

Central


Team: Record (games back)


Milwaukee: 62-50 (—)


St. Louis: 58-53 (3.5)


Pirates: 54-54 (6.0)

Sorry, but no matter how those teams arrived at those respective slots, the Pirates were, and are, by virtue of their position in the standings, a contender. That does not mean I'm planning my October weekends around baseball at PNC Park, especially in light of the team's sixth consecutive loss, which dropped it 6.5 games back. The situation has grown infinitely more bleak since the moment umpire Jerry Meals went blind in Atlanta. I don't think the Pirates are going to win the division.

In fact, I'm pretty sure they won't.

But I was pretty sure they'd lose 95-105 games this season, too. Weren't you?

Why so quick to bury the living? That caller wasn't the only one. As our perceptive civic observer @JanePitt tweeted the other day, I believe at some point during the shelling of Kevin Correia: "I can hear the bodies falling to the road as they fling themselves from my bandwagon. Tuck and roll, people. Tuck and roll."

Divorce yourself, mentally, from the five-game losing streak the Pirates carried into last night's game against the Chicago Cubs and ask yourself: Would you have signed up for this in April?

Of course you would have.

There is yet some entertaining, pressurized baseball to be played. Last night's game was a perfect example — a tense pitching duel between Chicago's Matt Garza and Charlie Morton, who might have been fighting to preserve his spot in the Pirates' rotation.

A decent weeknight crowd (19,106) — particularly on a rainy night — erupted in the top of the fifth when home-plate umpire Bob Davidson ejected Chicago's Tyler Colvin for arguing a called third strike. Davidson then tossed manager Mike Quade. Morton battled his way to seven shutout innings only to see reliever Chris Resop come down with a mild case of Correia in the eighth. Resop gave up what proved to be the game-losing home run to Starlin Castro.

Plenty of fans remain emotionally invested in this season, but it seems as if others have taken perverse pleasure in the club's recent slide. Still others are calling for the Pirates to suddenly become sellers and jettison players such as pitcher Paul Maholm.

Really? With nearly a third of the season left, including 20 in a row against divisional foes to end August? I'd prefer to see Maholm and his 3.27 ERA make the next scheduled start, thank you. He's the kind of player the Pirates need to keep, perhaps by tearing up that $9.5 million club option for next season and signing him to a multi-year deal.

Or they could deal Maholm for minor leaguers and thereby appease the prospect junkies out there — the ones who were so elated when the Pirates didn't "mortgage the future" at the nonwaiver trade deadline, the ones who begin their day with prayer readings straight out of "Baseball America."

The group that really gets me is the "I told you so" crowd. They no doubt feel validated by the recent spate of losses. They knew it would happen. They were telling you all along. They're bound and determined to prove that these are the same old Pirates.

Look, I understand that when you've been abused for 18 years, it's hard to love again. But this team, with the way it has battled through injuries all season, has earned some goodwill. It certainly earned a bunch of new fans. And if even it does fall off the map, it will have proven that Pittsburgh remains a spirited baseball town.

But it's still too early for an epitaph.

Pouncey on way to being Steelers' next legendary center

By Mike Bires
Beaver County Times
http://www.timesonline.com/sports/
August 3, 2011

Pittsburgh Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey, left, goes through drills with Ramon Foster during NFL football training camp Saturday, July 30, 2011, in Latrobe, Pa.(AP)

LATROBE — Watch Maurkice Pouncey go about his business at training camp and there’s no doubt he’s a different man than he was a year ago.

Last summer after reporting to St. Vincent College, he was the second-youngest man on the Steelers’ roster. As a first-round draft pick, there was no doubt he had talent. But he was learning plays at both center and guard and no one knew for sure how and when the soft-spoken kid from Florida would fit it.

But this summer, Pouncey seems like he’s been playing in the NFL for years.

Buoyed by his amazing rookie season in which he earned Pro Bowl honors, he’s bouncing around from drill to drill with so much confidence.

“He’s becoming savvy,” said right guard Ramon Foster. “He’s become a savvy guy right now. He’s becoming more vocal. He’s becoming a leader. And he’s not forcing himself to be this or to be that. He’s just becoming a vet one day at a time.”

And he’s doing that once again the second-youngest player on the Steelers’ 95-man training camp roster.

Pouncey, the former Florida star taken by the Steelers with the 18th pick of last year’s draft, celebrated his 22nd birthday on July 24. The only player in camp younger is running back Jonathan Dwyer, who turned 22 on July 26.

“Maurkice has not changed the way he approaches things,” offensive line coach Sean Kugler said. “He’s a pro. He works hard. He’s a competitor and a finisher on every play. He’s one of those guys who doesn’t want to let anybody down on this team. He plays his heart out. He wants to be the best.

“He’s not the type of kid who will relax because of what he did last year. He’s wants to be better this year.”

Last year when the Steelers reported to camp, Justin Hartwig figured he’d be the opening day center. He had started every game for the Steelers the previous two years, including the 2008 Super Bowl season.

But as camp progressed, Kugler, offensive coordinator Bruce Arians and coach Tom Tomlin came to the conclusion that they were wasting Pouncey’s time by giving him reps at guard. He was playing well at center. So Pouncey moved into the starting role and Hartwig was cut.

Not only did Pouncey start every game last season except the Super Bowl, he was the Steelers’ only offensive player named to the Pro Bowl. He also received two of the 50 votes for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year honors.

Naturally, he’s being hailed as the next great center in Steelers’ history. He’s being mentioned in the same breath as the late Mike Webster, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and Dermontti Dawson, a Hall of Fame candidate.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I did as well as everybody thought I did,” Pouncey said. “I mean, I got a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of pressure on me this year to pick up where I left off last year. But I’m ready for it.”

At 6-foot-4 and 304 pounds, Pouncey has size and strength. He’s also extremely quick and agile for a man his size. He’s a master technician who understands leverage. He’s an intelligent player who has a complete understanding of the Pittsburgh offense.

“He wowed everybody last year, and I expect him to be even better this year,” Foster said.

“He knows how to play the game,” said nose tackle Casey Hampton, who goes up against Pouncey every day at practice. “The sky’s the limit for this kid.”

Pouncey, whose twin brother Mike was taken with the 15th overall pick of this year’s draft by Miami, says he’s determined to avoid a second-year slump.

“I’m going to work hard,” he said. “I’m going to do everything I can to be better than I was last year.”

Not blown away by Bucs' trades

By Dejan Kovacevic, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/?_s_icmp=nav_sports
Monday, August 1, 2011

PHILADELPHIA --The visitors' clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park was a bleak place by late Sunday afternoon, with lots of grim faces and nary a voice heard above the rhythmic shuffling of equipment bags. Those bags and the Pirates themselves were bound for Pittsburgh after a week of endless rain delays, extra innings, exemplary opponents' pitching, and even an epic umpiring gaffe.

Good time to go home?

"Got that right," center fielder Andrew McCutchen said.

This 6-5 loss to the Phillies stung on several levels, not least of which was manager Clint Hurdle's continuing, maddening refusal to use Joel Hanrahan in anything but save situations. The Pirates are now 4 1/2 games off the Central Division lead, having been swept here and finishing the trip 2-5. Hard to imagine chins raised after that.

And, to be blunt, I don't think general manager Neal Huntington's haul at the trading deadline yesterday will change any of this much.

Part of that is that these Pirates are showing kinks in the key area - pitching -- that has long looked unsustainable. Sure, Jeff Karstens showed again yesterday why he has richly earned that 2.49 ERA by fending off the mighty Phillies. Paul Maholm is staying strong, too. But the rest of the rotation, plus bombs-away reliever Jose Veras, are fading fast.

No pitching was acquired.

The offense was correctly deemed a priority, but adding no pitching is hard to swallow. Evan Meek doesn't look close to returning, and shuffling Ross Ohlendorf and/or Brad Lincoln into the mix is no solution.

The other part of my sentiment is that Huntington's two moves to bolster the offense were trades for first baseman Derrek Lee and outfielder Ryan Ludwick, both of whom must first bolster their careers.

You have to love the price tags. The Pirates will not part with any top prospect, which would have been a mistake, and they stepped up by taking on $4.8 million in the two veterans' salaries. That's the combination of prudence and commitment that was needed.

Good for owner Bob Nutting, president Frank Coonelly and Huntington for keeping their word on those two fronts.

And I'll buy Huntington's explanation for the return, too: "We kicked the tires just about everywhere you can imagine. Teams felt they had better matches elsewhere."

But I still find myself having the same muted reaction that most players seemed to have yesterday: That's nice.

I do like the addition of Lee.

No, he isn't as sexy an acquisition as Hunter Pence or Carlos Beltran would have been. But Philadelphia is in a far better position to forfeit top prospects for Pence: The Phillies, as was evident here all weekend, have every reason to eye the World Series. And Beltran flat-out didn't want to play for the Pirates.

Lee will be 36 in a month, and he has shown a steep decline from his last Lee-like season, 2009, when he batted .306 with 35 home runs and 111 RBI. His overall average this season with Baltimore was .246 with 12 home runs and 41 RBIs. Nothing sexy about that.

But Lee always has been better as the summer gets longer: Since the All-Star break, he is batting .298 -- 17 for 57 -- including a 4-for-5 output Tuesday in Toronto with an opposite-field home run and five RBI. And the Pirates' scouts saw other traits at the plate they found encouraging.

"We think he's got a lot of ball left in him," Hurdle said yesterday.

So do I.

Lee isn't the big-time power bat many coveted, but he represents a legitimate upgrade at the position where the Pirates had the greatest room to improve. Lyle Overbay lasered a home run yesterday, but his equipment bag should have been sent somewhere other than Pittsburgh.

Ludwick, 33, has had a decline that has been steep and steady. After a monster 2008 in St. Louis -- 37 home runs, .299 average -- those two figures have fallen, year by year, to 22 and .265, 17 and .251 and the 11 and .238 he had with San Diego this season.

There are mitigating factors, notably that the Padres' Petco Park is the hitter's graveyard of baseball. And, maybe because of that, Huntington's statisticians showed him indicators that he should perform better the rest of the way.

Here, too, there could be an upgrade. Ludwick is better than Garrett Jones, Xavier Paul and Matt Diaz as a right field option. Whether he is better than Alex Presley, we'll see. But Presley and his .333 average, .402 on-base percentage and speed shouldn't just be cast aside once he returns.

Second baseman Neil Walker, as eager as any player to welcome reinforcements, remarked of Lee and Ludwick, "Both those guys will help our offense, and they both seem like good guys. I'm pretty happy about it."

Yeah, I guess I am, too.

That's nice.


Photo: Infielder Derrek Lee #25 of the Baltimore Orioles poses for a photo during photo day at Ed Smith Stadium on February 26, 2011 in Sarasota, Florida. (February 25, 2011 - Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images North America)