Big Lead Sports Bar

6/24/2010

Not a Good Night for Pittsburgh


As the headline implies, last night did not go the way we would've hoped for the various Pittsburgh sports storylines that were in play. 

In Vegas, Sidney Crosby sat by while Henrik Sedin took the Hart Trophy and Alex Ovechkin won the Ted Lindsay Award. Meanwhile, Jordan Staal finished not first, not second, but third for the Selke Award, which was won yet again by Pavel Datsyuk. True, Sid did get a trophy named after Mark Messier as a consolation prize, but that wasn't what we were hoping for. 1-for-4 on the evening was far below our expectations. 

Sadly, 1-for-4 would've looked good for the Pittsburgh Pirates, who self-destructed in a 13-3 loss to the Texas Rangers last night. 

Paul Maholm pitched so bad that he apologized on Twitter, as he should've for anyone who actually had to watch it. One inning, seven hits, seven runs, four walks, and 55 pitches after he started, the Bucs would be in a hole that they could never get out of in their wildest offensive dreams. Even with the rest of the game to battle back, you knew the way this game was trending. The Pirates are a team that struggles to score three runs, let alone seven (or more). What happened next should be a surprise to no one.

Dana Eveland was called upon to stop the bleeding, and if you consider six more runs over 2 2/3 "stopping the bleeding", then I guess he did the job. The good news is that the Pirates have him under control for a few more years of this. Sorry, I had to say that.

Thankfully, a combo pack of four Pirate relievers shut down the Rangers the rest of the way, but the game had been decided long before they entered the picture. The meager Bucco offense managed just six hits and three runs, paced once again by Bobby Crosby. The shortstop is 8 for his last 11 and picked up two more hits last night, including a double. 

Delwyn Young had the only other extra-base hit, a double, and the Pirates struck out a total of 12 times on the night. Combine no pitching and no hitting and you get 10-runned like it was a Little League game. Unfortunately, they didn't stop this one in time. 

The three-game set wraps up tonight, as Jeff Karstens (2-2, 4.72) takes on the Rangers' Scott Feldman (5-6, 5.16) at 8:05 in Texas. Considering they've been outscored 19-6 so far, we might be best served to plead for mercy from Nolan Ryan's boys before the game starts tonight.

Maholm's career-worst start dooms Pirates, 13-3 [PG]
Crosby loses out on Hart Trophy, Lindsay Award [PG]

16 comments:

Steve said...

http://www.postgazette.com/pg/10175/1068025-100.stm

Typical Pirates trade. Eveland cut and Uviedo is a starter with at 2-0, with a .203 opponents batting ave.

Anonymous said...

How are all those years of control working out for you now Neal?? Another great move by the best management team in sports.

Koz said...

To be fair, those are minor league numbers... but still. LOLz Piratez!!! again.

BurressWithButterflywings said...

I had read somewhere that Uviedo was coming on strong and had a solid upside.......

I have an aversion of bringing in anyone whose name sounds like Cleaveland.

BurressWithButterflywings said...

I just read the link Steve posted:

Just when I think the Pirates organization can't get any worse, any more stupid, or somehow crash to another "Rock Bottom", they turn around and totally prove me wrong!

Wow.........

Steve said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
okel dokel said...

What a mess! Can we exhume Sid Thrift?

Steve said...

Even the Yankees couldn't afford to piss away prosects with so many bad trades at the rate the Pirates do. No wonder Huntington's priority is on stocking the farm teams...he needs to keep feeding the rest of the league, as the Pirates sure as hell don't know what to do with prospects.

Seems that for every 1 Pirates prospect that makes it up to PNC Park, 2 more go to another big league venue. I bet Neal gets more Christmas cards than any other GM.

C'mon Nate, where's the spin that this isn't Huntington's fault, or a bad decision? And no, it's not too early to judge, the Pirates get the bad end of a deal again even if Uviedo does nothing more with Toronto. His tiny bit of success there is still a lot more than Eveland ever gave the Pirates.

Adam said...

Name the other prospects Huntington has "pissed" away?

You're acting like this Eveland thing is a trend on NH's part which really couldn't be further from the truth. His trades have almost exclusively been veterans for prospects.

I'm not gonna pull a Nate and try deflect all criticism, but when it's baseless and flat wrong factually, I think it needs to be pointed out. You're full of it Steve.

Koz said...

@okeldokel If you're going to exhume anyone, let's go straight to Branch Rickey

Nate said...

That trade was terrible from day one.

I think Uviedo ends up being a reliever, which devalues him a lot, but he's still an interesting player that we gave up for someone that everyone knew couldn't cut it in the Majors. It honestly blew my mind.

That said, yeah, when has this ever happened with Huntington before? This is the only prospect-for-veteran trade I can think of off the top of my head that the guy has made.

Steve said...

OK Adam, maybe I'm out of line on the actual number of propects "pissed" away" but off the top of my head; Eric Hinske and Jesse Chavez come to mind. Maybe they aren't the players to build a team around but they're at least contributing at the MLB level right now and better than the players the Pirates got in return. Yup, that sure beats high A ball prospects and a $5 million dollar waste of a roster spot in my mind.

If it'll make you feel better I'll stop commenting on Neal's handling of prospects and focus on what he's really good at, trading veterans for garbage.

HomeRunFromBehindTheMeatballs said...

Was anyone defending this particular trade even before eveland got cut?

@ Steve - Are you really gonna call Eric Hinske a "prospect" with a straight face? Is hinske contributing somewhere? Is chavez? NH has traded garbage veterans for garbage prospects... sure prospects aren't all gonna work out, but those 'veterans' weren't anything special.

No one's gonna defend Iwamura's performance, but maybe you should quit while your ahea... maybe you should just take a break?

Anonymous said...

Steve - To call Eric Hinske a prospect is just plain wrong. He was 31 years old last year when sent packing and he made his MLB debut in 2002. On top of all that, he didn't want to be in Pittsburgh and was a cancer in the clubhouse. That was a good move IMO.

Adam said...

@ Steve

Thanks for discrediting yourself by calling Eric Hinske a prospect.

Nate said...

Thinking that 32 year old Eric Hinske is a prospect tells me all I need to know about your baseball knowledge.

I mean, Hinske did win rookie of the year...in 2002.

I guess you could kind of call Jesse Chavezz a prospect, but it's pushing it for a 26 year old middle reliever. Aki sucked, but Chavez was no great shakes either and wasn't even a high-leverage reliever. At least Aki had a good track record.