Big Lead Sports Bar

8/29/2010

Charlie Morton's Great Stuff Falls to 1-10, 10.03


Just how many embarrassing performances do the 2010 Pittsburgh Pirates have in them? Well, how many games are left? 32? Then I'd say 32.


Sunday was more of what we've seen all season from the Buccos - poor decisions, sloppy play, and a lack of urgency - in an 8-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park.

Charlie Morton's Great Stuff, starting for the first time in the bigs since May 27, gave the Pirates 3 1/3 innings, allowing eight runs, nine hits, and a walk on 82 pitches. He was every bit as awful as he was when he left in May, dropping his 2010 record to 1-10 and raising his ERA to 10.03 in the process. 

With Morton's loss, the Pirates now have five starters with 10 losses or more this season: Morton, Ross Ohlendorf (1-11), Jeff Karstens (2-10), Zach Duke (6-12), and Paul Maholm (7-12). It's the first time the team has achieved that dubious feat since 1954.

But to pin the loss entirely on Morton would be an injustice to the other underachievers in the lineup on Sunday. Ronny Cedeno bunted with men on first and third and Morton on deck, resulting in an out and a fruitless inning; Delwyn Young missed a cutoff man on an off-target throw home; Lastings Milledge continued his butchery of outfield play on a fly ball that fell in behind him; Morton had a wild pickoff throw to first; Ryan Doumit had a passed ball; Garrett Jones, struggling mightily at the plate, screwed up a force play; and as a cherry on top of this failure milkshake, John Russell had his obligatory fumbling of the lineup, allowing Morton to bat in the third instead of pulling him for a pinch hitter. Morton, who struck out, went out for the fourth inning, hit a batter, and gave up a home run to Ryan Braun. Bravo.

On top of everything else that went wrong, Evan Meek got blasted in the hand with a line drive hit by Braun, but dodged a major bullet when it was revealed that there was no fracture. At the time, it sure looked ugly, so I'm glad to hear that Meek will be OK.

What's the deal with all these Pirate pitchers getting hit by liners this year, anyway? Jakubauskas, Ohlendorf, and now Meek. I can't ever remember three such plays in one Pirate season in my life (and I usually take note of those after a similar occurrence happened to me in American Legion ball in 1995, breaking my elbow and ending my season).

The good news, if you can have good news in an 8-4 loss: the team flashed some power, with three dingers (Jones, Doumit, Young), and they got 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief from Daniel McCutchen. But that's about the extent of it, as the Bucs fell to a ghastly 43-87 on the season and an unreal 13-51 on the road. 

A series with Chicago starts tomorrow night, as Maholm and his 7-12 mark takes to the hill against Carlos Zambrano and the Piniella-less Cubs. Gametime is set for 8:05 at Wrigley. Can the Pirates top themselves in the category of lethargic, uninspired play? I guess we'll have to tune in to see for ourselves.

Mondesi's House: The Director's Cut (more links, commentary, etc): twitter.com/mondesishouse
Email: mondesishouse@gmail.com

2 comments:

Daquido_Bazzini said...

Another horrifying performance by the most horrific franchise in all of sports.
Bob Nutting continues his "fiasco extravaganza" complete with tight wallet and propaganda.
Get this guy out of Pittsburgh and away from the Pirates!
Somebody has to have some mercy on Pirate fans and rid us of this ugly dictatorship.

HomeRunFromBehindTheMeatballs said...

Wow, after seeing Meek getting helped off the field, i'd say there was NO WAY he didn't fracture his forearm/wrist!!! His hand was already purple and took a nice little 'jog' right before his wrist. Not fractured, just broken? haha. Wow, it looks bad & i hope supermeek can get back to normal.