Draft Thoughts

The draft isn't over yet - the Steelers still have one more pick to make in the 7th round - but lets go with what we have anyway.

I'm not going to be one of those people that grades the draft the second it ends because we quite simply don't know what is going to happen with any of these guys. Right now across the NFL there are two grades being handed out in NFL cities: A+ or F-. Cleveland has assured themselves the next five Super Bowls and Miami has assured themselves a top pick in 2008. It's just too soon to tell. Right Mark?

Overall, I think the Steelers addressed one of their biggest glaring holes and needs by selecting Timmons and Woodley with their first two picks. Consider that over the past three years the number of plays Steelers linebackers have made in the backfield (Sacks and Tackles for loss) have been in a steady decline while the collective age of the group has quickly began to rise.

Consider on Friday this is what the Steelers linebacker unit looked like in terms of age:

James Farrior - 32
Clint Kriewaldt - 31
Clark Haggans - 30
James Harrison - 29
Larry Foote -26
Arnold Harrison - 24
Rian Wallace - 24

Eh. The only three guys younger than 28(!) were Larry Foote, Arnie Harrison and Goo Wallace...And only Foote is a guarantee to make the 2007 team.....that's not good.

And going back to the stat I mentioned before, the total plays made in the backfield:

2004: 49.0
2005: 48.5
2006: 37.5

Enter Lawrence Timmons and Lamarr Woodley. The biggest complaint I can find on Timmons is that he was taken to high at 15, and that the Steelers could have traded down and still had him. I don't know. First of all, who is to say he would have still been there? Secondly, if he turns out to be a good football player it doesn't matter to me if he was taken at the 15th spot or the 115th spot. There was a time when people thought Troy Polamalu was actually taken too high. And not that it matters, he too was taken at the 15th spot of the first round.

In the third round the Steelers raised quite a few eyebrows when they selected Minnesota Tight End Matt Spaeth. Some quick reviews from around the web:

Mike Tanier of Football Outsiders and Fox Sports fame....

READY TO PLAY

Matt Spaeth, tght end, Steelers: The Steelers have an excellent young tight end named Heath Miller, so why did they select Spaeth? Two tight-end sets have become very popular in the NFL, and teams like the Patriots have demonstrated that you can do more than just run the ball with two big guys on the field. Spaeth is the best blocker in this year's draft class, so he can stay at home to protect Ben Roethlisberger or seal off linebackers on running plays while Miller splits the seam. Spaeth is the second coming of Mark Breuener, a tough blocker who started for the Steelers for nearly a decade.

And from Pro Football Weekly

Spaeth drew a massive showing to his pro-day workout because he did not work out at the Combine while recovering from a shoulder injury. He is one of the best blockers in the draft and has the type of tough-minded, hard-nosed mentality to endear himself to the Pittsburgh brass. The Steelers, who like to use a lot of multiple-TE packages, landed a warrior.

Lets hope he's more Mark Bruener than Matt Kranchick....

The Steelers opened up day two by trading up seven spots - they dealt their 6th round pick to Green Bay to make it happen - and selected Punter, from Baylor, Dan Sepulveda. Your friend and mine, Ryan Wilson, has been all over this pick and nailed it with the Steelers fourth round selection. Sepulvada has quite the track record in college:

- The only two time winner of the Ray Guy award as the country's best punter.
- 94 punts of 50 yards or more.
- seven punts of 70 yards or more.
- And a buff 6'2 220 pound frame - He walked on as a linebacker!

The beauty of this kid is not only does he push Chris Gardocki out the door as a punter, he might also push some poor special teamer out the door as the teams resident skull cracker on kick coverage.

Bam! Seriously, that is an amazing hit.

Mike Tomlin appeared on ESPN's draft coverage this afternoon and was talking to Trey Wingo about the teams picks. Wingo - who aside from being the star of one of ESPN's greatest commercials (seriously, my name is Trey Wingo) - also graduated from Baylor University, and when Wingo asked Tomlin about the fourth round selection of a punter, Tomlin responded by saying, "Well, from what I understand you get plenty of opportunities to punt at Baylor."

Zing.

With the fourth round compensation pick the Steelers went back to the defensive side of the ball and picked up 6'4 288 pound defensive tackle Ryan Mcbean from Oklahoma State.

In the fifth round, the Steelers used their first of two picks to grab guard Cameron Stephenson from Rutgers. The two scouting reports i've seen on Stephenson compare him to Steelers free agent pickup Sean Mahan. Supposedly he's very raw as a guard as he spent the 2005 season playing on Rutgers defensive line.

At the back end of the fifth round the Steelers picked up defensive back William Gay from Louisville.

Some other random draft thoughts:

- Keyshawn Johnson was a pleasant surprise - to me anyway - on ESPN's day one coverage. He seemed like he did a ton of homework on the players and really knew what the hell he was talking about. Meanwhile, Sean Salisbury continued to yell like he was the last person on earth and was every bit the disaster one would expect Sean Salisbury to be.

- Mel Kiper is still furious that the Dolphins passed on Brady Quinn.

- As we stand right now - Pick 216 - three Pitt players have been taken off of the board. All-Everything Cornerback Darrelle Revis to the Jets in the first round. Linebacker Clint Session to the world champion Colts in the fourth round. And linebacker H.B. Blades to the Washington Redskins in the sixth round.

Still waiting on Tyler Palko. Akron's Luke Getsy, who started his career at Pitt and is a graduate of Charlie Batch High (that would be Steel Valley), is also waiting for a phone call.

- I'm kind of surprised that the Steelers didn't grab a Running Back somewhere this weekend. As it stands right now the only two backs on the roster are Willie Parker and Najeh Davenport. Unless you count John Kuhn. On the plus side, and as our good friend Scalacki over at MGS points out...Running Backs are always available as undrafted free agents.

- All those big potential trades that were set to go down this weekend? Alan Faneca? Michael Turner? Larry Johnson? Yeah. None of them happened. But Randy Moss did go to New England who have just won the Super Bowl. Or so i've heard.

Day One In The Books For The Steelers

1.15 - LB - Lawrence Timmons - Florida State
2.46- DE - Lamar Woodley - Michigan
3.77 - TE - Matt Spaeth - Minnesota

- A very interesting day, at least to me. The top two guys appear to be the type of players that can fit in to a 3-4 or 4-3 system, which still leaves the "what kind of defense will Mike Tomlin ultimately end up running?" question still up in the air.

- Matt Spaeth was a surprising pick, but he was the John Mackey Award winner in 2006 as the country's top college tight end. And he is absolutely massive. So long Jerame Tuman?

I'm not sure if it means anything relevant, but the Steelers did leave day one with the Lombardi award winner (Lamar Woodley, who also won the Big-10 Defensive player of the year) and the John Mackey award winner (Spaeth).

Six picks tomorrow, including two in the fourth and fifth rounds each.

Is The Alan Faneca Era Coming To A Close?

I should begin by saying this is nothing more than my own random speculation, pieced together through various media clips, reports and my own ability to add two and two together - which I admit, often results in five.

Here is what I know:

- Alan Faneca is a free agent following this season.
- Free agent guards - and they don't have to be anywhere as good as Alan Faneca - are getting a lot of money.
- Alan Faneca seems to unhappy about a lot of stuff, from Russ Grimm not being named the head coach, to his contract status, to the release of Joey Porter...to basically everything short of a lack of sushi joints in Crafton, and that too may upset him. I don't know.

All of this has resulted in some talk that Faneca could be moved. Soon. John Clayton sent out the nugget this week that Faneca is angling for the team to try and move him, and that they may be looking to do just that. PFT even lobbed out the idea today that the Arizona Cardinals may be "tampering" with Faneca.

It would not surprise me to see Faneca as part of a trade prior to Saturday afternoon. It also would not surprise me to see Alan Faneca remain with the team beyond this weekend and holdout in a manner similar to Hines Ward prior to the 2005 season. Although I don't see this situation ending in such a pleasant fashion.

Either way, it seems to be pretty much a given that Faneca will not be a Steeler in 2008. The Steelers aren't going to pay Hutchinson-Steinbach money to him, and they shouldn't. Not with bigger in-house fish to fry in the coming off-seasons, you know..like Ben and Troy.

And if the Steelers know this, and know that he's unhappy - which he seems to be - it would be best for all parties involved to make a move now. I would rather see the Steelers lose Faneca a year early and end up with an early second round pick to show for it, as opposed to holding onto him for a lameduck year and having nothing but a late fourth or fifth round compensation pick to show for it.

I just find it a little odd that Faneca flew into Pittsburgh, met with Tomlin prior to the start of mini-camp...and then left again.

Bizarre.

Regardless of how it ends, none of this should take away from Faneca's contributions to the Steelers franchise. One of the best lineman the team has ever seen and a guy that has - in my view - a pretty legit shot at Canton when he finally hangs up the cleats.

Sometimes it's just time for a change.

Charlie Manuel Is Losing Whats Left Of His Mind; And Other Stuff

A couple of days ago Toni asked me to talk about Charlie Manuel's curious decision to move Brett Myers from the Phillies starting rotation to their bullpen. And because I aim to please...away we go.

The Phillies are off to a bad start. They're 6-11 right now and were 4-11 just two days ago. Following one of the teams early season defeats, Manuel threatened to drop a local Philly radio personality in the clubhouse and continued to rant and rave in his office about how "we're not going to lose." It wasn't quite Lee Elia...it wasn't even Lou Piniella...but it was funny.

But not quite as funny as what he did a few days later when he shipped Myers - the teams best starting pitcher over the last two seasons - off to the bullpen in favor of Jon Lieber.

Jon. Lieber.

To be fair to Manuel, Myers has been off to a rough start. But it's just that. A start. Or three starts to be exact. Not exactly a large portion of the season. Actually, it would be comparable to an NFL team benching its starting quarterback after one-and-a-half games. Knee jerk reaction? Terribly shortsighted? Incredible overreaction, perhaps? Yes. Yes. And most definitely...yes.

But that's if you wanted to be fair. Over the last two seasons Myers ERA+ has been 122 in 2005 and 118 in 2006. He's an above average starting pitcher. Or at least he has been. Lieber has posted ERA+ numbers of 108 and 94 over the same time span.

What makes it even worse - as if the original move itself wasn't bad enough - is how Manuel is using Myers now that he's in the bullpen. Closer? Set-up man? No. And of course...no.

Manuel used Myers on Sunday afternoon against the Reds.

In the ninth inning.

With his team leading 9-2.

Bonkers is about the only word I can think of to describe it. This would be like the Pirates moving Zach Duke or Paul Maholm to ninth inning mop-up duty and inserting Shawn Chacon into the rotation to solve the teams early season woes.

And now some other stuff:

- Ian Snell watched - in horror no doubt - as his teammates once again managed to snag defeat from the jaws of victory for him on Saturday night. Snell pitched another stellar game for the Bucs in Chavez Ravine and left with a 3-2 lead. Narrow lead, perhaps. But a lead nonetheless.

The ninth inning started off with a walk by Solomon Torres, which would actually be the highpoint for the remainder of the game if you're a Pirates fan.

Following the walk, Ronny Paulino once again struggled with a ball in the dirt and let it scoot away from him. I can't remember who the runner was for LA, but he bolted for second. Paulino picked up the ball - with his glove, which slowed him down even further - and then proceeded to airmail his throw into right-center field allowing the runner to walk into third base. A few pitches later, Paulino again let a ball get away from him - I believe it was a splitter from Torres that Paulino simply let go through the 5-hole - which allowed the tying run to score. The Dodgers never put the ball in play in the ninth inning and managed to tie the game.

The Bucs were held scoreless in the top of the 10th and Russell Martin deposited a Shawn Chacon fastball well over the left field fence for a walk-off Grand Slam to give the Dodgers a 7-3 win. In a matter of about 20 minutes the Bucs went from a close victory to a blowout loss in extra innings. Just like that.

It was an ugly series all the way around as both teams played the type of baseball that would best be accompanied by Benny Hill music. Paulino, and his LA counterpart Russell Martin, took turns throwing balls into the outfield, Juan Pierre and Nate Mclouth each dropped routine flyballs on Sunday and Jeff Kent made one of the most half-assed efforts you'll ever see from a second basemen on a stolen base attempt. And none of that includes the throwing exhibition that Juan Pierre put on from center field. Think Al Martin with a rotator cuff problem. Yeah. It was that bad.

- While Ian Snell has had no luck in the win department thus far, Tom Gorzalanney is now 3-0. Both players have posted nearly identical pitching lines while Snell only has one win - and a "loss" - to show for it. If both of these guys can keep pitching close to this level for the rest of the season.....things will be looking pretty good.

- Matt Capps. That's all. Just......Matt Capps. Okay, maybe there is more. Consider this about our strike throwing set-up man: In his brief career Matt Capps has pitched 95 innings - through yesterday's action - and only walked 13 batters. Impressive, yes. But not quite as impressive as the fact that only 8 of those walks were of the unintentional variety.

That's 0.75 unintentional walks per nine innings. Fantastic.

- Humbero Cota has drawn as many walks as Ronny Paulino has so far despite having over 40 fewer at-bats. Nate Mclouth has drawn more walks than Xavier Nady despite having 45 fewer at-bats.

Fun Facts.......And Stuff

- Tonight, Ryan Doumit clubbed his third home run since his demotion to AAA Indianapolis. That hit brings his current - current being, as of this second that i'm writing this - batting average to .462.

Heading into tonights game in LA, Ronny Paulino has a .459 OPS.

That's....craptacular. I just don't have high hopes for Paulino, mainly because he looks - to me anyway - like a guy who just picked up a random bat and glove that he found on the street and just started playing baseball having received zero coaching at any point in his life. Everything about his approach just looks....bad. And when you consider that the Pirates moved their second most talented prospect to another position and have made Ryan Doumit the next super-duper-utility player based on what Paulino did in three months last season...it's kind of frustrating.

At the very least, the two (Doumit and Paulino) should be platooning in Pittsburgh. If nothing else it would give the Pirates another left handed option so they might have a fighting chance against soft-tossing mediocre righties.

Speaking of which.......


- Xavier Nady enters play tonight with 991 career plate appearances against right handed pitching. He sports a .710 OPS (with a strong .297 OBP) against them in those at-bats.

Every time I see Nady in the lineup against a righty I feel the urge to staple his splits right on Jim Tracy's forehead.

- A-Rod just hit his 11th home run of the season a little bit ago off of Curt Schilling - who for some reason is sporting a really ugly looking green jersey and hat. This puts Rodriguez on an hilarious early season pace for 119 homeruns and 292 RBI.

Currently, his 11 home runs puts him ahead of nine Major League Teams:

Kansas City (10)
St. Louis (9)
LA Angels (8)
Minnesota (8)
LA Dodgers (8)
Washington (8)
San Francisco (7)
Colorado (7)
Oakland (6)

The Cubs have hit 11 to match him. The Pirates enter tonight with 13. Arizona, Philadelphia, Boston, and the New York Mets came in to tonight with 12.

He's slugging 1.000.

1.000

And before I can finish this post, he just hit another one. That's 12.

Coco Crisp made a fantastic effort to bring it back, and he almost had it, before he fell over the wall into the bullpen.

Insanity.

For comparisons sake, when Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001, he hit 12 home runs for the entire month of April.

When Mark Mcgwire hit 70 home runs in 1998, he hit 11 in April.

Rodriguez currently has 12, with still nine games to play in the month of April.

Ridiculous.

Ramblings On The Majors

In case anyone cares - and you most likely don't - I plan on being a little more active here for the time being, so if you're one of the handful of people that stop on by...keep on doing so. I guess?

Anyway, a quick trip around the Majors:

Joe Mauer...bunting?

A couple of weeks ago I was watching a Twins-Yankees game where Twins manager Ron Gardenhire had Joe Mauer drop down not one, but two sac bunts in the same game. The whole thing troubled me, not only because it was silly to take the bat out of your best hitters hands, but because it was only a one run game (against the Yankees(!) of all teams) and the Twins could have used Mauers bat to do the talking. Playing for one run against that lineup seems kind of foolish.

Apparently this is going to be a new thing for the Twins, because in last nights game against Seattle, Gardenhire had Mauer bunt...again. That's three times in 12 games. Last season Mauer had a higher batting average than every other player in baseball and dating back to the start of the 2005 season (and up through last nights game) Mauer has a .324 batting average. Seems like quite a waste to have him drop down a bunt to move up the runners when it's likely he could moved them up even further by simply doing what he does. And what makes last nights bunt even more confusing is the guys who were on base ahead of him were Luis Castillo and Jason Tyner. Not exactly base clogging neanderthals. A single would have been a guarantee to score one. A shot to the gap would have most likely scored both.

Very curious. Very disturbing. Very stupid.

King Felix Holds Court

Tonight, Mauer and the Twins will be in Seattle again where they will be taking on Felix Hernandez, and if you haven't been paying attention to King Felix's first two starts, you've been missing out on some all out ass kickings.

In his first two starts (against Oakland and Boston, pretty solid competition) Hernandez has put up the following pitching line:

17 innings. 0 runs. 4 hits. 18 strikeouts.

He's also only given up four flyball outs. It's scary to think that this guy is only 21 years old. He seems a lock to win at least one Cy Young award in his career - assuming he avoids the curse of promising Seattle pitchers and stays healthy - and could be a contender as early as this season.

Disappointing that he pitches in Seattle where he's likely to be ignored and never appear on ESPN unless he's facing the Red Sox (who he almost no-hit on ESPN in his last start...against Dice-K of all people) or Yankees.

Another promising young arm out on the west coast took the hill last night for the Giants, 22 year old right hander Matt Cain. Cain has been almost equally dominant over his last two starts where he's only allowed 3 hits (and only one run) over his last 14 innings. And to show a true testament of how bad the rest of the Giants are, he has zero wins to show for those efforts. He took a no-hitter into the fifth inning of last nights game and a no-hitter into the seventh inning in the start before.

And yet, no wins.

Adam Laroche Finally Does Something - Big Guys Struggle

After spending most of the first two weeks of the season swinging and missing everything thrown at him, Adam Laroche finally got a hold of one yesterday afternoon and hooked a 3-run shot around the right field foul pole at NBS. It gave the Pirates a 5-0 lead and helped lead them to a 6-1 win to complete a two game sweep of Tony Larussa's drunken Cards. It was a pleasant sight to see - as much as gamecast will let you see from the office - as Laroche has not only looked bad early on, but downright overmatched.

Jason Bay has joined Laroche, who has struggled offensively and defensively thus far, in some early season struggles, but before you start to worry...take a look at some other guys through the first two weeks of action.

Albert Pujols: .160/.263/.380/.643
Manny Ramirez: .205/.300/.227/.527 - 0 Homeruns
Travis Hafner: .243/.356/.432/.788
Lance Berkman: .184/.377/.263/.641

Yeah. It's early. Jason Bay is going to be there at the end of the season, as will the four guys above and hopefully Adam Laroche will join them. If the Pirates are going to hang around in the Comedy Central, he'll almost have to.

Don Cherry Is Coming To America

Since tonight is an off night for Pittsburgh sports, I thought i'd take a minute and write something about yesterday's news.

Don Cherry Is Going South Of The Border

It was announced this week that NBC will feature Canadian Hockey Analyst Don Cherry during their Stanley Cup Playoffs coverage. He will be teamed up with Brett Hull, which means intelligent commentators everywhere will be sitting in a dark room wondering where the hell they went wrong.

This can only end bad for the NHL. The league is already on thin-ice in this country as it is, and I can't imagine a casual hockey fan who is trying to get interested in the game being turned on by the inane ramblings of Don Cherry (and Brett Hull!!!!!!!). Cherry is as close to a shock jock as you will find in mainstream sports coverage, and as one person said on a Penguins message board, "He's hockey's answer to Ann Coulter." Europeans, french Canadians and Americans....wussies that can't play hockey. Wear a visor? Get out of the league. Don't support fighting? DUM-DUM!

In other words: He says stupid things for the sake of getting a reaction. Things, sort of like this.......

"In the States, they wanted me to go on one time in Pittsburgh. Jaromir Jagr, it was when he had long hair and he was with Mario Lemieux and I said, 'There's Mario and his daughter.' It didn't go over too good. That was my last time in the States."

Nice. I fully expect him to trash Sidney Crosby, and perhaps we'll get lucky and he'll pull a Don Imus and get himself fired.

Somewhere along the line networks stopped worrying about actual knowledge with their analysts and instead turned to screaming into the camera as the main objective. The result is a generation of John Kruk, Sean Salisbury, Brett Hull, the modern day ESPN......

2007 Pittsburgh Steelers Schedule Announced

The Steelers are scheduled for the maximum primetime contests - five - which is kind of a surprise considering they had a disappointing 8-8 season last year. Three of them are at home including two Monday night contets - November 5th against Baltimore and November 26th against Joey Porter and his pit bulls from hell - and a Sunday night game against the Bengals. The Steelers open the season on the road in Cleveland and open their home schedule the following week against what remains of the Buffalo Bills.

As for the rest of the schedule, from the Pittsburgh Steelers official website:

2007 Pittsburgh Steelers Schedule
PRESEASON
Sunday, Aug. 5	vs. Saints (HOF Game)	8 p.m./NFL Network
Saturday, Aug. 11	PACKERS	7:30 p.m./KDKA/FSN Pittsburgh
Saturday, Aug. 18	@ Redskins	8 p.m./KDKA/FSN Pittsburgh
Sunday, Aug. 26	EAGLES	8 p.m./NBC
Thursday, Aug. 30	@ Panthers	8 p.m./KDKA/FSN Pittsburgh
REGULAR SEASON
Sunday, Sept. 9	@ Browns	1 p.m. (CBS)
Sunday, Sept. 16	vs. Bills	1 p.m. (CBS)
Sunday, Sept. 23	vs. 49ers	1 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, Sept. 30	@ Cardinals	4:15 p.m. (CBS)
Sunday, Oct. 7	vs. Seahawks	1 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, Oct. 14	BYE WEEK
Sunday, Oct. 21	@ Broncos	8:15 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, Oct. 28	@ Bengals	1 p.m. (CBS)
Monday, Nov. 5	vs. Ravens	8:30 p.m. (ESPN)
Sunday, Nov. 11	vs. Browns	1 p.m. (CBS)
Sunday, Nov. 18*	@ Jets	1 p.m. (CBS)
Monday, Nov. 26	vs. Dolphins	8:30 p.m. (ESPN)
Sunday, Dec. 2*	vs. Bengals	8:15 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, Dec. 9*	@ Patriots	1 p.m. (CBS)
Sunday, Dec. 16*	vs. Jaguars	1 p.m. (CBS)
Thursday, Dec. 20	@ Rams	8:15 p.m. (NFL Network)
Sunday, Dec. 30	@ Ravens	1 p.m. (CBS)

The end of the season looks brutal with three of the four games on the road, including two potentially monster match ups in New England and Baltimore, and a home tilt with the hated Jacksonville Jaguars. And a bye week later than week four? Bonkers.

Bryan Murray: Wussbag Of The Year

If you don't know who Bryan Murray is, you soon will. And you won't like him. Murray made a habit this season of criticizing the Penguins - Sidney Crosby in particular - for everything he could possibly think of. Whether it made any sense or not. He usually stuck to the classic stuff - You know, how the Penguins whine a lot and get all of the calls - HA!- but perhaps his best rant of the season came when he complained about how Sidney Crosby swore at him and how it "wasn't acceptable for the leagues star players to talk like that."

Murray meanwhile, spends the full 60 minutes of every single game bitching into the ear of any and every ref that will listen to him about how the Senators didn't have a full 60 minute powerplay for the duration of the game. Tonight, nearly every single call went the way of the Ottawa Senators: Two nearly full two minute two man advantages, the Crosby goal, two Ottawa slewfoots, etc. etc. etc. It happens. I'm not complaining about it, that's just how the NHL is. Some night this series things will work in reverse and the Penguins will get all of the calls and we'll have to give Bryan Murray a tissue before he floods all of Ottawa in tears.

With the Senators playing goon hockey for the final 20 minutes of the game - and getting away with it for the most part - Murray proceeded to halt the game for a good minute and a half while he screamed at both referees for not calling a penalty on Jarko Ruutu...with Ottawa winning 6-3.......with less than 30 seconds to play.

Like it freakin' mattered.

Anyway, prior to the ensuing faceoff, Murray pulled Chris Neil off of the ice so he wouldn't have to deal with Georges Laraque who would have without question beat him into a pulp. Hopefully LAraque gets it out of the way early in game 2.

Bryan Murray ladies and gents, the new Ron Wilson.

Game One In The Books

Okay, so game one isn't officially over yet, but the Senators are winning 6-1 with about 9 minutes left and Marc-Andre Fleury has been pulled (although, he kept the Penguins in it a lot longer than they should hav been). Despite the fact that everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong, a loss never felt so good. After all, this was an NHL playoff game that involved the Pittsburgh Penguins. Nobody was going to win the series tonight, nobody was going to lose the series tonight, and hey...the first time the Pens won the cup, they lost the first game of every single series.

Of course, a lot of frustrating things happened tonight. Two Penguins were slew-footed with no calls. Perhaps the worst goal reversal i've ever seen. And now the Senators are starting to play some dirty ass goon hockey and Paul Steigerwald and Bob Errey are on the Penguins TV broadcast openly rooting for the PEns to up the ante and start taking runs at the Senators...it's quite bizarre to be honest with you.

Lets put this one behind us and get ready for Saturday. If the Pens can pull that one out, they split the opening two in Ottawa and rip home ice away from Ottawa, and that should be the goal for these first two games.......

An Absolute Disgrace To Baseball

About the only words I can use to sum up the disaster I just watched. If you were fortunate enough to miss tonights Pirates-Cardinals game, consider yourself lucky. If you were smart enough to turn the game off after the 8th inning, consider yourself lucky. If you're a masochist like I am and still follow the Pittsburgh Pirates and hang on every pitch, consider yourself an idiot.

Through eight innings tonight the Pirates held a 2-0 lead over the Cardinals. Tom Gorzalanney was fantastic, the defense was sound and everything seemed to be where it should be.

Until the ninth inning began.

The ninth inning which featured bad pitching from Solomon Torres, an attrocious little league mistake from Jason Bay throwing to the wrong base allowing the tying run to move into scoring position, and yet more bad pitching from Solomon Torres. Just like that it was 2-2. And things would only get worse.

The Pirates had multiple chances to win it in extras and failed miserably every time. And Jim Tracy continued to show just how clueless he is. For example, Adam Laroche - who is worthless against lefties in his career - was left in to face...ah hell, I don't even remember who it was. It doesn't really matter other than the fact he was a worthless soft-tossing lefty instead of being lifted for Brad Eldred...a powerful righty who mashed lefties all through his minor league career. As was expected, Laroche did nothing and the following inning Laroche was lifted in favor.......of Brad Eldred. If you're going to take Laroche out anyway, why not just put in Eldred to face the soft tossing lefty? And it's not like Larussa could have just went in and flipped to a righty...no one was warming up in the bullpen. Brilliant move.

An inning later, Jack wilson was up with runners on first and second with one out. Tracy, in his infinite wisdom, called a bunt. The Cardinals response to this was to put on the infamous wheel play...which should be a cue to the hitter to pull off the bunt and swing away to an open middle of the infield ....Wilson didn't, he bunted directly into the wheel play, the runner was easily gunned down at third and the rally was over.

The thing of it is, Jason Bay is the Pirates best player and Jack Wilson is one of the Pirates smartest palyers. No one is immune to the disease of Pirates baseball. Yeah, tonight was one game and we're still 4-4 and the season is a marathon and blah blah blah. But man, the last three innings of tonights game was the last 14 years of Pirates baseball wound up into a neat little ball and rocketed directly into our crotch from four feet away.

The Cardinals scored the winning run in the top of the 12th when Ronny Paulino couldn't hold onto the ball at home play when he tried to tag out Gary Bennent. The game ended with a 1-6-3 double play off the bat of Freddy Sanchez.

It was a fitting end to an embarrasing night of baseball. Fortunately, tomorrow marks the start of the Penguins playoff run and we can at least forget about how the Pirates will disapoint us yet again.

Random Stuff

Some brief random thoughts on the eve of the Pirates home opener:

- In the Pirates four wins so far this season: 3 walks by their Pitchers.
In the Pirates two losses so far this season: 12 walks by their pitchers.

I think that about sums things up quite nicely. No walks in today's game in Cincinnati as the Bucs salvaged the weekend series and return home with a 4-2 record.

- Adam Laroche has struck out 13 times in 24 at-bats.

- Chris Carpenter was scheduled to start Tuesday's nights game against Tom Gorzelanney, but Carpenter had some swelling in his elbow after throwing a bullpen session on Saturday night and he is out. It's still unknown who the Cardinals will throw out there for that game, but whoever it is he won't be as good as Chris Carpenter...so that's a good thing. If the Cardinals lose Carpenter for any extended length of time they could be in serious trouble as the rest of their rotation leaves a lot to be desired.

- Welcome back Freddy Sanchez, 2-4 with an RBI and an HBP in his 2007 debut. And welcome to the team Brad Eldred. After seemingly being the forgotten man the first five games, Eldred emerged from the shadows today and delivered an RBI double in the top of the 4th and an opposite field solo homerun in the top of the 8th. He also made his first career start in Right Field today and made - by my count - one putout on the only ball hit out to him. I'm still not sure what to expect from him, but hopefully he gets more of an oppurtunity than one appearance every six games.

- Ian Snell Vs. Braden Looper for the home opener......

The Return Of Ugly Baseball

After completing a clean three game sweep to open the season in Houston, the Pirates started this weekends series in Cincinnati playing like it was still 2006. And by that I mean, lots of walks from the pitchers, bad defense and more mental mistakes than you should see from a Major League team.

In today's game, Pirates pitchers walked nine batters and allowed the Reds to steal five bases, all of which came uncontested. Perhaps the most frustrating moment of the game was in the bottom of the first with the Pirates leading 2-0, Adam Dunn hit a fly ball to right field that bounced off of Xavier Nady's glove and over the wall for a game tying two-run homer. The rest of the game featured another blown lead by the Pirates, miscommunications on pop-up's and plenty of walks. Maddening baseball.

The most troubling thing about these first two games is the Bucs have allowed a mediocre Reds lineup to pound them for 14 runs in two games. Of course, the Reds are helping their own cause by moving Adam Dunn up in the lineup to get him more at-bats...and today he absolutely killed the Pirates with a homerun, three walks and three runs scored.

And what purpose does Humberto Cota really serve on this team? I realize he had a nice day at the plate today with a double and a single, but five uncontested steals? Two of them to Adam Dunn? As long as Ronny Paulino and Ryan Doumit are on the 25-man roster there is absolutely no reason for Cota to be on the Major LEague roster, let alone starting games.

Now that the complaining is out of the way, It should be worth noting that the Pirates have played these opening games without the defending National League batting champion. Which is a comment that should not go understated. They've also been playing without Jason BAy, for the most part, who is off to a slow start - which is pretty normal for him. I'm not concerned about Bay because when the seasoan ends the numbers will be there. Once Sanchez returns - which could be on Sunday - and Bay gets going the lineup should start to take some steps forward.

A disappointing two games following the opening series. Hopefully the Bucs can salvage something on Sunday and return home 4-2......

Hey Pittsburgh: WE'RE 3-0!!!!!!

It's hard to imagine the 2007 season getting off to any better of a start than this, and i'm just friggin' giddy because of it. This is the Pirates first three game sweep in Houston in what seems like forever, and their first ever sweep at Minute Maid Park which has been a house of horrors for them since that bandbox first opened.

The Pirates did it the way they're going to have to do it this season, strong starting pitcher, strong defense - for two games anyway - and lights out action from the bullpen.

Tom Gorzalanney's line won't show it, but he pitched a whale of a game tonight, Zach Duke was solid in the opener and Ian Snell was dominant in the second game. Gorz was robbed of a longer and potentially more glorious outing than his five inning performance tonight, but some shoddy defense through the first four innings gave the Astros three runs they didn't deserve. He did however keep the Bucs in the game in the bottom of the fourth when Houston had the bases loaded with nobody out and already possessing a one run lead. Gorz managed to hold the damage to a minimum and the Pirates exploded for four runs in the top of the fifth - they too were aided by some shoddy defense of course.

The really impressive thing about this opening series sweep is the fact they were able to do it with the defending National League batting champ sitting on the bench and getting absolutely nothing from Adam Laroche. In their absence Xavier Nady and Jose Bautista picked up the slack and delivered some big performances - Bautista was 3-for-5 tonight with a couple of RBI.

Tonight's game featured some really bad baseball from both teams, and the Pirates made their share of boneheaded mistakes. For four innings it looked like vintage 2006 Pirates baseball - Jim Tracy sac bunting in the first inning, bad defense, bad base running....it looked bad. It almost reached a boiling point in the fifth when Ronny Paulino did his best Brett Boone impersonation by flipping his bat and admiring a flyball he hit to center field. Trouble is, centerfield in Houston is about 436 feet and unless you really knock the snot out of one, it's not leaving the yard. Due to Paulino's gaffe and his slow break out of the box he managed to turn an easy standup triple into a double. It almost proved costly on the next play when Nady clubbed a deep flyball to center. Paulino would have easily scored on the play regardless of what happened, and what happened was Chris Burke dropped the ball, and because Paulino was tagging on the play - something John Wehner didn't agree with - he couldn't score anyway.

Fortunately Jose Bautista picked up both mistakes on the following at-bat and the Astros defense did the rest.

That's my only complaint of the series, Paulino's base running gaffes and the shoddy defense tonight. I'm not even going to complain about Adam Laroche's (lack of) performance because we're 3-0, damnit. And it's only three games, so, you know....lot of baseball left.