WE WILL: Triple the Suspense
Championship caliber teams know how to win a game. Cleveland, whom can hardly be called a championship team yet, won a game 2-1 Sunday and got only one hit. ONE! Notice how they got 2 runs off of one hit. The Pirates had two triples last night. My friends over at F.B.S. say the last time the Buccos had two triples in the same game Fred Flintstone was the president of the Royal Order of Buffaloes. The Pirates had a man on third and no outs in the third. In the sixth we had a runner on third and 1 out. Both cases our weak producing middle of the order let us down. Triples are great, but you have to make the most of them.
Not capitalizing on a triple is like having theDahm triplets at your bachelor party. You
can look, but no touch!
Not capitalizing on men in scoring position with 0 or 1 out is not a new problem for this 2007 team. We all took for granted that JBay would be his usual .295, 30 HR guy and LaRoche would put up similar numbers and that the rest of the order would be the weakness. Astonishing that its been the opposite. When a team gets starting pitching as good as this Pirates starting rotation has been, the team MUST find a way to score runs. Let's go back to that Cleveland game and see how they scored:
Nothing earth shattering here but fundamental baseball, good base running and luck. Can anyone honestly say they have seen either fundamental baseball or good base running from the 2007 Pirates? I believe Tracy's philosophy of "small-ball" is what this team should be playing. Now I have to ask, are they even capable of playing it? And you shouldn't count on luck. 14 years of losing kills any good luck a team might have. Unless they bring Earl Hickey in, I doubt we will be seeing any good luck for a while.
Hopefully that Carson Daly is not full of crap!
Torres gets a free pass for the next month in my book. He more than made up for his troubles last week by picking up LaRoche, the third base bag, and the guys who couldn't drive in the runners from third earlier in the game when he finished off the game by getting the best hitter in the game to pop out.
Senior Frog calls that clutch
Lost in all this "fundamentals" talk was the fact that Snell pitched great. My hat is off to Tracy for letting him get himself out of the seventh. In a world dominated by "match ups", its rare to see a manager show any signs of trust in a starter. I recall Tracy letting Duke pitch a similar inning mid-way through last year. It seemed to be the turning point for Duke to get back on track. Showing this kind of trust in Snell now and getting a good result will pay big dividends later in the season.
Nothing earth shattering here but fundamental baseball, good base running and luck. Can anyone honestly say they have seen either fundamental baseball or good base running from the 2007 Pirates? I believe Tracy's philosophy of "small-ball" is what this team should be playing. Now I have to ask, are they even capable of playing it? And you shouldn't count on luck. 14 years of losing kills any good luck a team might have. Unless they bring Earl Hickey in, I doubt we will be seeing any good luck for a while.
Hopefully that Carson Daly is not full of crap!Torres gets a free pass for the next month in my book. He more than made up for his troubles last week by picking up LaRoche, the third base bag, and the guys who couldn't drive in the runners from third earlier in the game when he finished off the game by getting the best hitter in the game to pop out.
Senior Frog calls that clutchLost in all this "fundamentals" talk was the fact that Snell pitched great. My hat is off to Tracy for letting him get himself out of the seventh. In a world dominated by "match ups", its rare to see a manager show any signs of trust in a starter. I recall Tracy letting Duke pitch a similar inning mid-way through last year. It seemed to be the turning point for Duke to get back on track. Showing this kind of trust in Snell now and getting a good result will pay big dividends later in the season.
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