The Official 2006 Pittsburgh Pirates Thread

[Karlos05]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

I think Colborn has gotten to Perez, espically in the area of using his "praying mantis" position. He's using it well now and more importantly on pitches where he can punch the guy out. Not like last year where he just kind of threw them in at random spots. Big improvement IMO.

Brown also had a good point saying that no matter what the radar says the Brewers are swinging through Ollie's heat which is a great sign.

[mjb2124]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

Yeah I hated that "praying mantis" stuff he did last year. If you're a hitter and you see a guy doing something like that and you know the reasoning behind is that he think he's about to strike you out, don't you concentrate that much more to not K?

I always got frustrated listening to Greg Brown gush over the "praying mantis".

I think we caught a break there. I think Castillo was out at 2nd.

[mjb2124]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

LOL. Nice catch by Bay, but he almost overslid that one.

EDIT - I thought that was a quick hook by Tracy. I guess Ollie was on a pitch count because he got into a groove these last few innings and was mowing people down.

[Karlos05]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

I probably would have given Ollie the next batter too. Let him try to get out of it. His pitch count was getting up there, and this is his first real work so I really don't have a problem either way.

Now lets see how good the bullpen is. I guess the next 3 innings are going to go Marte-Hernandez-Gonzalez? (ideally)

[mjb2124]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

Yeah.... In typical Pirates fashion, they've blown the lead and now Capps is coming in to try to stop the bleeding.

Torres had that guy at 3rd. I felt bad for him. He was just trying to move to fast. That changed the entire inning.

I had read that Tracy has a very quick trigger when it comes to pulling pitchers and likes to use his bullpen a lot. Looks like that's the case.

[pncbucs]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

pretty pissed that i spent the afternoon at my rainy baseball practice and missed the opener! oh well, from what i heard perez might finally have that velocity back. if he's going to do well this year, it's going to result from that. 9 k's in 5 and half against a decent brewers lineup? ill take it.

[cjonesfan921]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

Perez looked good but dissapointed in the velocity. He had that one bad pitch and it was killed by JJ. He doesn't have to ahve that 98mph he had in '04 but high 80s - low 90s won't cut it. He needs to be in the mid 90s consistently. Still it was a nice way to start the season and hopeuflly he builds on it. Who's going next game? Duke?

[Karlos05]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

Santos is going tommorrow and blah the Pirates aren't back on FSN until Thursday.

Anyways my final thought on Perez. For once it seems like I actually agree with what the team is saying. Perez's fastball has climbed pretty well since he really started throwing, which was only a few weeks ago because of the WBC and I think when he gets back on track he'll get it up to where it needs to be. Maybe not the high 90's from 2 years ago but maybe in the 95-96 area.

Kinda disappointing to see the pen blow it but that muff by Torres really hurt. We do have 161 games to straighten that out though.

[LetsGoPitt]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

Anyways my final thought on Perez. For once it seems like I actually agree with what the team is saying. Perez's fastball has climbed pretty well since he really started throwing, which was only a few weeks ago because of the WBC and I think when he gets back on track he'll get it up to where it needs to be. Maybe not the high 90's from 2 years ago but maybe in the 95-96 area.

Yeah, I think the layoff really hurt his arm. Apparently he was throwing hard in the Mexico league, but he only had two appearances in the WBC, which can't be good. I did notice that the velocity was slowly creeping up as he went deeper into the game.

As for the blown lead, it was very disappointing. But what really pissed me off was Carlos Lee's BS time out that he got...AFTER the pitch was thrown! That's something that would only happen when you've got a guy like Lee going against a rookie. The fact that the pitch should have been strike three, and that Lee later hit a 2-run homer, makes it even worse. Even the Brewers announcers (who I had to suffer through) thought it was a lame call.

[mjb2124]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

Yeah you guys have a good point about his arm not being built up since he barely pitched in the WBC and missed a lot of spring. Even though Ollie's velocity was down, he did pitch well for the most part. He really found his groove in the later innings that he pitched and his slider was really sharp.

My biggest gripe of the entire game goes to Jim Tracy. Sorry to bash the manager this early, but the inning before he yanked Ollie, he left him in to hit with the bases loaded. I don't get that. That was a prime opportunity to put some runs on the board. He knew Ollie's pitch count was rising and he wasn't going to let him go much longer (1 more inning max if not for the Pass Ball on strike 3) so why let him hit in that situation?

Oh well, it's only 1 game. Too bad we have to wait until Thurs to watch the next one. FSN should just air all of them!

[LetsGoPitt]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

My biggest gripe of the entire game goes to Jim Tracy. Sorry to bash the manager this early, but the inning before he yanked Ollie, he left him in to hit with the bases loaded. I don't get that. That was a prime opportunity to put some runs on the board. He knew Ollie's pitch count was rising and he wasn't going to let him go much longer (1 more inning max if not for the Pass Ball on strike 3) so why let him hit in that situation?

That's a good point. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that he was cruising along pretty well. I don't think he had allowed a hit since the second inning. I agree that it made sense to pinch hit in the situation, and I think Tracy definitely would have done so if they hadn't scored the one run to go ahead.

[mjb2124]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

That's a good point. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that he was cruising along pretty well. I don't think he had allowed a hit since the second inning. I agree that it made sense to pinch hit in the situation, and I think Tracy definitely would have done so if they hadn't scored the one run to go ahead.

True. He was cruising along VERY well at that point (struck out 7 of the last 9 batters he faced). It's a tough situation for Tracy to be in so I can't harp on him too much. A lot of things could've swung the game the other way.

Hopefully Santos can get a W today and bring us back to .500! The way he pitched this spring leaves me with little hope though.

[LetsGoPitt]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

Personally, I'm more hopeful that our hitters will do something. Every time they go against Doug Davis they make him look like the second coming of Sandy Koufax

[mjb2124]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

Buccos up 2-0 in the first on a Sean Casey HR. McLouth and Craig Wilson are starting as well.

[LetsGoPitt]

Re: The 2006 Pittsburgh Pirate Thread

Who got on base ahead of Casey? I got home just as he was making it back to the dugout.

He did well in the first, but watching Santos pitch is putting me to sleep....