The good news is that it looks like Chris Jakubauskas is OK after his scary encounter with a Lance Berkman line drive last night. The bad news is that the Pirates have now lost five games in a row and are turning to their most maddening and disappointing (so far) starter to try and stop that skid. I still think it’s impossible that Charlie Morton will continue along with an ERA of 16.55, but so long he keeps on giving up line drives likes a Jugs machine.
The Astros send Brett Myers to the mound today. I’d normally say he’s a nice target to break a losing streak against since he’s right-handed and not particularly great, but I just don’t have a whole lot of faith in this baseball team right now. Honestly, I kind of feel like the current losing streak might only be about halfway over.
(Reverse jinx, please?)
Given the depleted nature of the pitching staff, Brian Burres and Brian Bass will both be joining the team today (via Rob Biertempfel). Not sure about the corresponding moves yet as someone has to be DFA’d to make room for Bass and at least one person other than Chris Jakubauskas (who may be moving to the DL) needs to be removed from the big league roster. (UPDATE: Jakubauskas to the 15-day DL, Daniel McCutchen to Triple-A, Brandon Jones DFA’d to make room for Bass)
First pitch is 2:05, Clemente/Cangelosi is after the jump.
Not sure what this is? Check here and here. Short version: in the comments pick the Pirates you think will be most and least valuable in today’s game. If you haven’t jumped aboard yet, it’s been a lot of fun through so far and now’s as good a time as any to join in.
Nothing going on in either category yesterday; Javier Lopez’s scoreless 2/3rds of an inning and Delwyn Young’s ninth inning walk that loaded the bases (very, very briefly) made them the two best players in terms of WPA for the game. On the flip side, DJ Carrasco allowing Jakubauskas’s two base runners to score and Jack Taschner giving up a bomb to Pedro Feliz made them the two goats. That means that for the first time in history, no one gained or lost even one point. The weird nature of yesterday’s game (really short start, lots of bullpen work, no offensive movement by the Bucs until late) is really to blame, and I wouldn’t count on it happening all that often.
Here are today’s standings, which are the same as yesterday’s:
- Woodward: 18
- dafletch: 16
- hwtrine68: 13
- hisjazziness: 12
- brian2: 9
- Wizard of Woz, UtesFan89, whygavs: 7
- North Shore Ryan, Carnegie Chip, bwzimmerman, Don_Madden: 5
- IndianaJohns04, dboz, appeal2smail: 4
- TomKaikis, Joek, tylerrcurtis, TheJewelryMan!: 3
- PatrickHealy, Garrett22, edgeman2k, apk, Tate, MattB, SteelCity66: 2
- FSU Bucs, Christy, appeal2smail, fruitbat, SeanGentile, shsteimer, TheHulk: 1
- Everyone else: 0
- NSN, CoryR, Mosca, wk kortas, danatural, J Latrobe, Teflon: -1
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