Kick ’em when they’re down

The Brewers can’t buy a win right now, with eight straight losses including Monday’s awful Trevor Hoffman blown save. We’ve run into them with the situations reversed in the past, and they’ve steamrolled us. The Pirates, meanwhile, are playing their typical brand of manic ball, getting outscored by the Phillies 13-4 in their two-game set, but getting a split and a win over Roy Halladay in the process.

Tonight, the Brewers are probably counting on a pretty easy win with Randy Wolf pitching for them and Brian Burres taking the mound for the Bucs. Burres’ last start was a rough one against the Cubs and he’s probably headed towards that “regression to the mean” that we talk about so much, but with interleague play looming it would be really nice to see the Pirates add to the Brewers’ misery a little bit this week. I think we owe it to them at this point.

First pitch tonight is 7:05, 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 so far and now’s as good a time as any to join in.

OK, I’m having a minor existential crisis about the scoring rules here. Without his batting added in, Zach Duke was last night’s Clemente and Garrett Jones, he of the three-hits and go-ahead RBI, was the runner up. That feels right to me. But if we count Duke’s offense, which was negative, then it’s Jones and Octavio Dotel. I have no problem giving the nod to a closer who closes out a one-run game against a good lineup, but I feel like it’s stupid to penalize Duke in this situation for hitting poorly when his stated job is clearly not to pitch. In the past, I’ve subtracted pitcher’s offense when necessary, but I’m not longer certain it’s a good idea and am considering changing the rules. So, should a pitcher’s offense count? Give me some advice.

With the rules as currently configured, Jones and Dotel were last night’s Clementes and Ryan Church, Delwyn Young, and their 0/9 night got them Cangelosis honors. There were a few people that missed points on Church, but all in all not that much point movement (though it would change some if Duke were the game’s Clemente)

  1. Don_Madden: 22
  2. Woodward: 18
  3. dafletch: 17
  4. brian2: 16
  5. hisjazziness: 15
  6. Wizard of Woz: 14

  7. North Shore Ryan, hwtrine68, ndbrian: 13
  8. pdiddy0020: 12
  9. bwzimmerman: 11
  10. Garrett122, whygavs: 10
  11. Carnegie Chip: 9
  12. UtesFan89, pdiddy0020: 8
  13. apk, edgeman2k: 7
  14. Nate, TuckerD13, dboz: 6
  15. J. Latrobe, TheHulk: 5
  16. appeal2smail, michaelbro8: 4
  17. TomKaikis, Joek, tylerrcurtis, TheJewelryMan!, fruitbat: 3
  18. PatrickHealy, MattB, SteelCity66, BadAndy, spazaru, Adam_Reynolds, Mr. Ando, appeal2smail: 2
  19. FSU Bucs, Christy, appeal2smail, SeanGentile, shsteimer, TheHulk, Traco Bucco, Tate, Neopold, IndianaJohns04, wk kortas, jac8, CoryR: 1
  20. Everyone else: 0
  21. NSN, Mosca, danatural, Teflon, John Sparrow, Cecilio_Guante, matt w: -1
  22. PHook4000: -7

About Pat Lackey

In 2005, I started a WHYGAVS instead of working on organic chemistry homework. Many years later, I've written about baseball and the Pirates for a number of sites all across the internet, but WHYGAVS is still my home. I still haven't finished that O-Chem homework, though.

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