Saturday, June 16th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
What Became Obvious
Another wasted night at PNC Park, as the Pirates dropped to 29-39 and 3-5 in interleague play. Mark Buehrle thoroughly dominated the Bucs, holding them to nine hits over eight innings. On the home team side, John Van Benschoten was very good for the Pirates, giving up 2 runs in 5.2 innings and striking out 4. Both runs should have been unearned, as Adam LaRoche’s egregious throwing error in the second inning led to the two runs. It is difficult to fathom that there was not an error on the play, therefore making the runs unearned. Van Benschoten made the pitch he needed to make, but LaRoche failed to execute by throwing the ball clear over Doumit’s head. That is not the pitcher’s fault and demands an unearned run (or, in this instance, two unearned runs). Other observations after the jump.
- The lineup made almost no sense tonight. I do not quite understand taking Bautista out of the groove he has gotten into recently in order to insert Rajai Davis, who has minimal chance of actually reaching base, into the leadoff spot. Speaking of the CF position, why not put Bautista out there for at least until Duffy is healthy? This seems to make more sense than putting Davis out there, as it allows all three infielders (Wilson, Sanchez, Castillo) into the lineup (with Sanchez at 3B). This would be more effective than putting Davis/McLouth in one of the two outfield spots.
- Tad Iguchi has the ugliest swing I have ever seen in person. His first-inning strikeout actually had me laugh out loud in the stands as he swung and missed at the final two pitches. He gets almost no extension, just sort of punching the ball. This may work for a guy like Ichiro, but it just looks awkward on Iguchi.
- Davis is freakishly fast. His groundout in the third inning was made thrilling as he almost beat out a routine grounder based on pure speed by no error of the shortstop or first baseman. That is impressive.
- The pitch radar was not working for most of the first two innings, which became especially frustrating because I wanted to get a read on JVB. When this became impossible, my frustration was only stemmed by the guy saying, “stop chastieing me” when another fan told him to stop swearing. The one who couldn’t speak the English was eventually thrown out.
- Terrible umpiring tonight, especially in the 6th as Doumit certainly had Iguchi out in that rundown. Jim Tracy, however, just listened to what the ump had to say (Again) and did not bother to get thrown out to support his team. That’s still the type of guy you want managing your team . . . a guy with no fire and minimal passion towards the result. Nice job Jim. Your players put out the effort, but you don’t care enough to be ejected for some reason.
- The Sopranos spoof that they played on the scoreboard was fantastic. It has been quite a while since I’ve seen a better clip on that board.
- I really like Van Benschoten’s motion. It seems to be smooth and easy, despite the fact that he does not get above 92 very often. The motion does not seem to put too much stress on any body part, therefore preventing future injuries.
- Van Benschoten does, however, need to throw more strikes. He put himself into danger too often and does not have the overpowering stuff to get out of those situations. If he truly wants to become a #3 or so starter, he must start pounding the strike zone more often.
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