Thursday, July 26th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
Gorzo’s Hurt, Ollie is Ollie, and Damaso Should Get a Boatload
Jim Tracy has succeeded at last. His overtaxing on Tom Gorzelanny’s arm has finally caught up to the manager, his young pitcher, and the Pirates as Gorzelanny left last night’s game with a tight left shoulder. The simple fact of the matter is that 135 innings before the end of July is too many for a young starter who is pitching his first season of major league baseball. Gorzelanny’s high in professional baseball is last season’s 161.1 innings, between Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. The southpaw was on a rapid ascent to that number and has thrown quite a few pitches as he has developed into a legitimate ace and the team’s stopper at some points this season.
Gorzelanny insists that the injury is nothing serious, just some typical mid-season issues. The Pirates should be used to seeing these supposedly typical issues balloon into major problems, as tightness was what contributed to John Van Benschoten’s shoulder surgeries and to the various other afflictions which the organization has seen befall its corps of young pitching. The Pirates should shut down Gorzelanny for at least two starts and call up one of the random first round draft choices from AAA (actually, even that group is down to Bullington). This would not only allow the Pirates to keep Gorzelanny, who they should be looking at as one of the staples of their team for the foreseeable future, healthy while also allowing them to figure out what they have in Bullington.
As for former Pirate southpaws, Oliver Perez is the same old Ollie. Perez absolutely dominated the Pirates for the first five innings today, ending up with nine strikeouts through six innings. He flashed the talent that Pirate fans had the good fortune to see in 2004, but also flashed the same stupid mental lapses that he puts fans through in 2005 and 2006.
Perez seemed to become a little bit whacky after he threw away a Cesar Izturis sacrifice bunt attempt. This development led to Perez’s complete loss of control after he retired two Pirate hitters to keep the score tied. Xavier Nady came to the plate and simply ripped a ball down the third-base line, deflecting it off of David Wright’s glove and scoring two runs. The Big Mistake, which Pirate fans should be used to, came next. Perez hung a 2-2 fastball to Josh Phelps (who should still be used more) and paid for it, as Phelps launched a two-run home run.
Perez still has all of the talent in the world and is still only somewhat capable of using it simply because he still suffers awful mental lapses when unfortunate events occur on the mound.
Staying on the topic of lefties, Damaso Marte will hopefully be traded at the deadline. If Scott Linebrink was able to net two solid prospects and one very good prospect, Marte should be able to fetch either a borderline major-league ready player or a very nice package of prospects. Has Linebrink shut down his last 27 lefthanded hitters? Didn’t think so. Reports have the Dodgers scouting the reliever and the Pirates apparently have interest in mini-La Roche (Andy). While some part of me believes that this return would be high, it seems to make sense with relieving being the key commodity on the market this deadline and the Pirates having a significant amount of it to offer.
Also, if the Pirates really are interested in La Roche, what’s up with going after so many third basemen all of a sudden? First it was Troy Glaus and now it’s Andy La Roche. Apparently the organization doesn’t think that Jose Bautista is the answer.
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