That crash you heard last night from the Midwest was the sound of the Pirates falling back to reality after taking a 9-3 spanking in St. Louis. Ian Snell was in mid-season form allowing eight runs-six earned-on nine hits in four innings. Snell was victimized by Albert Puljos-again-who lit him up for a homer in the third inning. It was the fifth time Big Al has gone deep in 34 career at bats.
Andy LaRoche continues to audition for a job at Giant Eagle. The "butcher" dropped a pop up last night which led to two unearned runs. He's committed three errors in two games meaning he's on pace for.....a lot of errors and these words, "Ah, mam anything else besides the ground beef.?"
Tonight Zach Duke starts for the Pirates. Duke is hoping to avoid becoming baseball's next .400 hitter, sort of. Last year the league hit .304 against Duke; two years ago .359; and three years ago he allowed a league high 255 hits. To put that in perspective consider that only two players ever reached such heights. Ichiro Suzuki owns the single season record for base hits with 262. George Sisler is second with 257. Duke could give them a run in 2009.
Actually Duke had a strong spring with a 3.86 era in eight starts. Throw out a bad effort against the Yankees-but remember there are no mulligans allowed in baseball-and the era drops to 1.46. Don't forget those are spring training numbers too and we all know the importance of spring training statistics. See Ronny Paulino 2008.
Game time 8:15 p.m.
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