The Pirates scoreless streak has reached 22 innings as former Pirate Bronson Arroyo threw 8 shut out innings to pick up his fourth win. He allowed just five singles and three walks while not allowing a runner past second base after the first inning.
Joey Votto had two hits and the game’s first RBI. Brandon Phillips hit a solo homer in the 8th and added sac fly in the 9th to give Cincy some insurance.
No complaints about Zach Duke’s effort. Five singles, a double, five whiffs and two walks in seven innings. His ERA fell to 2.21, while his record slipped to 3-2.
The Good
Duke. Keep on keepin’ on.
Nate McLouth returned. He hit into a double play in the first and reached on an infield single in the 9th.
The Bad
Where’s the offense?
The Rest
Last time the Bucs were shut out in consecutive games was June 20 and June 21, 2007 against the Mariners. Jeff Weaver and Felix Hernandez were the winners for Seattle. The Pirates scored a run in the first inning of the next contest as Freddy Sanchez doubled in Rajai Davis.
This was Arroyo’s fifth win at PNC Park and his first win pitching for someone other than the Pirates. Arroyo has 65 wins since being turned loose by Pittsburgh in 2003.
The Pirates cut Tim Wakefiled and he went on to win 166 games (so far) for Boston. Arroyo won 24 for the Red Sox. That’s 190 wins combined. You are welcome, Red Sox Nation.
Tim – the first paragraph from tconst above couldn’t describe me any better. Since I found this site, I’ve attained much better understanding of the Pirates farm system and team in general, which in turn, helped me become reinvested in the Pirates.
As far as suggestions, only a minor one: If it was possible to have links to go with each player/prospects name mentioned in an article. For instance, when prospects names are mentioned in articles, there are times when I’m either not sure who the prospect is (i.e. elvis escobar above) or quickly want to see his stats, so I end up typing his name into google and then usually clicking on the PP link for the prospect’s profile.
The one annoying thing with the name/link aspect is that you are forced to leave the page you are viewing. However, I think model used by ESPN for fantasy player profiles is best. When clicking on a player, a small (say 2″ x 2″) box pops up with their season avg’s and past 5 game stats, all while staying on the same article. For PP purposes, if this ‘box” would contain say the player’s position, age, height/weight, and stats/splits at each level, I think it would be very helpful/useful to have some perspective on the players when reading posts.
Not sure if that would require some sort of special server / internet configuration (not programming-savvy), but I thought it would be nice b/c I know I constantly use those player links for fantasy purposes. Anyways, if not, no big deal – keep up the great work!
I love the site, Tim. I randomly stumbled upon the website during the first half of the season last year when the Pirates were still in contention for the division title and I have been hooked ever since. I never knew too much about the Pirates’ minor league players until I started following this site, but now I have a much better understanding and knowledge of all aspects of the Pirates organization; and I have you and your staff to thank! Now when I attend Curve games, I have a lot of knowledge on each of the players I see on the field.
I believe I wrote in my survey that an idea for the continued growth of Pirates Prospects might be either live blogs of each of the Pirates’ minor league team’s games (perhaps starting with the GCL team) or blogs that cover each of the Pirates’ minor league teams. I understand that this would require many more (expensive) upgrades such as hiring more writers and upgrading other technology-related services, but this would certainly add to PP’s already stellar service. Keep up the great work!
Tim….I wasn’t around to do the survey, but I would have to go with #1 . 🙂
However, aren’t there minor league links out there? Maybe you’d be able to put a permanent link? I think USA Today, Baseball Reference and MiLB.com have them.
Those are the places I usually check.
Hey, you can’t have EVERYTHING on here, right? 🙂 🙂 🙂
Two comments on JAL’s links. Here are a couple of sites that I use and check, even though I am a PG Plus subscriber.
http://pittsburghsportsdailybulletin.wordpress.com/
You can sign up for an e newsletter. You also get Steeler and Penguin stuff.
JAL’s links are also are found in Dejan Kovajevic’s blogs in the Trib live Sports section: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/
1. Your last point about scouting reports. Sounds good if some are one liners only.
2. You provide oodles of info. Best site around. Some of the sites I used to visit, I don’t anymore.
3. Count me as one who likes the B games.
4. Miss JAL’s links? Me too. P-G’s pay site isn’t worth it to me. But I’d pay a small fee like you talked about for PP.
5. Rene Gayo: didn’t you interview him in the past? That would be great.
6. Player value: like this but would it be possible to alsoinclude ML values. Like Player A should command a SP (like for instance a #3 ), and position player (say a bench guy) and a MiL (say a AA position player).
7. I don’t think this was covered but you don’t have “stale” coverage. One of you is on top of news. You have commentary all day. And the PBC F.O., to me, is outstanding in providing access, not only to PP but other sites as well. Something I never expected.
8. Who is hot and who is not. Can’t remember from last season if it was used or not. I think WTM (or you) did it but not sure.
9. Tweaks here and there, but everything as is is good.
Responding to a few of the numbers:
3. It was very popular. There’s a B-game tomorrow. I’ll be providing coverage.
4. I don’t have any plans to charge for the site.
5. I actually just met Rene Gayo for the first time today.
6. ML values are easy to match up. You just do a player value for each player and match up the dollars. But those trades are rare. If a team is trading for major league players, they’re usually not looking to give up major league pieces. And teams trading major league pieces are usually looking for prospects.
8. Wilbur did an article like this each week. Got a lot of questions about that. I just figured it was from people who weren’t here last year or didn’t remember.
Thanks for the other comments.