Pirates on June 11

As of today, despite a crushing 9th inning loss last night they stand at an almost respectable 31-34, close enough to think that they might actually be able to reach .500 this year. What has put them in this situation and what has to change and/or happen for them to do it?

The Good
-The outfield has generally been the most productive in baseball. Can they keep it up?
-They are 12-10 in one run games. Maybe they are finally doing the little things necessary. Then again, as most baseball stats guys will tell you, maybe this is just the law of averages evening out. But consider that since 1994, the Bucs have been over .500 in one run games only three seasons: 1997, 2001 and 2002. In the division winning seasons of 1990-92, the Bucs were far above .500 in one run games. Suffice to say, it seems to indicate that you generally win one run games at the same rate that you win other games, though there can be anomalies. Is 2008 an anomaly or will the record recede back towards .500?
-Their pythagorean record is 30-35, so it's not as if the team is winning games it shouldn't and the record masks a deficiency that will be exposed as the season goes on.
-Matt Capps was, up until last night, one of 3 closers who have double digit saves who have not blown one. Still, he has turned into a very reliable closer and should remain so. The bullpen in general has been a positive, especially with Grabow and Marte doing well from the left side and Yates from the right. There is no reason they won't continue to perform well and it jsut goes to show that the single biggest variable from one season to the next is relief pitching. You can build a good pen from guys who surprise and ride it for a year.
-The Pirates have played the second hardest schedule in baseball and are still 31-33. The fact that they're 3-9 vs the Cubs jacks that schedule strength number up, but the fact remains that they should play an easier schedule the rest of the way than they have so far.
-Because of their strength of schedule, ESPN ranks the Bucs as #9 in their RPI formula. There are 4 NL Central teams in the top 9, primarily because it's the only division in baseball with 3 teams above .500. But it's a sign that the Bucs have played decent baseball against good teams. Why can't they play at least as well against weaker teams?

The Bad
-The pitching has been very close to the worst in baseball. This has to get better to finish close to .500 but the Bucs' history is littered with guys who show promise on year and flame out the next: Perez, Benson, Schmidt, Duke. you'd expect Snell and Gorzo to balance things out somewhat, but you never know with this teams and it's pitching luck.
-We're not talking playoffs here. Keep it modest. .500 is the goal. Playing in a division with the best team in baseball as of today means the division is out of the question, unlike the 1997 scenario.
-They have been close to .500 at similar points in seasons past and have had the bottom drop out as the season fades and they fall further behind. Why would this season be any different?

The All-Important Standings
Yankees 33-32 - $209M
Pirates 31-34 2.0 $49M
Mets 30-33 2.0 $138M
Tigers 27-37 5.5 $139M

In looking at the above, the good seems to outweigh the bad, maybe this team can win 73 games instead of 72. They're currently on pace for 77 wins and have held to that pace for about a month. History says otherwise, but I'm bullish on the Bucs:

73-89

Heat Crazed

• There should be a law that if your school has to close early because it's too hot, maybe because it doesn't have a/c, then the school year is over right then. What a great day that would be.
  
• Lots of talk today about the Bucs scrap with the DBacks at PNC yesterday. First off, I like John Russell and think he has a chance to be at the helm of this team when they finally break through the .500 barrier at season's end. But let's not get carried away just yet. As noted historian Ron Cook writes, showing a fighting spirit in baseball will get you nowhere. Just ask Lloyd McClendon. And I'm not going overboard on Russell's job just yet because I was impressed with Jim Tracy for the first half of his first year, until he started blaming the players for everything abd and taking credit for all that was good. And look what happened to that train wreck. 31-33 still needs to be improved upon.
• Still, let me update the all-important standings:
  Yankees 32-32 - $209M
  Pirates 31-33 1.0 $49M
  Mets 30-32 1.0 $138M
  Tigers 26-37 5.5 $139M
• Bucs are 31-33 but what is reality and what is perception? Mike is generally right but wrong about a couple of facts that taint his article. For example, he says:
  

  See, the hallmark of most Pirate teams this decade have been long stretches of somewhat respectable numbers and records. For 5 out of the 6 months of the season, the Pirates have battled, fought and played pretty good ball. But then there's that one month. The one month where they win 3, 4 or 5 games, and lose the rest. The one month where they are 15 under in that month, and doom their season.

  Well, that's just not true. What is truer is that since 1993 they have played consistently badly but yet in several years managed to have one good or superior month that skews the perception.
  
  They have had plenty of bad months in that span including a 5-22 Sept mail it in to end in 1998, 4 8-20 months, one 8-21 in 2000 and one 7-19 in 2006.
  
  Let's look at it this way: to get to 90 wins and playoff contention a team has to play .555 baseball. To lose 100 games, a team has to play .383 ball. The number of months from 1993-May 2008 that the Bucs have played at these levels (combining Sept and Oct and out of 91 total):
  Playoff caliber, .555 and above: 8 (9% of total)
  Moderately Good, between .500 & .554: 18 (20%)
  Bad, between .383 and .499: 42 (46%)
  Horrible, below .383: 23 (25%)
  
  So there have definitely been some bad months of baseball, but it's almost equally balanced by the number of months where they play abouve .500 ball. Almost half the time, the Bucs have played at a level that is about where they finished.
  
• Mark Reynolds had quite a series especially considering he should have had another HR yesterday. I'm not sure how the umpires overruled the first base umpire considering that the TV replay was inconclusive as to whether the ball was going over the wall or bouncing off of it. It should have been an HR.
  
• The call for instant replay in baseball for helping with HR calls is simply adding a problem on top of another. The issue causing all these bad calls is the ballparks that have crazily drawn yellow lines as the HR demarcation line or that allow fans to reach over the fence to grab a ball. It's hard to argue with allowing paying fans to sit as close as posible to the field, bu for the ballpark architects to ignore the simple fact that there needs to more of a demarcation between what is an HR and what isn't than a yellow line is just dumb.
  
  Adding instant replay to try to correct this issue won't solve the problem. It may help in some cases, but there is no way that replays showed clearly reversible proof that Reynold's HR wasn't going over the wall. With replay, that call would have taken 15 minutes to clear up and I'm not sure which way they would have ruled.
  
  We can live with humans making the calls. All of them. Enough with replays adding 2/10ths of a second back onto a basketball time clock or the NFL's momentum-sucking, fan-deadening, under the hood fiasco.
• My early line has it this way: Fleury, Malkin and Staal get new contracts, Malone reups with the Pens, Hossa and Orpik leave. Also leaving, one way or another: Dupuis, Scary Gary, Ruutu & Conklin. Sticking around will also include: Hall, Laraque, Eaton and Tafffe.
  
  That's my early June heat crazed feeling. As of now.
  

Post Cup Syndrome

It's been a hard few days since Sid's backhander slid just wide and the Cup was paraded around Igloo ice. But to help get through the summer, here are a few things:

• The Coolest Helmet in History: The Pittsburgh Steelers
• Ace Dumatrait led the Bucs to a win and a 30-33 record. Here are your all-meaningful standings as of this morning June 9:
  Yankees 32-31 - $209M
  Mets 30-32 1.5 $138M
  Pirates 30-33 2.0 $49.3M
  Tigers 26-36 5.5 $139M
  
  The Bucs are still in contention with MLB's 3 top spending teams...
• However, the Bucs are 9.5 games behind the Cubs, which is what really matters.
• Only 7 out in the wild card chase behind the Cards, and 6 other teams.
• Haven't watched any of the retro Celts/Lakers clash (there is enough other 'noise' around this series, who needs to watch the games), but Mondesi's House had a great recap of Paul Pierce's Oscar winning performance from the weekend. Who's tougher: NBA stars, soccer players or my Grandmother?
• Dwight White died over the weekend at the young age of 58. 'Mad Dog' was a great player just below LC and Mean Joe, bu he told a great story about SB IX on SB X's America's Game episode on NFL Network. Dwight was sick the week of SB IX and in the hospital but raised himself to play a pivotal role in the game. Yet the team took their official photo without him since he was sick and he was driven to get in an official SB winning team photo.
• Too many Steelers are dying. Since 2000, 18 former players have died from various maladies and accidents.
  

Elvis Is Going Back to the Burgh!!

vs.

Sykora Nets the Winner while Bugsy puts his nose in the way again

Classic Game 5. Has to rank as one of if not the best games in Pens history.

Hop in the Cordoba, Get in the Fast Lane, or Get Down to Archie's on Carson St for Game 6!!

Notes & Links:

• Who else but Mike Lange for the calls. His call of Talbot's tying goal is perfect.
• Some losers don't think Sykora should have been able to score the winning goal. Why do they insist on this stupidity??
• Mario Trasher Burnside tries to get back Burghers good side.
• Seems like lots of people, including Muir at si.com, are amazed at the Pens fighting spirit. And lots were saying they had to compete harder. Baloney. They were competing hard just couldn't do what they wanted because of Detroit. That's why last night wasn't a total surprise.
  
• What if it was Mario, or Gretzky, or NYC media darling Messier who called his shot instead of Petr Sykora? Movie producers would be fighting to make it. Instead, it's a nice mention.
• Little Mitchy Albom chimes in with a decent but typical story about the despair in Detroit.
• How many writers need to chime in on how difficult it will be for the Pens to keep the team together after this season? We've all heard it, there is nothing new to write. Just sit back and enjoy it while you can.
• The Flower's amazing save just before Sarge hits the boards:

• Talbot's goal with 34.3 seconds left was the latest goal scored in regulation in a Stanley Cup Final game by a team facing elimination.
• The Cup has been won on a goal that went further into OT: Brett Hull's skate in the crease goal that won the Cup for Dallas in 1999.
• Things That Made Me Smile This Morning:
  
• From the Grand Rapids Press: "Get Ready for a Championship Parade Detroit!"
• From the PG:
  "With a little less than six minutes left in the third period, workers rushed down a large corridor of Joe Louis Arena pushing carts of champagne on ice.

  Elsewhere in the bowels of the building, the Stanley Cup was receiving a final white-glove polish."

• Paul Kukla wonders if that was the worst loss in Detroit history.
  
• Game 6 is on.
  

Notes from GameDay #4

• Bucci was on my flight Thursday morning back to Hartford, and no I was not sitting in 17B. He gives a recap of his perfect day: ESPN - Traveling to the 'Burgh brings me back to my hockey roots - NHL
• Some people just can't stop bashing the NHL, no matter what the league does. First off, who cares how many players are made available to the media - nobody cares how difficult the media's job is. And second, would it really have made a difference to the average fan? No, but this guy from the Detroit Free Press makes a big deal of it anyway, because there is nothing else to complain about.
• Winning Game 3 was huge but won't mean too much if they lose Game 4 tonight. Going down 3-1 is not advisable and Petr Sykora agrees.
• After watching Detroit play three games, I wonder how anyone thought this would be a great offensive show that casual fans would be drawn to. The Pens came into the series with the best defensive numbers of any team in the playoffs. And the Wings control the puck so much that it limits what the other team can do. Finally, someone in Canada recognizes this.
• Not all of Michel Therrien's lineup changes have worked in the series, but Sydor played a good game after being out for so long. And perhaps he's regaining his touch. The lethal but makeshift line of Crosby, Hossa and Malkin that he put on the ice after the Wings first goal in Game 3 did a great job of thwarting any momentum the Wings may have gained from the goal.
• I don't understand why everyone is so up in arms about Therrien claiming the Wings are good at obstructing the Pens. First of all, they are, they do it well and more than any other team the Pens have played. Second, this is exactly what every other coach in NHL history has done, including Mikey Babcock. Mike Milbury's labeling of Badger Bob as a "Professor of Goonism" in 1991 was a laughable example of it, but it was no different. And finally, it seemed to work at least early on as the Wings were assessed an interference call early on.
• One guy thinks the NBC production of these Finals is "excellent". I like Pierre McGuire and his commentary from between the benches, but how can a TV production be called excellent if they repeatedly ignore replays (in a sport that is so fast moving that it demands replays to clarify what you saw) in favor of another commercial or in game graphic sponsored by Edge or whoever. If you have a choice, watch the CBC for a great broadcast. Why American networks don't hire Canadians to produce the NHL I have no idea.
• The Ghost of Mr. Muir over at si.com thinks the series will end in 5.
• Maybe the NHL doesn't get the attention it deserves, not because fans aren't interested,but because the media doesn't care to accurately report what happens or maybe even watch the game. This from some jobber at cbs.sportsline.com who thinks he's writing about Brooks Orpik's 4-wipeout shift:
  

  The stint lasted about 45 seconds and came with some five minutes remaining as the Penguins were struggling to protect a one-goal lead against the hard-charging Red Wings.
  

  Actually, the shift came with just over 10 minutes to play and the Pens had a 3-1 two goal lead at the time. And funny enough, the Wings scored a goal a few minutes later. So it wasn't exactly the game changing shift everyone thinks it was.
• Still, it is fun to watch the Wings skate into Orpik and get plastered:

Red Wings @ Penguins 5/28/08 Game 3 Orpik Hits