Somewhere during the Pirates' endless seventh inning tonight, where the Pirates put the first 11 hitters of the inning on base, scored ten runs, and turned what seemed like a punchless 4-1 loss into a rousing 11-4 win, I thought to myself, "I've seen this before." The huge inning, the bullpen meltdown, the fielders flopping around like fish out of water, the great start wasted. The Rockies had somehow morphed into the Pirates.

It's amazing what a difference that one inning makes. Now the Pirates have won two series in a row and four out of six since ending their eight-game losing streak. Now, Zach Duke has as many wins as he did in 2008 and we can say that his start today was, "solid except for one inning" instead of something more negative. Thanks to one big inning, Nate McLouth, Andy LaRoche, Brandon Moss, and Delwyn Young are all on hot streaks.

Really? I'm just happy to be on the right side of one of these innings.

The Pirates announced this morning that Tyler Yates is being placed on the DL today and Tom Gorzelanny is being called up from AAA to provide some long relief out of the bullpen. Given the strain placed on the bullpen by last night's rain delay, there's a good chance we see him on the mound at some point this afternoon.

The only way that doesn't happen is another good outing by Zach Duke. His mound opponent is Ubaldo Jiminez, who seems like the sort of pitcher that kills the Pirates in recent years. He throws hard, has great stuff, and has control problems. Those don't matter as much against the Pirates, who make guys like Jorge de la Rosa look good.

When the weird, instant downpour hit PNC Park after Delwyn Young doubled in two runs in the second inning to put the Pirates ahead 4-3, I immediately thought two things. The first was, "Well, Snell didn't look great tonight, it might not hurt to get him out early." That was quickly followed by, "Crap, that means we have to get seven innings out of the bullpen." The Rockies' bullpen is also pretty scary to watch, but seven innings is a pretty tall task.

The dynamic in the bullpen is actually kind of weird right now. With Sean Burnett holding the Rockies to one run over three innings and coming out of the game with a 5-4 lead thanks to a Nate McLouth homer (on his bobblehead night), Evan Meek came in and I felt pretty good about him on the mound. Then Jesse Chavez came in and I wasn't worried at all (Chavez's inning was awesome, for the record). Then John Grabow, one of the two guys that I had any confidence at all in before the season started, came in and I worried a bit. Then Matt Capps came in and I was pretty terrified, even with a three-run lead.

Actually, I understand the desire to get Capps back out on the mound tonight. They said on the broadcast that he was at the ballpark and noon today and they showed some film of him working with Joe Kerrigan with his left eye covered. Steve Blass guessed that was because his left shoulder has been flying open early, leaving his right arm lagging behind the body and costing Capps some of his invaluable control. I'm sure that's a big part of the problem, but I'll add that the video stills (from 2007 and 2009) Blass was looking also made it look to me like Capps' front side flying open early was giving hitters a longer look at the ball coming out of Capps' hand, which is something that a pure fastball guy like Capps simply cannot afford. Whatever the case, Kerrigan's exercise seemed ingenuous to me. With his left eye covered, Capps has to bring his right side around in sync with the left side because if he doesn't, he can't see. Blass and Greg Brown had a good laugh about Capps throwing with one eye during the game and Mitch Williams (who I cannot stand) was acting like it was the craziest and stupidest thing he'd ever seen on the postgame wrap on the MLB Network, but really, these are the sorts of things that Joe Kerrigan does that I don't remember seeing any pitching coach do with the Pirates' staff before.

Did it make a difference tonight? That's hard to say. Capps walked the first batter and the next two both grounded sharply to Jack Wilson for a DP and a 6-3 ground out to end the game. The Rockies certainly weren't crushing the ball like they were on Friday. My gut feeling is that if Kerrigan didn't think Capps had made improvements during their afternoon bullpen session, he wouldn't have let Russell use him in the game.

One other thing I wanted to mention is Andy LaRoche's base running. Last night, I took him to task for not paying attention to where the throw from the outfield was headed and got caught trying to cruise into second, costing the Pirates' a scoring opportunity. Tonight, he made a great play to get from first to third on Jason Jaramillo's single to left, and that allowed him to score on Jack Wilson's sac fly in the next at-bat. That run was the last run the Pirates would score, and given the load placed on the bullpen tonight, the seventh run (and three-run lead) was really significant at this point. For everything that was said about LaRoche before this season started, it really seems to me like he's making a concerted effort to work on things he's not good at. Since April 16th, the first night of the year he recorded a hit, he's hitting .297/.373/.425 (that's by my count since B-Ref won't update his game log until the morning). Before the season, I think every one of use would've agreed that that sort of line from LaRoche would make us happy. Let's hope he keeps it up.

First things first: ¡Romulo! Sanchez was traded to the Yankees today. I know, I was shocked too. They acquired the awesomely named Eric Hacker, who has some good minor league numbers but is always playing in levels he's way too old for because of career full of arm injuries. If this were anyone but ¡Romulo! it wouldn't even really be worth talking about. We're trading one high-risk guy for another. Somewhere, though, Dave Littlefield is shaking his fist and yelling, "I told you signing players from Latin America was a bad idea!"

On the baseball side of things, we've got Aaron Cook and Ian Snell tonight. Nyjer Morgan's out the rest of the weekend with a hamstring injury, so Brandon Moss is flipping to left field and Delwyn Young is manning right field and leading off tonight. Is he the stockiest leadoff man in history? I say maybe.

Thing to watch tonight: is Snell going to overthrow after watching the bullpen melt down and blow Maholm's lead last night? And a final note: this one's on the MLB Network tonight. I don't know what that means for local Pittsburghers and the FSN Pittsburgh broadcast, but for me it means I get to see the Buccos in HD for the first time this year.

The Pirates need a new closer. Matt Capps has been absolutely terrible this year, and until he proves that he's fixed himself, there's no use in having him close out games because nights like last night are going to happen again and again. For a couple years now, I've often wondered how Capps has had so much success with a decent fastball and little else in his repertoire. The answer has always been his incredible control. He can put that fastball wherever he wants it, and that allows him to stay away from hitters' power zones. The control isn't there this year and that makes him a batting practice pitcher. It took him 5 pitches tonight to flush away everything that Paul Maholm, Tyler Yates, and John Grabow did in the first eight innings. That's unacceptable.

Maholm held the Rockies to give hits in seven innings and bounced back very nicely from his awful start against the Mets last week. This is now two times in his last three starts that he's pitched very well and gotten no offense or bullpen support, leaving him without wins in either start. Tonight, the offense stuck out ten times in seven innings against Jorge de la Rosa without drawing a walk while Andy LaRoche ran right into an out in the second inning with a runner on third when he failed to pay attention to where the throw from the outfield was directed and the offense stranded seven runners one night after they stranded ten. And the bullpen tried to blow the 1-0 lead an inning earlier, but got an assist from the umpires when it was wrongly ruled that Seth Smith left third base early on what should've been a sac fly by Troy Tulowitzki. So Capps was the reason for the loss, but the rest of the team played the role of enablers.

There was one other thing from the broadcast that I thought was worth mentioning. Tim Neverett and Bob Walk spent a lot of time talking about the outfield positioning with Nyjer Morgan shading over towards left center very heavily in most situations. The reason for that is interesting; the notch in left-center makes it a real alley for extra base hits and having the speedy Morgan play more towards it theoretically takes away some of these doubles and triples. That makes sense to an extent, but I don't buy the reasoning given by Neverett and Walk that the coaching staff is OK with giving up the left field line because "most hits down the line are going to go for extra bases anways." This was perfectly illustrated by Ian Stewart's leadoff double in the ninth. It hung in the air forever and if Morgan had even been positioned normally (he was still shaded waaaay over in a situation where 99% of teams would have their outfielders guarding the lines to prevent doubles), it would've been an easy flyout. But Morgan couldn't get to the ball and it bounced over the short left-field fence for a ground rule double. I guess given the lay of PNC Park's outfield, there's no right answer to this question, but I'd be inclined to want more space between the two fastest outfielders on the team, assuming that their speed could cover it. The Pirates have instead chose the opposite.

And finally, I won't complain about Craig Monroe replacing the torrid Brandon Moss against a lefty, but why in the hell was Ramon Vazquez pinch-hitting for Andy LaRoche with the game on the line? That was a b-------t move. Way to have faith in your players, JR.

In the spirit of the comment thread below, I've decided to ask former Pirate manager and current Rockies bench coach to write the gamethread for the Pirates/Rockies game tonight.*

*No, I didn't.

Who's got the best chance to win this Pirates/Rockies game tonight? Well, you've got Pauly Maholm out there for the Pirates and since he never pitched well for Jim Colborn, he couldn't have been a Dodger. Jorge de la Rosa, though, he's real gritty. Been around the block a few times. Knows what it takes to win a ballgame. And what are the Pirates doing with Robinzon Diaz starting all these games at catcher? He's too skinny.

And look at these lineups. Andy LaRoche? Failed Dodger. Clint Barmes? Gamer. Clint Ballgame, I like to call him. Likes to get his jersey dirty. Is that a good thing? I think so. You know, back when I managed the Dodgers, we had lots of players who liked to get their jerseys dirty and that's why we made the playoffs that one time. Was it awesome? Sure it was, but you gotta move on. Which is why I'm in Colorado now.

Now, if you ask me who I think is going to win this game, I'll tell you I think that neither one of these clubs could beat the 2004 Dodgers once in a best-of-20 series, but ... wait. What was the question?

The story everyone's talking about in this one is the runners left on base by the Pirates, and that's for a good reason. Each of the Pirates first hitters reached base at least once, but they only scored one run. The first four hitters reached base TEN TIMES tonight, and somehow the Pirates managed to only score one run. I'm not really sure how that happens, to be honest.

The worst part about this weird offensive anomaly is that it happened on a night that Jeff Karstens made a good start. I'll say what I said after his last start; we can't afford to waste good Jeff Karstens starts. Six innings, no walks, three runs, that's as good as we're going to see from him, I think. I mean, besides the 450+ foot homer he gave up to a rookie.

But then again, who can complain? We just took two out of three from the Cardinals! After an eight-game losing streak! Seriously, though, leaving runners on base like the Bucs did tonight is entirely fluky, even for an offense like the Buccos have. The key now? Not losing eight games in a row again.

We won on Tuesday, that's one. We won last night, and that was two. If we win tonight, that'll be three much in a row and they call that a winning streak. Jeff Karstens goes against the rookie Mitchell Boggs as the Bucs try to follow their eight-game losing streak with a sweep of a first place team. That really seems unlikely, doesn't it?

I've been thinking about the draft quite a bit lately. I was asked to make the Pirates' pick for MVN's mock draft over the weekend and I did a lot of wrestling with a lot of things before finally coming to UNC's right-handed pitcher Alex White as my pick. You can read my reasoning at that post, but I'm not sure there's a position player worth the slot if Ackley's off the board and in the end, I liked White the most out of the pitchers available (and not because we share a school). It's also what I think the Pirates will probably do with the pick given the same set of circumstances (no Ackley) that I was.

I'll be upfront here. Drafting a pitcher in the four-slot of the draft makes me nervous. I read Thomas Boswell's piece in the Washington Post back in April about drafting pitchers early (also discussed by Charlie on his blog) and it made me queasy. But when thinking about my MVN pick, I thought into it a bit more. It's harder to project pitching than hitting, yes. But it shouldn't be impossible. If it was, drafting pitching would be a completely random event. Take one look at the Red Sox or the Rays and you'll agree that it's not.

Teams bad enough to have the first pick in the draft are quite often pitiful organizations. They have poor scouting, they have poor player development, and they make poor decisions. For example, the Pirates have picked two of the 13 pitches chosen first overall since 1965: Kris Benson in 1996 and Brian Bullington in 2002. Benson had an awesome (some might say Strasburg-like) junior year at Clemson in '96 though he doubled his innings that season. In 2009, that might be seen as a red flag. He didn't throw after the draft in '96 and in '97 started the year out at Lynchburg, which was the Bucs' advanced-A affiliate then just like they are now. He pitched well there and was sent to Altoona, where he struggled. He was promoted to AAA Nashville in 1998 anyways and he had a decent year (respectable 1.36 WHIP, nice strikeout and walk rates and a nice K/BB ratio), but got hit pretty hard and lit up for a 4.98 ERA. He then started 1999 with the Pirates, even though he hadn't really excelled at any level since high-A. In 1999, one year after he pitched 156 innings in Nashville, he threw 196 2/3 innings with the Bucs. In 2000, he went to 217 2/3. In 2001, he had Tommy John surgery and he never really recovered the potential he flashed prior to going under the knife.

Is it fair to say the Pirates' handling of Benson is the only reason he's considered a bust as the first overall pick in the draft? Probably not, but I think we can look at the evidence and agree that their handling of him certainly might have contributed. The Pirates' other number one overall pitcher was Brian Bullington. I don't think that even Dave Littlefield thought he was the best player in the 2002 draft. But we've got proof of principle here. Of the thirteen pitchers taken with the first pick in the draft, how many others were affected by the team that picked them like Bullington and Benson?

In 1973, David Clyde became the first pitcher drafted first overall. He went straight from high school to the majors because he was from Houston and the Rangers' owner wanted to sell tickets. Guess how that turned out. Floyd Bannister had some pretty good years in the late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s, but he pitched for some really bad teams in Seattle and Chicago. Mike Moore pitched for an awful Seattle team early in his career and still carved out a solid career. Tim Belcher is one of the few pitchers drafted early to land on a good team (the early 90s Dodgers turned things around quickly after he was picked) and he also had a solid but not great career. Andy Benes was a good pitcher on some middling Padre teams in the early 90s, arguably the ace of the St. Louis team that made the playoffs a couple times in the mid-90s, and ran out of gas at the age of 30. How does the perception of his career change if he started out with a good team? Ben McDonald was rushed through the minors and had a full big-league workload thrown on him at the age of 22. Paul Wilson was part of a young Mets' staff who saw every single promising young arm in the system get blown out (Jason Isringhausen and Bill Pulsipher were the other two big names in that group). Brien Taylor was a good prospect until he tore his labrum in a fistfight. Matt Anderson was a really stupid pick (and yes, I know current Pirate scouting director Greg Smith made that selection). Luke Hochevar's got his whole career ahead of him and looked good in AAA before his callup this year. David Price looks like a future ace.

I realize that that was a cursory glance a those picks and that this a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg argument, but I think that development and environment has as much to do with with most of these pitchers failing as bad luck or the inability to. It's no surprise that Brian Bullington developed poorly with a club that developed a lot of pitchers poorly, just like it's not a surprise that David Price is developing well in a system that's developing a lot of pitchers well. It is certainly harder to scout pitching than it is to scout hitting, but I think it's also easier for bad coaching to screw up pitching prospects than it is for bad coaching to screw up hitting prospects. There's a lot more to it than just saying, "drafting pitchers high never works."

In fact, it seems to me like it's panning out much better in the past few seasons. The jury is still out on most of these guys, but in addition to Price, Tim Lincecum, Max Scherzer, Brandon Morrow, and Justin Verlander were all recent first round picks and none were selected later than Scherzer at #11.  Brian Matusz (last year's #4 pick) got off to a good start in the minors last year. Scouting is different now than it was even ten or fifteen years ago and the handling of young pitchers has improved exponentially.

I'm not saying that I think that White or Crow (or even Strasburg, for that matter) are slam dunk picks in the four-spot this year, but if the Pirates think they have the right people in place to develop young pitching and they think that White or Crow are the best players available, then that's who they should pick. I don't think they should be scared away by this particular page of history, because I'm not sure it applies to them.