After not being able to watch last night's game at all, I'm probably going to miss the beginning of this one as well, as I have some stuff in Durham to take care of tonight that'll hopefully make its way into a FanHouse post by next week.

After winning an emotional opener last night, the Pirates now have to go out and play another game. Nyjer Morgan is only hitting .600 for one day, Adam LaRoche is only a good April hitter for one day, and Jack Wilson is a hero for one day. Now they all have to go out and do it all over again tonight. Ian Snell gets the start and as always, I'm interested to see exactly what he's got in store for us. There's really nothing he can do that would surprise me.

I'd also like to see Andy LaRoche do something good tonight. I know that usually I can be statistics heavy, but damn, I'd hate to see this guy get in a mental rut after a few bad games and have that wash away his great spring. A hit or two tonight and a nice play in the field could go a long way towards getting his head back on straight after a bad start last night.

I'm going to have to start this recap, which I can already tell is going to be an unconventional one, with a confession. For the first time in I don't know how long, I didn't watch one pitch of the Pirates' opener. At 5 o'clock, I was hoping to nip home and catch the end of the game while my friends attempted to find a spot in a bar on Franklin Street for the National Championship game. I fully assumed that it was too late to find anything resembling a good spot and I'd be safe to watch baseball until someone told me that we were going to someone's apartment to watch the game. Literally, just as I began to pack my computer up, my phone rang. My friends had found a fairly empty bar, they had spots saved, and if I made it down quickly they thought they'd have a seat for me.

After some quick mental considerations, I realized that the only thing I could really do was go to the bar (this is the way great stories always start, isn't it?). This was, in all truthfulness, the right decision. As hard as I try to prolong my scholastic career, there are only so many chances a person gets that are on par with a chance to be in downtown Chapel Hill as UNC plays for a National Championship. As a sports fan, it's not the sort of opportunity I can turn down.

And so I went downtown, sat in a bar, drank beer, ate pizza, and joined in the massive crowds that took to the street after the UNC victory. And do you honestly know what made me smile more than anything the entire night? Having my eye on the bottom line and seeing the score of the Pirates game click from 4-3 Cardinals to 6-4 Pirates, then quickly realizing that Jack Wilson had hit a bases loaded double that brought in the go-ahead runs.This probably sounds a little bit insane.

As soon as the buzzer sounded in the basketball game tonight, people rushed out of the bar and in to the streets. Despite having been in this situation before on Carson St., I was almost immediately and hopelessly separated from my friends. This really wasn't such a big deal; I'm not a six-year-old lost in a supermarket and really on nights like tonight, everyone had several thousand friends. I moved with the crowd and headed for the main intersection in town, assuming I would eventually find someone I knew there (and I did). During my walk, me and a few hundred others surged around past a college-age couple, locked in a victory kiss, like they were stones in a stream.

Seeing those two and looking around myself, it suddenly dawned on me that all of the people around me were much, much happier than I was. That's not to imply that I was unhappy, because that was certainly not the case. It's just that as a grad student, I don't have the same connection to UNC that an undergrad that's a Carolina native is going to have. For a second, I looked at all the people around me and kind of scoffed; Carolina had just won a championship in 2005 and certainly every person in the streets with me was old enough to remember it. Thinking on it for another minute though, I realized what I was missing. This win was their win. Most of the kids in the street were in high school in 2005. Just like the Steelers' Super Bowl XL win resonated deeply with people my age because we finally had a Super Bowl of our own to celebrate, this win is one that the students at UNC now don't have to share with anyone else.

Walking home from the celebration, I attemtped to somehow put all of this into context in my head. Most confusing of all to me was why my reaction to seeing the Pirates score changeover in the bar became even more positive when I realized it was Jack Wilson who'd gotten the game winning hit. I certainly don't wish anything ill on Jack, but any long-time reader knows that Jack's not exactly my favorite player and a lot of it has to do with him just rubbing me the wrong way on and off the field.

The reality is that for the same reason that a UNC National Championship means more to some people than it does to me, I was happy for Jack Wilson yesterday. You can say what you like about Jack Wilson, but very few people understand the unique frustrations of being a Pirate or a Pirate fan as well as Jack Wilson does. The true joy in sports is derived from building a connection with a team so that when that team wins, you somehow feel a part of it. For the most part, this connection is built through common suffering. The pure joy that Super Bowl XL brought to Steeler fans my age came not just from the stories of the Steel Curtain in the '70s, but also from the numerous near misses of the 1990s and early 2000s. Jack Wilson isn't my favorite player and he'll never be close to my favorite player, but he's also the one player on the team right now that's been through nearly as much crap as the fans have.

While everyone on the streets in Chapel Hill reveled in Tyler Hansbrough's win, I was sort of wishing that I'd been able to see the end of the Pirates game. I realize that makes me weird, but I'm OK with that.

What is it that makes Opening Day such an awesome day, even when there's no hope for the coming season? It's got to be because baseball's offseason coincides almost perfectly with winter, stretching from the first brisk days of November through the last bit of snow melting in early March. Then, the weather breaks, the sun comes out, and baseball starts. This is perhaps a bad analogy since today's game is being played in a snow storm, but hey, I don't make the weather.

I've made a couple of appearances on the UCB Radio Show this week and the Cardinal bloggers there have been asking what I want to see from the Pirates in this opening series. The answer is always the same: I want to see seven good innings from the starters every night. The back end of the bullpen can hold down the last two innings, but any starts shorter than seven innings are going to invoke the adventurous first half of our bullpen way too early. The weather in St. Louis is probably going to make that tough, at least this afternoon, but it's really what I want to see.

Anyways, the early start time is going to make it hard for me to liveblog since I'll be at work for the beginning and I'm going to be going home sometime during the game (hopefully), but I'll be in the comments as much as I can and would of course encourage everyone else to join for the gamethread. I'm going to stick with the comments for the thread for now, but if they prove to be unwieldy, they may migrate to the forum for future games. Let me know which method you would prefer.

With the first pitch coming at 4 PM this afternoon (hopefully), it's time for some predictions for the 2009 season. If I remember, we'll revisit these in September and see how I did.

1. Craig Monroe will not hit 8 home runs in the regular season after hitting 8 in spring training.
2. Paul Maholm will pitch well, but his ERA will go up and people will complain about a Pirate pitcher never having two good seasons in a row.
   
3. Craig Hansen will be a good reliever (I don't know why I think this).
   
4. Freddy Sanchez will finish the season in a Pirate uniform.
   
5. So will Jack Wilson.
   
6. Adam LaRoche will not.
   
7. The Pirates will not lose 100 games.
   
8. Nor will they win 70.
   
9. Andy LaRoche 2009 OPS: .811
10. Andrew McCutchen 2009 Major League OPS: .742 in 82 big league games

When you look at the offensive disaster that the Pirates could be in 2009, you don't necessarily register that the team is actually pretty well set on the offensive side of things for the coming future. Still, if Andy LaRoche finds his bat this year and the Bucs' prospects progress like people generally expect them to, the Pirates could be fairly well set at every position on the diamond save the middle infield spots for the forseeable future. The big long-term question mark for the Pirates right now is the pitching staff.

Rotation

For as much complaining as some have done about Jeff Karstens receiving the fifth slot in the rotation, there shouldn't really be any doubt that the Pirates' starting five this year are much better than the mess that took turns on the mound last year. All you have to do to see that is look at the back end; Karstens isn't going to be worse than the Matt Morris/John Van Benschoten/Yoslan Herrera monstrosity in the five slot, Ross Ohlendorf should offer some improvement over Tom Gorzelanny's disaster last year, and Ian Snell was much improved in his last few starts in 2008 and there's reason to think that if he doesn't find his 2007 form again in 2009, he probably won't be as bad as last year.

This isn't to say that these guys are good per se, simply that they're not likely to be as bad as last year. Similarly, the Pirates do have at least some kind of depth with the rotation this year. If Karstens struggles, Jason Davis, Dan McCutchen, Jimmy Barthmaier, and even Virgil Vasquez all offer some kind of insurance that should keep the back end of the rotation from being a disaster area like it was last year.

There's not really any part of the rotation that's headed anywhere else this year and so that sort of makes the goal for the season to determine how many of about eight guys (Paul Maholm, Ian Snell, Ross Ohlendorf, Dan McCutchen, Jimmy Barthmaier, Jeff Karstens, Zach Duke, and I guess even Tom Gorzelanny) can be productive pitchers at a Major League level in the future. Not one of these guys are good enough to be a true ace, but I think several of them have the potential to inhabit the back end of a good big league rotation.

The other important thing to keep an eye on this year is how the top two pitching prospects fare in the minors. Both Brad Lincoln and Bryan Morris are entering their second season after Tommy John surgery, and by now their recoveries should be complete. Both pitched fairly well in 2008, but both need to show more now that they're out of the shadow of their surgeries. There's a bit more potential in both of these guys than anyone currently fighting for a big league rotation spot, and it'd be nice to see them start to fulfill that potential.

Bullpen

There was a big stink raised over Jesse Chavez getting the last bullpen spot, but I can't really figure out why. Evan Meek needs to get healthy before he takes a bullpen spot, I think it was obvious the Pirates wanted to keep Jason Davis starting, and as well as Chris Bootcheck pitched, he's a known quantity and Chavez isn't. At least there's some potential based on his minor league rates for Chavez to be a useful big league reliever.

Right now, the Pirates' 'pen is terrifying to think about as a fan or a Pirate starter. Chavez, Craig Hansen, Tyler Yates, and Donnie Veal all have control problems and while Meek improved last year after going back to the minors, his control is likely going to be a question mark as well. Throw in Sean Burnett, who can't pitch to righties, and we've got one of the worse bullpens I can remember, especially if (when) John Grabow is traded.

That doesn't mean it's all bad news. Hansen actually pitched well down the stretch after his well-publicized meltdowns and Yates was lights out in September. I really like Meek after seeing him pitch in person last year and I think he's going to make a good big league reliever once he gets healthy enough to stick with the team this year. Veal's a very interesting pitcher if he can stick with the team, even if the team probably has him marked for the rotation in the long-term. Which is all to say that Huntington's MO of acquiring pitchers with electric arms and not much control is the source of a lot of laughter, but I'm not ready to say that it's not going to work. If you look at Capps, Meek, and Hansen, then mix in Veal, Ross Ohlendorf (who I think ends up in the bullpen down the road) and Danny Moskos, I think that could be a good bullpen in two years. At the very least, it's got a pretty nice ceiling.

I haven't had a chance to do much of a preview here at WHYGAVS, so I'm going to do a two-parter over the weekened here to get ready for Monday's opener. The premise is simple; I'm going to look at who's in each important position now, who's likely to be there when the season ends, and if there's a different long-term outlook. I'll do the position players today and the pitchers tomorrow.

Catcher

Ryan Doumit's not going anywhere in the immediate future, and I think the team is hoping that he's able to stay healthy enough to be a long-term answer at catcher. It's obvious why; he's one of the best hitting catchers in the National League when he's healthy and getting offense from an unlikely source would be a big boost for a team like the Pirates. The health questions here are huge, though. We were all excited to see him play 116 games last year. How long can he possibly last behind the plate? There's no obvious successors in the minors, though, so let's all hope that he grows out of the injuries or something.

First Base

Adam LaRoche is there now, though I kind of doubt he will be in September. There's always a team looking for some left-handed pop when the trade deadline comes calling and if the pattern that LaRoche has established to this point in his career holds true, he should be mashing the ball by mid-July. His contract is up and he's not really anything more than an average first baseman, so there's no real reason to hold on to him. If he's traded this year, Steve Pearce is the obvious choice to play out the string at first base, though there's no guarantee he'll impress the front office enough to earn that shot. Long-term, I think the Pirates would secretly tell you they want Pedro Alvarez at first. That's not because his defense at third isn't good enough, but rather if Andy LaRoche steps up at third, Alvarez will move to first to keep him there.

Second Base

Freddy Sanchez is the second baseman now, but I think he's probably a little more likely to be traded before the deadline than his buddy Jack Wilson. He had an awesome second half last year and batted-ball data indicated that his ugly first half involved some bad luck. He's not going to hit .340 again this year and his defense is never going to be good, but if he can stay healthy and hit .310 through the All-Star break, I think teams will be calling. The immediate replacement would either be Brian Bixler or Shelby Ford, depending on how they play in AAA and what other positions need filled. The team has sort of indicated that they see Ford as the long-term solution at second base. He's got some health questions, but he's hit fairly well at each stop he's made, especially given all the time he's missed with injuries. I guess it's possible that he'll blossom at AAA this year if he can stay healthy and get regular at-bats. He's certainly one to keep an eye on.

Third Base

This is Andy LaRoche's position to lose. The problem is that after his ugly stint with the Pirates in 2008, I don't think anyone will be surprised if he does, in fact, lose it. Everyone knows the story right now; his minor league numbers are awesome, his major league numbers have varied from middling to abysmal, and now he's 25 and no one knows what he is. He had an awesome spring, which lends some credence to the thumb injury explanation for last year, but until he hits in the majors, everyone is going to be skeptical. If he does breakthrough this year, it's awesome news for the Pirates because they can move Pedro Alvarez across the diamond and have both corner infield spots set,  plus they don't have to rely on Neil Walker breaking through as part of the long-term plan. If he doesn't hit, either Alvarez stays at third and the Pirates need to find a first baseman, or they hope for a huge step forward from Walker. Simply put, Andy LaRoche finding his stroke at the plate in 2009 could be one of the best things to happen for the future of the Pirates.

Shortstop

Everyone expects to see Jack Wilson traded this year, but I don't see it coming. I don't think he'll be extended either. He'll be here for 2009 to give his usual above average defense and poor bat, and then he'll be gone. The immediate succesor at when Wilson does eventually leave town is Brian Bixler, but even with his awesome spring I don't see him as more than a utility guy. His glove is decent and his bat likely won't be much better than Wilson's. There's not a really another answer low in the system right now, especially not after Jarek Cunningham's knee injury may force a move to another position. Shortstop is certainly one position the Pirates need a long-term answer at.

Outfield

It's Nate McLouth, Nyjer Morgan, and Brandon Moss right now, but at least two of these guys don't figure in to the long-term plans. Morgan is going to be displaced by Andrew McCutchen pretty early in the season, it seems, and Moss has a year to prove himself before Jose Tabata starts pressing him for his spot in right. In a perfect world, Moss would have a breakout year this year and the Pirates could then trade him when Tabata's ready to take his position, but given all of the question marks surrounding both of them (Moss's health and Tabata's ... lifestyle?) I think the Pirates would settle for one of the two breaking out. For me, the big question here is McLouth. Even with his big breakout year, he's kind of a tweener in the outfield with a corner's defense, but a great bat for a center fielder. His value is probably never going to get higher than it is this year, especially if he starts out hot at the plate again. Trading McLouth would create a pretty epic fallout with the fans, but he might be the best trade chip, especially if Moss breaks out or the Pirates draft Dustin Ackley and improve the Pirates' depth in the outfield.

Today is the last weekday we have to muddle through without baseball until October. On Monday the long winter and spring training, which somehow seems even longer, finally end. I'm excited about it because I'm always excited. But this is an important year in the rebuilding of the Pirates, and there are a lot of things I'm worried about.

For a few years now, I've been hoping the Pirates' front office would jettison regular season results for a few years to focus on rebuilding the system so that the system could in turn fix what's wrong in Pittsburgh. As far as I can see, that's the best way for a Pirate team to operate and while I might not agree with every little thing that Neal Huntington has done in his seventeen or so months on the job, I think he's looking at the big picture and building towards something that I can get behind. He started laying the foundation last year, but one draft, one good session in Latin America, and a couple decent trades only get a team so far.

What worries me is that now that the Pirates are finally moving in a direction that I feel might possibly be the right one, they've accidentally chosen the season played in the worst economic climate of my life to be the one in which they basically punt on the Major League season in hopes that everything comes together around them. Interest in the Pirates is already generally low; this year I've got a gut feeling that attendance is going to be abysmal.

If you haven't already, you should take some time to read Bill Simmons' fairly recent article about the economic problems the NBA is facing. You can already see a lot of the same things he notes taking place with the Pirates. They have some insanely cheap ticket packages this year. They spread the SkyBlast nights out across the season, I'm guessing because they hope that people come in from out of town for SkyBlast and stay for an extra game or two over the rest of the weekend. In fact, right now on Pirates.com, the headlining story isn't the final roster being set or anything involving the Pirates at all, it's this:

Now, maybe you're remembering back to what Bob Nutting told the press a week or so ago about ticket sales going fine, but you've got to remember what Nutting said. He said that season ticket renewal rate was up. That sounds great, but you've got to remember that the Pirates are coming off of two straight seasons where season ticket holders bailed right and left once the All-Star happened. Of course the renewal rate is up; I doubt it could get lower. That doesn't mean the renewal rate is good and it doesn't mean the season ticket base is bigger this year. Now factor in that walkups are already generally bad for the Pirates and they're not likely to do anything to attract a bigger walkup crowd, then consider the economy's effect on that portion of ticket sales and ... you see where I'm going.

Compounding the issue is that after the year is over, the Pirates won't be able to count on a big check from the league to help off-set the coming losses. The Yankees are exempt from the luxury tax this year with their move to the new Yankee Stadium.

Now, I'm not suggesting the Pirates are going to fold up or threaten to move or anything of that sort. Far from it. I'm not even suggesting that I think Bob Nutting is going to sell the team. I am suggesting that attendance is going to be very bad this year and that I think that the potential is there for the Pirates to lose a lot of money.

So we're heading in to a season where two things are going to happen. One is that attendance is likely going to crash, and revenues will crash with it. The second is that the Pirates are going to set the Major League record for consecutive losing seasons, and the fans, most of whom won't even be attending games, are going to be incredibly vocal about how upset they are over this 17th losing season. These are the fans that either don't pay enough attention to understand what Huntington's doing, don't understand the intricacies of rebuilding a baseball franchise, or simply don't have the patience to wait. Unfortunately, I think we've covered 90% of the fan base in one of those groups.

It's one thing for Bob Nutting to profess his faith in his front office in March when the young players in camp are playing well and people are generally not complaining. It's an entirely different situation when the team is losing, the fans are screaming for blood, and you realize that your attendance is going to drop by a quarter of a million fans. Throw in the uninformed national media, who will be saying things like, "This is a team that lost to a community college in spring training!" and it's easy to see it's going to be a very hard year to be a Pirate fan.

To this point, Nutting seems to more or less trust everything that Coonelly, and by extension Huntington, have done and he's pushed a ton of the right buttons since January 2007. I hope that that faith continues in the front office, no matter how ugly this year gets, because the last thing this team needs right now is to completely shake things up again. I don't think Nutting will do that, but I do think we should all be ready for an incredibly trying season.

He's the final addition to the 25-man roster, mostly on the strength of Evan Meek having a rash of bad luck staying healthy this spring. Sounds like Meek will be the first guy called up if he pitches well in AAA. Given the composition of our bullpen, he might get a phone call before April even ends.

Siiiiiiigh.

You know, I wasn't going to talk about this, but it's just so ...

/tries to make excuse about beating the Reds in the real exhibition game today

/stops

/double checks box score

/tries again to mention the Reds game

/gives up

Well, uh, hey, at least we made the right choice by demoting Virgil Vasquez?