We just keep losing.  Who would ever expect that considering it was 96 degrees at game time and we sent one of our highest paid pitchers in the system to the mound at Coors? 

Yoslan Herrera, the Cuban defector Dejan Kovacevic at the Post-Gazette once emphatically told Pirates fans:

“[i]s known to have sharp command, a fastball at 88-92 mph, a splitter, a slider, a changeup and an above-average curveball.”  (Actually Kovacevic told us this multiple times.)

You know, the guy Dave Littlefield once boasted that:

“We’ve had scouts tracking this guy for a while. The amateur draft and Latin America are the two most important areas as far as production of talent. We’ve put forth a lot more resources in Latin America the past few years.”

Yeah, well, he had his marginal Cuban butt rocked. 

A single, single, hit batter, sac fly, ground ball force out, single, single, triple, and ground out resulted in five runs on five hits.  That was the first inning. 

The second inning was more of the same: a double, strikeout, grounder Wilson took off his chest, single with a fielding error by Bay, wild pitch and then a double, and then John Russell went to the mound with his hook.

Just 46 pitches, 7 earned runs, 7 hits, just one strikeout, and 1.2 innings of work.  Obviously Herrera will be reassigned to AA to become multi-million dollar organizational fodder.  So much for our Latin American scouts, you say?

No duh.

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So someone please explain to me why Ryan Doumit was forced to catch all nine innings of a blowout game in a meaningless year with the temps on the field so high?  Are we scared we’ll overwork our backup catcher or something? Or did John Russell actually think we’d come back in the game?

I mean, do we even have one hit off the Rockies pen this series?  Just one?  That’s right, Nady’s in the 9th inning last night. 

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Hey, I have a great idea.  Let’s start the same lineup for the fourth game in a row!  Ah shucks, I guess Chavez and Nady will get the call disrupting Russell’s wonderful lineup magic.

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Excuse me, but will it really be 100 degrees at Coors for Sunday’s game?  And we have Duke taking the mound?  Bombs away!!!!  I wonder how many of our players don’t make it all 9 innings?

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Did you notice Andrew McCutchen was MIA in Indy Saturday?  Here’s one fan’s recap from Friday night’s game that might explain why:

“I went to the Indians/Clipppers game last night in Columbus, and the jewel of the organization had some real trouble in the field. On the positive side, he did have an RBI single plus stole a base, but three sub par plays in one inning ruined his night. The Clips had runners at first and second when a long fly was hit deep to dead center. Cutch caught up to it and gloved it, but almost immediately dropped it. The umps made no signal, the runner at first didn’t know what to do, but the runner at second scored. The out sign was eventually given when Columbus manager Tim Foli came out the ask what the deal was, but no error was given; so, they had a runner score from second on a sac fly.

The next hitter lines one over the second baseman’s head, and Cutch took such a terrible route to the ball it rolled all the way to the wall. He actually threw his hands up he was so embarrassed. The batter ended up at third base. The very night hitter flied to medium center field (Cutch had to come in for the catch) and I wondered if the runner was going to try to score. Here he came, and here came the rainbow throw up the third base line. On two hops.

Later in the game, a runner scored from second on a single to center when McCutchen’s throw was looped in. It would have been over any cut-off man’s head. Then to top it off, he collided with left fielder Nyjer Morgan and lay on the turf for ten minutes.

I can’t remember - did you say his arm was listed as a PLUS?”

Ouch.  Let’s hope it’s nothing serious, Donn.  Thanks for the great recap.

As for McCutchen’s arm, I stood with Lasting Milledge’s pop in Bradenton and we watched Cutch throw a bullet from almost the CF warning track at Pirate City to home plate just after he was signed.  I have the video of it.  That was a plus-plus throw to me.  However, I haven’t seen him throw one like that since, but neither have I seen him throw rainbows either.

Every scouting report I’ve seen, and every game I ever watched him play in (17 so far in person plus games on video from MiLB.com), he’s always displayed an average to plus arm.  So perhaps he was already hurt? Maybe something at the AAA ASG?  I’ll have to go back and review that video.

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Oh my… oh my… oh my.  Just think if someone upstairs had actually listened to ‘ole Jake last year, this might be happening in our system, along with what is happening: wow.  And, it looks on paper like we have yet another starter headed to the DL from where I’m sitting: Barthmaier.