Good chance we'll see Gorkys Hernandez get his first big league start today, possibly leading off. Good tools, but little extra-base power, and questions about his bat being able to get around on big league pitching. A lot like a lot of Pirates prospects in recent years, always leaving fans clinging to the memory that Roberto Clemente's power came late. Already with his third organization. Which doesn't mean I don't expect him to score at least three runs today.
I tell you, when it's your job to carry a lineup hammered with guys hitting under .200, hoping to patch the holes by stretching bench players beyond their roles, you feel it in your bones. You gets tight and you gets weary. He got his day off though, so hopefully he's staying loose.
I bring it up in another thread, but there's a pretty defensible argument that Duda did his job in the top of the eighth and should have been lifted after that.
So with Torres pinch-hitting for Dickey in the eighth and Hairston pinch-hitting for Byrdak in the ninth, either time, Terry missed an opportunity to sub out Duda for defense. Switching Torres to center and Nieuie to right might indeed have helped in the eighth, as both Tabata's double and McCutcheon's pop single off Murphy's glove might have been corralled by a better outfielder.
You know, losing after being up 4-0 to the worst offense in the league to a team with 20 years of frustration behind them with Johan Santana on the mound... maybe last night was our annual emasculation by the Pirates and we can go forward from here, having gotten that out of the way. Maybe.
Ashie62 wrote: Nothing to lose really... Well, if they claim him off waivers there's about $2.5 million to lose. If they trade Carrasco for him, there's about $1.575 million plus Carrasco to lose, along with whatever marginal value he may have provided bouncing between Buffalo and Flushing this year.
Marquis still makes Staten Island a home base. Plenty of property for newly rich dudes there. One thing that may have fed into his lousy performance so far this season is that his daughter Reese (left) nearly died from a freak bicycle accident in April. I'm glad she didn't, and maybe her stabilizing and his being closer to home help get him straightened out. I'm not saying he's the answer, but I certainly consider it if I'm Sandy.
Saying something to somebody before he starts and saying something to somebody after he starts are the same thing, unless it's the last start of the guy's career or something. Here's what I didn't excerpt above. "Hatred," Warthan took the time to note, "is never appeased by hatred in this world; it is appeased by love. This is an eternal Law. ... If one speaks or acts, with a pure mind, happiness follows one as one�s shadow that does not leave one." Asked to elaborate, Warthan simply said "Sabbadanam dhammadanam jinati," then winked, smiled and walked down the corridor to the trainer's room, the pathway newly illuminated by the light of his shining soul.
�He�s had a couple of poor games against teams he doesn�t know very well,� pitching coach Dan Warthen told The Post before the Mets� 5-4 loss to the Pirates. �A couple of us talked to him the other day and told him he could do a little bit better with the studying of hitters.� �Teams in our division he�s very familiar with and pitches well,� Warthen said. �We encourage him to be a little more proactive in watching more video and preparing himself that way.� ... Niese admitted he hasn�t done a good job getting to know the tendencies of unfamiliar opponents. �The guys that I don�t know and haven�t faced before, they are able to ambush on that first fastball,� Niese said. �That�s something I really can�t let happen. I just have to do a better job of preparing for the hitters I haven�t faced before.� Sheesh, if that's the worst a coach can say after a guy gives up a handful of bombs to players barely on the cusp of a big league roster, I don't know what you want him to say.