When the Levee Breaks

Well, I wrote up a whole recap. I detailed Lee's near heroics and the Bucs outside of him, Walker, and McKenry trying their damnedest to help us lose. But for whatever reason, Blogger gave me an error message, causing me to lose everything but the title of my post.

I am guessing that you could surmise from the title what the post was all about: ineptitude on the basepaths, pitching beginning to backslide, and the general sucktitude of this team after Jerry Meals killed their dream season last week. A bit extreme, you might ask? Perhaps, but we've won only once since that night and all of the magic this team previously had  has since evaporated into the atmosphere with Warren Morris and Kevin Polcovich's careers.

The pitching staff has been forced to carry the load too long and too far. It took too long to get offensive reinforcements into the lineup and we are seeing the Bucs revert to the tactics that lost them 105 games last year. Wondering off second base, cutting off a throw home instead of covering 3rd base, or failing to get a big hit when the team REALLYneeded a run. And that was just Kdro. Then there was Maholm getting hit with a batted ball after failing to sac bunt a guy over and nibbling at the corners because every strike he threw got pounded. Depressing stuff, actually.

Cutch actually raised his post ASG average to .188 with a 1 for 4 performance last night, but struck out to end the game. Maybe if Hurdle and the local media bitch to the high heavens and Bruce Bochy enough , Cutrch will start to finally get something done at the plate. Neil Walker has been pretty awesome lately. He went 2 for 4 last night, improving to .357 since the break but did strike out on a ball 4 that would have been high on Andre the Freaking Giant. The next batter was Derrek Lee, who drove a solo shot into the bleachers for the first of his 2 home runs in his Pirates debut. Lee was first Bucco to homer in his debut since Matt Morris and now is the first Bucco to home TWICE in his debut since Shawon Dunston. We REALLY could have used him 10 games ago!

Losing 9 of their last 12, the Bucs are starting to slowly spiral out of control. Hopefully, a big win tonight can help right the ship before absolute disaster mode sets in. That is, if it hasn't already begun.