[Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?]
I tend to shy away from the breaking down stupid things that are written about the Pirates, but seriously, check out Paul Meyer's recap of last night's game. He describes the White Sox win as efficient. They had 15 hits, we walked 2 batters and allowed a batter to reach via error, yet scored only 4 runs. That's kind of the opposite of efficient. Actually, in these circles I believe it would be called "Pirate-like." They got caught stealing once and made two stupid baserunning errors, yet Tracy says in the column that we played a good ball game and the White Sox were just a little bit better. That is patently false. We played our typical game, replete with poor fielding, average pitching, and an allergy to this thing the experts refer to as "hitting," but because the White Sox played a bad game, we didn't get destroyed.
That's a concise accurate description of last night's game.
Bucs Dugout takes a look at the Todd Ritchie trade, specifically how the two franchises have headed in different directions since then. Or rather, how Kenny Williams has advanced as a GM, while Littlefield seemingly continues on without a plan.