New Faces, Same (Last) Places...

We are now in September and the Pirates have made a couple of moves to expand their roster. The first move was bringing up Daniel McCutchen, who I blogged heavily about earlier. He made his ML debut by going 6 innings and giving up 3 earned runs. It was a quality start and he put the Pirates in a position to win, that's what we like to see. However, if he wants to have a future in this rotation, he's going to have to do better. His velocity was about where I had pegged it earlier, in the 91-93 range and occasionally touching 95-96. His next start has to be determined, but I'm guessing Monday against the Cubs. 

The other moves the Pirates made came yesterday when they brought up Neil Walker and Virgil Vasquez. Neil Walker is quite the story. 

For those of you who don't know, the Pirates drafted Neil Walker in the first round of the 2004 draft as a catcher (he has since been moved to third base). Neil was a hometown boy who went to high school at Pine Richland. There was loads of excitement in Pittsburgh when they drafted him, but he never really answered the call in the minor leagues. He was plagued with injury and a bunch of mediocre play and took til now to make his big league debut. This was due to the fact that he was absolutely raking in AAA in August. He was hitting in the .400's and seemed to be hitting a long ball 3-4 times a week. 

Virgil Vasquez had a stint with the Pirates earlier in the year when he was the 5 starter for awhile after Jeff Karstens was moved to the bullpen. Kevin Hart took Vasquez's spot in the rotation after the July 31st trade deadline and Vasquez had been in AAA ever since. He is now in the bullpen and should provide some good long-relief. 

The Pirates have, however, dropped 6 in a row (all on the road). It's absolutely unexplainable how this team can play so badly on the road. They are 2 completely different teams depending on if they are home or away. Let's just all be thankful that they play well at home, where we can go watch them. 

I'll be attending the game Friday night, and then heading home for the weekend, I'm pretty excited about it.

Let's go bucs!