OK...how many wins and losses? Better than the Marlins and Giants?

I predict 75 - 87

I love Jason Bay, but i don't see many bright spots. I'd rather see the Pirates move some vets, get Pearce and McCutheon and Walker into the lineup, bottom out, the start a proper rebuilding job.

I say 65-97.

A pirates thread.. I LIKE IT. Was about to order a tshirt today that said... Pirates rebuilding since 1992. Im a huge Pirates fan and if they go 75-87 I will be super excited. I honestly think this is gonna be another 65-97 season. GROZ has been awful in spring and the BP is still shakey. But, if Bay gets back to 2006 status and Laroush plays like he did in 06.. 70 wins is possible. But they have no offense at all. .

I predict bounce back years for Bay, La Roche & Maholm.

QFT.

Lovin Laroche this year...no way he gets off to the start he did last year.

Even if they do have bounch back years I don't see the bucs getting to 75 wins. I'll predict 68-94. I love them and I'll watch them when I can but 1992 was a long long long time ago. Shit I was 9 years old.

If I had a choice of who'd I like to see win their respective league championships I'd pick, Penguins, Pirates, then Steelers. The Steelers won theirs a couple years back and have legitimate shots at it almost yearly, the Pens won in the early 90s...competed throughout the 90's, were down in 2002-2004, rebuilt for a couple years and are back we legitimate shots.

The fact is that baseball is a dying sport. I don't want to hear that small markets can't compete (examples; a's, twins). Small markets can compete. They just have to more screwd to fight against the huge payrolls. I'd love to see a salary cap in baseball but it's just not gonna happen anytime soon.

I wouldnt expect LaRoche to bounce back. I think last year was a pretty good indication of what kind of player he will be moving forward. Also think that most people are overestimating how bad he was last year due to his poor start.

X marks the SPOT. Xavier Nady is having a Monster night ! 4/7 (2) HR 4 RBI. How about giving up 4 runs in the bottom of the 9th with only (1) hit?!?! Capps looked scared out there in the 9th!!?! Nice win...

McClouth had a great night also. 3/5 4 RBI

What a game. I hate Jason BAY send him down to the minors. How do u drop that fly ball. At least Xavier picked him up in the 12th.

1-0 boys we may never be over 500 again this yr.

Im going to celebrate.

Man, very enteraining game, but my god you can't feel good about the 'pen or the defense in that 9th inning....only one game though. The offense looked good, I got McLouth as being a pretty good sleeper pick this year......I also think LaRoche could have a monster year...good offense, just gotta get that pitching stable. I think the Pirates could surprise some people if they can get the 'pen reasonable...they do have some nice young arms in the rotation.

I agree. Nady and McLouth were great. McLouth has been ready to break out and I think this is his yr. Plus when sanchez is healthy they can really hit the ball. But the pen will be shaky at best. But they caused my blood pressure to rocket on game one. Normally I dont take it to seriously cause one its game one and 2 its the Pirates and they have been killing me since 1991. But I just bubbled 3 st sngs and then he dropped that ball at the exact same time. Plus I live in ATL and hate there sucess(curse of Sid Bream). Oh well a wins a win.

Opening day rants..its gonna be a long season.

Jason Bay 0-6 and a dropped fly ball.

It wasn't a dropped fly ball in the 9th, it was miscommunication. You have the blame the center fielder on that, since he's the lead on in-between balls. Also, it looked to me like Bay (and maybe Nate) might have actually lost the ball, since he was looking up still when it landed 15 feets to the left/behind him.


From today's paper: "He thought I was going to catch it, and I thought he was going to catch it," McLouth explained. "Simple as that." Bay was not immediately available for comment.

its more the 0-6. I played CF my whole life and after a daying of being mad..I agree Mclouth shouldve taken over. But Bay just looked horrible the whole game. Except for a few nice catchs in the OF.

Welcome back, Mr. Duke. Nice to see Tracy & Colburn didn't destroy you for good.

taking the series in ATL was big. Fla next..winable series. Good to see us winning the close games. Thats something they didnt do at all over the last few years. Nady is a beast so far.

I will be at the Marlins/Pirate series this weekend here in Miami. Im looking forward to Maholm's start. I think he is gonna have a great year.

2 - 1 baby !!!

Ill be watching obv...where are ur seats i have a 1 and 1000 max chance of seeing u in between all those empty seats

double

Walk Off....ehhhh. Matt Morris is terrible. He threw hangers all night. I will be in section 143 6 rows up from the field (1st baseline). I will be wearing my Roberto Clemente jersey.

yeah Morris looked awful..big suprise. My bro is a huge cards fan and he was like you are going to HATE him and I knew I would.

Good thing we kept this guy rather than Burnett. Winning is a pretty silly concept, anyways.

How do we not score that run in the bottom of the 9th? Did he miss the sign? He should have walked home. It seemed like he had no idea he was bunting? What a comeback it would have been.

After Doug Mientkiewicz was intentionally walked, Bautista put down a surprise bunt up the first-base line toward Derrek Lee, with an eye toward catching the Chicago infield off guard and giving Bixler a chance to score.

Bixler broke initially, hesitated and went back to the bag. Lee scooped up the ball and tagged Bautista for the easy second out. Luis Rivas grounded out to end the inning, and Bixler was booed loudly by the overflow crowd of 37,491.

The simplest explanation came from manager John Russell, who acknowledged "this was the kid's second game in the majors" but did not excuse the play: "If he takes off right away, it's over. Bixler just froze."

No one disagreed, including Lee, who said, "I'm not going to get him out there."

But there was a little more to it, as Russell and others detailed ...

The play was one the Pirates had rehearsed all spring, including while Bixler still was in the major-league camp. Typically, it calls for the batter, with a man at third and less than two outs, to use his discretion when deciding to bunt. The runner is to break on contact, then go all out once he sees the ball is on the ground and away from the pitcher.

Sometimes, such as when the Pirates did it successfully in the season opener in Atlanta -- with Bautista batting and Nady running -- each receives a signal from third base coach Tony Beasley.

Neither had a signal this time.

"Jose went on his own," Beasley said. "And it's up to Bix to read the play."

Beasley also took some blame himself, as he did not react to the bunt, either.

Once Bautista was tagged out, he looked over his shoulder to see Bixler still at third and was visibly displeased.

That did not appear to change much afterward.

"It's a play that, if he breaks, we get a run out of it," Bautista said. "I don't know what happened on the other end. I couldn't tell you."

Bixler's explanation was as simple as Russell's.

"It just kind of caught me off guard," Bixler said. "That's about it. I didn't really expect it. I just kind of stopped and let the play go as it did."

Swept by the Cubs.... Our pitching is awful.

The pitching hasn't been bad... they're 3-6 because Bay and LaRoche only have RBIs in ONE game all season. They'd be better off with Duke playing left and hitting 3rd.

I agree BUT Ian Snell is the only Pirate pitcher with a win...unless of course, the lead stands tonight vs the Reds. Then he will have both.

starting pitcher, you mean.

Which was true until yesterday, at least... but you gotta look past just the W numbers. Maholm threw 1 bad pitch in his first start, and then 5 1/3 shutout innings in his 2nd... he's 1 pitch away from having an ERA under 1. Duke has been absolutely fantastic so far, Gorzellany looked good in the first game, got hammered in the 2nd, but then looked tremendous again yesterday... and Snell is Snell. Matt Morris stinks, yeah... but if we finish the year with our #5 with an ERA around 5, that's not too bad, is it?

As far as the bullpen is concerned, the only big problem is Meek, and he'll mostly stay out of the way... which effectively forces the Pirates to play the season with a 24 man roster. (It's moves like this that frustrate me with this organization.) Dumatrait has been a pleasant suprise, Capps has been great excluding the opener, Marte seems to be turning it around, Grabow hasn't given up a run yet, Yates has been tremendous, and Osoria has been overused but solid.

If they can get some production out of the middle of the order, they could threaten .500 this year. I've lost all faith in Bay, though, and I know McLouth isn't gonna hit .400 all year long (although .330 isn't out of the question). We'll see.

Bay has actually showed up the last few games....nice to see.

Mc Clouth is on FIRE !!! 4 in a row baby !!!

If anybody sees Nate McLouth, please tell him I want to give him 5 beers for his performance last night. Make that 7 beers.

If anyone sees Takashi Saito, punch him in the throat for me.

On a side note, Duke should be ashamed of himself for letting Andruw make solid contact against him.

Out of our thread, Dodgers fan.

We have enough of a cloud hanging over us as is, we don't need your smog.

Matt Morris getting SHELLED again....

In regards to the Morris-Davis deal last year, did the Pirates ever explain that move? I know they have McClouth and didn't consider Rajai Davis a premium prospect, but what was the point of acquiring Morris? It seemed very odd at the time since most people thought if any team would take Morris off the Giants' hands, it would be a contender, not a team in the Pirates position. Was it just to add a 'veteran' to the rotation to help with the younger pitchers? If so, has there been any growth/improvement that you can see in the young guys since Morris has been there?

And here I thought Dodgers fans and Pirates fans had a strong common bond over our feelings for Barry, not to mention our mutual adoration of Jim Tracy and Jim Colborn. Sigh.

That was it. What a waste of $12,000,000 which is the highest paid player on the team.

OMG, he is the highest paid player on the team? That is about as depressing as Zito.

How about the 2nd part of my question? Any improvement? I know Giants announcers raved about how good Morris was with Cain etc.

Also on a side note, by some comments I read I take it Colborn/Tracy weren't highly thought of with the fan base? I wasn't a big Jim Tracy fan, but Colborn always seemed to do an excellent job with our staff.

From what I have read he has almost "0" effect on the young starters. As for Tracy/Colburn, I knew they would get the ax once the new GM came in. They usually want to hire there own people.

Colborn and Tracy were entirely responsible for Zach Duke's 2 bad seasons. Now that they're not messing with his head and windup anymore, he's suddenly looking like a 15 win, 3.50 ERA guy again instead of a guy that didn't belong above A ball as he looked for the past 2.

As far as the Morris trade... that move is a perfect representation of the sort of personnel moves this team has been making for years to continue the losing streak. Giving up Rajai Davis didn't mean much, with McLouth and Morgan... but giving 12 million to a #5 starter on a team that isn't willing to spend 50 million on the entire roster? Mind blowing, really.

I'm willing to bet that Maholm will at best will have a start skipped, at worst be put on the DL. I'm not watching the game, but I'm willing to bet his back is bothering him again.

He got shelled. Its 6-0 Top 2 right now.

Downwardspiral time.......

Do you guys really have no other option besides La Roche?

Talk when you start hitting!

If they keep playing this kind of defense, they're gonna make a run at leading the league in ERA while still losing 110 games.

Anyone got a broom?

Am I missing something, cause I saw 13 runs today.

fyp

Anyone have 100 years without a World Series?

When's Steven Pearce gonna get a shot?