The Duke is dealing out on the west coast. Good to see him bounce back well from Sunday's struggles. Through 4, he's thrown 49 pitches, 34 of which have been strikes. Buccos are up 5-0 in the top of the 5th.

At the Indy game here in Columbus. Indy up 3-2 on a HR from Steve Pearce. Tom Gorzelanny is in the stands working a radar gun.

In other news...

Recent addition Delwyn Young just doubled in his first plate appearance for the North Side Nine.

...and then scored on a single by Nyjer Morgan to give the Pirates a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the sixth.

Counting Counts

Fantastic work once again by Joe Posnanski, this time focusing on the various counts that hitters face, and how it all plays out. Here's a very simple breakdown of what batters can expect in the various counts. Keep in mind that the slash numbers leave out swings and misses, pitches taken, etc.

0-0: .338/.344/.547 (Action Pitch: 1 of 8 AB)

0-1: .317/.326/.485 (Action Pitch: 1 of 11 AB)

1-0: .339/.340/.563 (Action Pitch: 1 of 13 AB)

0-2: .162/.173/.236 (Action Pitch: 1 of 13 AB)

2-0: .351/.351/.625 (Action Pitch: 1 of 37 AB)

1-1: .325/.330/.512 (Action Pitch: 1 of 11 AB)

1-2: .177/.185/.263 (Action Pitch: 1 of 7 AB)

2-1: .337/.338/.554 (Action Pitch: 1 of 18 AB)

3-0: .390/.958/.780 (Action Pitch: 1 of 42 AB)

2-2: .194/.199/.299 (Action Pitch: 1 of 8 AB)

3-1: .355/.691/.638 (Action Pitch: 1 of 20 AB)

3-2: .229/.468/.381 (Action Pitch: 1 of 8 AB)

As you can see from the numbers, getting two strikes on a batter really, really helps the pitcher. Falling behind 3-0 and 3-1 is infinitely more dangerous. I agree with Poz that more batters should be aggressive on a 2-0 count, when the pitcher is doing his darnedest to avoid falling behind 3-0. There's no reason that action pitch frequency shouldn't be higher.

Here is Zach Duke's pitch plot for Sunday's game. As you can see, he had plenty of the usual movement on his stuff, it's just that he couldn't seem to get it in the strike zone. Here's a breakdown of his six innings:

Top 1st (3-0 Braves):
Infante - Started 2-0, got to 2-2, then got a line out to center.
Prado - Started 0-2, then gave up a double to left.
Jones - Started 1-0, then got Prado in a fielder's choice at third.
Anderson - Started 2-0, then 2-1, then 3-1, and gave up a double to left.
Francoeur - Started 2-0, then gave up a single to center scoring Jones and Anderson. Francoeur moved to second on the throw to the plate.
Kotchman - Started 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, then gave up a single scoring Francoeur from second.
Ross: Started 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, then got the strikeout after a foul ball.

Top 2nd (3-0 Braves):
Schafer - Singled on a 2-0 pitch
Vazquez - Started 0-1 on a bunt foul, then 1-1, and sacrificed Schafer to second.
Infante - Started 0-1, then 0-2 on a bunt foul, then popped out on a bunt to the catcher.
Prado - GIDP 4-6-3 on an 0-1 pitch.

Top 3rd (3-0 Braves):
Jones - Singled to center on a 1-0 pitch.
Anderson - Started 1-0, then 1-2, and flied out to right.
Francoeur - Started 0-1, then 1-1, then 1-2, then 2-2, and flied out to center
Kotchman - Started 0-1, then singled to center, and Jones was picked off second making a bad turn.

Top 4th (6-0 Braves):
Ross - Started 1-0, then 1-1, and doubled to deep center
Schafer - Laid down a bunt for a single on the first pitch.
Vazquez - Started 0-1, then sacrificed Ross to third and Schafer to second.
Infante - Started 0-2 and popped out to first.
Prado - Started 1-0, then 1-1, then 2-1, and homered to left-center.
Jones - Flied to center on the first pitch.

Top 5th (6-0 Braves):
Diaz - Singled to center on a 1-0 count.
Francoeur - GIDP 1-4-3 on the first pitch.
Kotchman - Popped to second on the first pitch.

Top 6th (6-0 Braves):
Ross - Struck out swinging on an 0-2 count.
Schafer - Started 1-0, then reached on an infield single to third.
Vazquez - Sacrificed Schafer to second on the first pitch.
Infante - Started 0-1, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, then flied out to right.

There's a lot there, but the basic gist of it is that time-honored cliche that Poz's work bears out: Throw strikes, for Pete's sake. I feel bad that Duke had a bad day on his birthday, and I have no idea why he wasn't able to locate in certain innings on Sunday, but in the four innings when he located, he got outs, and in the two innings when he didn't, he gave up runs. Sometimes it's just that simple.

For Now...

I've returned from my intense traveling to both sides of the country, having visited Phoenix, Las Vegas, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland (as well as my hometown of Columbus) all in the same week. I managed to take in three baseball games, two in Pittsburgh and one in Phoenix, and I plan on seeing the Indianapolis Indians take on the Columbus Clippers Thursday and/or Friday, and perhaps Sunday as well. I may hate this sport by the end of the month, but my man-crush on Andrew McCutchen will last forever.

To tide you over before I talk at length about this weekend's games and Zach Duke's inability to throw a first pitch strike, I have a story for you from the incomparable Rich Lederer (of the Baseball Analysts) about how Denny McLain ruined a baseball. Enjoy.

Bang for Your Bucs

I've been on vacation since last Wednesday, so my apologies for not publicly eating crow over the performance of Nyjer Morgan and Freddy Sanchez to start the season, but I'll probably just take a little more time off until the inevitable regression begins.

Anyway, I do have this tidbit for you:

Tom Tango's self-appointed blog post of the day comes from Ben Fry, and you should probably take a look. Looks like Team Neal is doing at least a decent job with your hard-earned dollars spent at PNC Park.

I'll be in attendance for this weekend's games agains the most hated Atlanta Braves, my first of the year. Looks like I'll be seeing Ian Snell and Zach Duke on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, let's hope it's not a disaster.

Jumpin' Jack Flash

The weather outside may be frightful, but an Opening Day come from behind 6-4 victory over the hated St. Louis Cardinals is oh so delightful.

Man, I missed baseball. Nicely done, Jack Wilson. With two outs in the ninth I thought the PBC was done for the day, but it was not to be. Good times.

And so it begins...

John Russell, why do you hate me?

Depending on your opinion of Andy LaRoche and Brandon Moss, other than Jack Wilson, who has certainly been tried plenty of times in the past, could you put two worse guys at the top of this lineup?

The three best batters (read: the people who make the least amount of outs) on the team should be in the 1, 2, and 4 spots. By my estimation, those three are probably Nate McLouth, Ryan Doumit, and Adam LaRoche, until Andy proves otherwise. I get that you don't want to bat one of those three in the leadoff spot, so bump Doumit to fifth and find someone (ANYONE) to get on base in front of McLouth, whom you are now using as the fifth best hitter in the three spot instead of one of the best hitters in the 2 or 4 spot. It's not rocket science, people: Making outs is bad. Not making outs is good.

I get to start using this familiar refrain again: Freddy Sanchez belongs nowhere near the top of the batting order.

Ye gods.

Welcome to 2009

Well, the day we've all been waiting for is finally upon us. It's officially Opening Day, one of my favorite days of the year, and though it's unseasonably cold in Columbus today, I still feel that spring has arrived, and we can begin anew our quest to root for a baseball team that doesn't make us want to pound our collective heads against the limestone walls of PNC Park.

I am still thinking about doing a much longer post on the various projection systems and how they forecast the performance of the now official 25-man roster, but that might perhaps take more time than I have to offer right now, as I am about to head out of town for the next two weeks. I will be taking in the Diamondbacks/Cardinals game at Chase Field a week from today as my first official baseball game this season, followed shortly by my first games at PNC Park on April 18th-19th against the most hated Atlanta Braves. It's going to be good times.

For now, I will give you my version of Sky Kalkman's WAR spreadsheet for this year's Pittsburgh Pirates. You can find an empty version here for you to fill out on your own.

For the batters 2009 wOBA I used Brian Cartwright's Oliver projections, and for the pitchers I used Tom Tango's Marcel projections. I think most of these are on a reasonable target, and the results of the inputs gives you roughly a 73 win team, which is exactly what I had in mind when they announced the 25-man roster. There's some improvement here over last year's model, but not enough to produce a winning season, unless all of the pitchers get substantially better, and the offense finds a way to replace and further augment the missing run production of Bay and Nady. I kind of slacked on the baserunning and defense adjustments; I think the defense will improve somewhere close to league average this year, and baserunning is still something that is tough to quantify. All I know is that Nate McLouth is pretty bad defensively in center field, but is a fantastic base runner.

Anyway, here's the spreadsheet (click for a larger version). Enjoy:

This needs to change.

Please, please, please don't let this be the Opening Day lineup (taken from today's starting nine):

Nyjer Morgan, LF
Freddy Sanchez, 2B
Nate McLouth, CF
Ryan Doumit, C
Adam LaRoche, 1B
Brandon Moss, RF
Andy LaRoche, 3B
Jack Wilson, SS
Paul Maholm, P

The two WORST on base guys at the top of the lineup? I find it extremely hard to believe that Team Neal approves of this batting order. Bearing in mind that the pitching staff should only be marginally better than it was last year (despite what you might hear otherwise from the Joe Kerrigans of the world), why in Roberto's name would you waste more at bats on your least productive hitters?

The prototypical "this is how you win in the National League" crap needs to go if this team is going to be successful. This is not a competitive batting order, plain and simple.