The Pittsburgh Pirates did win the season series against the Chicago Cubs, but the final series, in Wrigley Field, left a bad taste in the mouth, losing two out of three on the road.

Actually, the Chicago Cubs are one of two teams that the Bucs have beaten (5-4) on the road this season. The other one is the Colorado Rockies (2-1). (Although they barely managed a 2-2 tie in PNC Park.)

A sorry road record is the main reason Pittsburgh’s overall record is the worst in the majors. Their home record is better than that of the Chicago Cubs, the Cleveland Indians, and the Baltimore Orioles.

The Pirates are 14-53 on the road with 14 more games to go. That winning percentage is barely above .200. The team that they are now competing for in the “race to the bottom” in road games is the 1962 New York Mets, the all-time worst team who won all of 17 games away from home.

It didn’t get off to such a bad start. The first two months, the Bucs won five road games in April and four in May.

The April wins featured two road game victories against the Milwaukee Brewers, which represented a (relative) high for the Pirates. They also included one win each against three western division teams away from home. In May, Bucs feasted on the Cubs and won one each on the road from the now-contending Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies.

But then the Pirates had a horrible June, 6-26 overall, which meant only two road wins (against the Cubs). Four out of five American League opponents swept the Bucs 3-0 during Interleague Play, with the Detroit Tigers, Texas Rangers, and Oakland As doing so in their home parks.

Since June 30th, the Pirates have won only the two games against the Rockies, and one against the Cubs, outside of PNC Park.

They’ve been blanked on the road by the division leading San Diego Padres and Atlanta Braves, as well as the relatively weak Washington Nationals, and the Houston Astros in their own division. (We haven’t closed the books on the road seasons against the St. Louis Cardinals, Florida Marlins, or New York Mets.)

The weakness on the road is a testament to the inexperience of the team, among the youngest in the majors. The home record (and other factors such as the dominance of the Cubs) suggests the team’s raw talent is NOT league worst. But it is rookies who will play the worst on the road relative to their overall ability.

Pirates that fall into this category are heralded call ups like Pedro Alvarez, Neil Walker, and Jose Tabata. Andy McCutchen and Garett Jones are barely out of this category. Among everyday position players, only Ronny Cedeno, Ryan Doumit, and Lastings Milledge can be considered even close to “veteran.”

This team is better than the 1962 Mets. But it seems to play like them away from home because they are relatively new players for which all the veterans have been traded.

Some call it “trading up.” Others call it rebuilding. Overall, the Pirates have a cyclically weak team on the field—even for them—one headed for a 100-110 loss season. Let’s hope that 2010 represents the low point of their record.

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It seems remarkable now, but the Pirates’ management did not think enough of second baseman Neil Walker in the spring to give him an everyday role with Class AAA Indianapolis entering the season, choosing instead to groom him for super-utility duty.

All Walker has done in his first 82 big-league games since his late-May recall is bat .310 with nine home runs and 49 RBI, mostly out of the No. 3 spot in the order. He also has been sound at second base, where he is the everyday starter.

His approach is just about as old-school as it looks.

“I’ve just been trying to step in the box, see the ball, trust my hands and use the whole field,” Walker said. “I’m not worried about where to hit it, what else is going on.”

During the 1-5 road trip the Pirates just completed…

When Pirates second baseman Neil Walker takes the field at PNC Park, he needs only to glance over his shoulder at the 21-foot Roberto Clemente Wall in right field for inspiration. Walker, one of the majors' top rookies, grew up in Pittsburgh hearing countless stories about one of baseball's greatest outfielders and a man whose influence in his native Puerto Rico extends far beyond the…

Thomas Diamond received a game ball and a beer shower after his first major league win. Diamond relieved injured starter Tom Gorzelanny and was part of a strong effort by the Chicago Cubs' bullpen Wednesday in a 5-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates. "It's always nice to get the first. I wish it would have happened a little sooner," Diamond said.

With slightly more than a month of the season remaining, Pirates right-hander Charlie Morton is threatening to have one of the worst years by any starting pitcher in major league history. Despite spending nearly three months in Triple-A, Morton is 1-10 with a 10.03 ERA in 11 starts for the last-place Pirates.

In the midst of another miserable season for the Pittsburgh Pirates, it’s often tough to find real bright spots to talk about, but the Pirates have one in outfielder Jose Tabata.

Neil Walker gets the press, being the hometown kid, and he’s deserved it. Walker is having a tremendous rookie campaign and has cemented himself as part of the future core of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Pedro Alvarez also gets a ton of attention paid to him. Coming up as “The Savior” of the Pirates hasn’t been easy for Alvarez, but he’s handled it well and has shown at times what type of major league player he has the potential to become in the upcoming seasons.

Having said all of that, is it possible that Jose Tabata is the best of the three future Pirates stars?

Since his June 9th call-up, Tabata has been nothing short of outstanding for the last-place Pirates. He’s definitely been the most consistent.

Tabata has settled in very nicely in the two-hole in the Pirates lineup. What separates him from the others is his approach at the plate, which is the best on the team. Tabata is the one guy on the team that simply hits the ball where it’s pitched. He’s a very good situational hitter as well. 

He’s even shown some pop. The power will come. He’s shown he has it. He’s never going to be a 30-plus-homer type guy, but with time he has the ability to hit 15 to 20 a season.

Add to that outstanding speed and solid defense, and Tabata could be a future All-Star.

His 2010 numbers are very good. In 70 games, Tabata is hitting .312. His four homers and 21 RBI are modest numbers, but Tabata has shown he can hit well at the MLB level. 

He’s also stolen 14 bases. He’s been caught seven times, but that percentage is likely to go up as he learns the pitchers around the league.

Other impressive numbers for Tabata:

. His .312 batting average ranks second among all rookies with at least 300 at-bats, behind only the Giants’ Buster Posey.

. He reaches base consistently, reaching base safely in 58 of his 70 starts.

. He has 59 hits since the All-Star break, ranking him second to only the Cubs’ Starlin Castro.

. Tabata’s 87 hits since his call-up rank him second in baseball behind only Albert Pujols (88). That’s great company to be in.

That’s quite the early résumé for Tabata. He will only get better with experience. He deserves some votes for Rookie of the Year. While he has no chance to win the award, he should be recognized along with some of the other great young players in the game.

While he won’t win the Rookie of the Year, Tabata should win another award, and that’s the team MVP. He’s definitely the Pirates’ MVP at the moment. No one else has stood out to make a strong case this year.

Maybe it could go to relievers Joel Hanrahan or Evan Meek, who have both had outstanding seasons out of the Pirates bullpen. However, if you are giving the award to the guy that’s had the best season, then Tabata has to be considered the Pirates’ Most Valuable Player.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates won only five games in the season series against Milwaukee in 2010. That’s the same as in 2009, and either result is better than the sole win in 2008.

But this year, the Pirates showed signs of building a base for better success against the Brewers in the future.

In his debut performance in August 2008, an otherwise mediocre pitcher named Jeff Karstens scored a breakthrough win against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Two years later, the Pirates went on to dominate the Cubs 9-3 so far in their season series (9-6 if the Bucs lose all three games of the upcoming final series).

The same Jeff Karstens managed a breakthrough win against the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park earlier this year, ending their streak of 22 home wins going back to 2007. Maybe this is a sign that the Pirates will win the season series in 2011 or 2012.

Yes, the Pirates won only five games against the Brewers this year. But five of the losses were close (by one or two runs, including an extra-inning game Saturday night that was “tied” at the end of nine).

Next year is the low-budget Brewers’ last year of club control of Prince Fielder (he may be traded mid-year if Milwaukee decides not to keep him). This follows their loss of Ben Sheets and (“rented” pitcher) CC Sabathia in 2008, a year in which both pitchers contributed to the team’s dominance over Pittsburgh.

On the other hand, the Pirates introduced several new faces to the lineup this year in Pedro Alvarez, Jose Tabata, and Neil Walker, among others. These are players that might win the close games for the Bucs next year when they become more seasoned.

Earlier this year, it’s true that Milwaukee was responsible for some of Pittsburgh’s most resounding losses, 20-0 and 17-3. But a team can win (or lose) only one game at a time. The combined 37-3 deficit affected only two games.

Elsewhere in the division, the Pirates recently showed signs of life against the St. Louis Cardinals by winning two out of three (although they’re still 3-6 for the season). And they have a respectable 5-7 tally so far against the division-leading Cincinnati Reds, based on a sweep early in the season.

It’s the otherwise weak Houston Astros that have given the Bucs the most trouble in 2010 (10-2). But there was a reversal of a similarly lopsided 2006 season series in Pittsburgh’s favor in 2007.

The Pirates can climb out of the cellar by beating one team at a time. For now, they still trail the fifth-ranked Cubs overall.

But they figure to add one or more “scalps” next year. If the Bucs can beat most teams in their division, they will ipso facto pull themselves out of last place. If they can start beating all the teams in their division, they might even be contenders, if only in the National League Central.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates have not had a winning season since 1992. That’s nearly twenty years. 

But recently leaked financial documents indicate that perhaps a different kind of success is sweeter– the Bucs made nearly $30M in profit in 2007 and 2008.  For a team that expended only $100M in payroll during those two years, that’s pretty impressive.  Essentially, the Pirates derived so much profit by pocketing the $39M they received from MLB revenue-sharing in 2008 rather than using it to acquire better players. Revenue sharing is a mechanism meant to funnel profit from highly competitive teams to bottom-dwellers like the Pirates who draw fewer fans for the home team when they are on the road.  Yet the Pirates lack the incentive to spend money to improve their performance on the field and have instead chosen to sit complacently on top of a hefty profit at the bottom of the division each year.

To what extent is the management of a baseball team driven by economics?  The Yankees and Red Sox “buy” championships; the Pirates run their team like a cost-cutting, profit-driven business with little regard for where they end up in the standings; the Marlins’ front office plays the venture capital game by building up promising young prospects, turning them into big leaguers, and then “re-selling” them to wealthier teams to turn a profit.  There is a diverse range of strategies for the best allocation of financial resources in a world free from a salary cap.

How much do regional differences play a role?  Teams in cities like Boston, New York and Philadelphia are catering to an impatient and fickle fan base—a guy strikes out the side one inning and you love him; he gives up a home run in the next and suddenly you hate him, ridicule him for being an embarrassment to the game and tell him your grandmother could pitch better than him.  Fans in these places want to see results, and they want to see them fast.  Are Yankees’ and Mets’ GMs Brian Cashman and Omar Minaya under more pressure from New York fans to make the big deal and get the big name on their roster before the trade deadline?

Do teams like the Rays, Astros and Marlins who play in slower paced cities feel less of a time crunch, thus enabling them to spend less on young prospects in the hopes that one day down the road they might become a star and lead the team as underdog contenders?  Or perhaps this “strategy” is actually out of necessity rather than a luxury as tight budgets force them to take an approach with a slower return on investments.

So who’s more successful?  The Yankees win championships more frequently but pay a higher price to do so; the Rays and the Marlins manage to eek out a title every once in a while in an economically responsible fashion; maybe it’s the Pirates, if you value profit-driven returns over a respectable win-loss record.  But even if the Pirates are a paragon of financial success, well, all I can say is I admire the loyalty of any enduring Pirates fans out there.

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Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Evan Meek was hit in his pitching hand by a line drive from Milwaukee's Ryan Braun and left Sunday's game, but X-rays were negative. Pittsburgh manager John Russell said the ball hit Meek on the top part of his hand near his fingers. "No fracture, which is good," Russell said.

Nothing beats a day at the ball park. You, your friends, your family, a hot dog, a beer, a soda, and if you get lucky, you might score a foul tip, or a home-run baseball.

If you’re even more lucky, and you can survive it, occasionally, you may get a bat.

Only once, ever, can you get what this kid got—first base. 

Well, how’d he get it? See, that’s the funny part.

During a Minor league game, Friday night, at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park, the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league team, the State College Spikes, were playing dead amidst a blow-out loss to the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor league team the Batavia Muckdogs, when suddenly, the crowd of 3,801 got the treat of the night.

These two teams are rivals, being that they were both at one time, affiliates of the St. Louis Cardinals. But this night, tempers got the best of one manager as his team gets hammered.

It all began with Spikes reliever, Brooks Pounders, hitting Victor Sanchez to load the bases.

In no time, Gary Robinson, manager of the Spikes, emerged from the dugout in a fury to argue the call by home plate umpire Roberto Ortiz.

After a few minutes of Ortiz absorbing the verbal attack, Robinson retreated back to the dugout.

Apparently, Robinson, said or did something that triggered a reaction from Ortiz, and this is when it became good enough for my monthly funny videos series; Take a look at the video.

It seems not too many take well towards losing. Gary Robinson is no different. When losing, seemingly, any little thing will get a manager going. I mean come on. Arguing a hit batter?

Afterwards, Robinson told the Centre Daily Times:

“Impulsively, you do things,…I was walking to first base and I spotted the kid. I said, ‘OK, I’m going to do it.’ It was just an impulsive thing I did. It wasn’t planned.”

I think, though, it’s all in the heat of the battle. When there is emotion charging through the players and managers, you can tend to do things that make you look like a buffoon. We’ve all been there—maybe not on our hands and knees, playing in the dirt, but you know what I mean.

It’s definitely one of those things you look back on in a calm head, and think, what in the world was I doing?

Robinson went on to say:

“Sometimes you do things to make a point,” he said. “At the same time, there’s a lot of times you regret what you do. I tried to give my ball-club a shot in the arm. There’s a lot of reasons I did what I did.”

At the end of the day, you ended up on You Tube, and in feature articles across America.You gave them a shot in the arm all right, unfortunately it might have been with a gun.

So if there is any lesson you take from this, maybe it’s: Calculate the cost of looking like a buffoon. Otherwise you’ll get a You Tube, and still end up losing 7 – 3.

Oh well, on the good side, a kid got an extremely cool souvenir to take home.

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