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PITTBURGH – It’s been about 10 days since the Pittsburgh Pirates finished the latest chapter in their rebuilding project – yeah, the one that has lasted nearly 20 years now.

Tony and I made our first journey through PNC Park this afternoon It was interesting seeing the jerseys on sale in the team’s souvenir shop – the most recognizable name was Ryan Doumit.

The flags flying on light poles outside the ballpark featured guys like Garrett Jones and Ramon Vazquez. This is a team seemingly intent on trading every position player on its roster.

As we wandered PNC Park, with its jutting outfield and views of several bridges and the skyline in the outfield, it’s almost as though ownership thinks the beauty of the ballpark outweighs the need to spend the money to put a major league product on the field. Yes, Delwyn Young might be a perfectly fine role player. But he batted third in the lineup today.

I said to my brother “Any team with Delwyn Young batting third doesn’t have a good immediate future.”

He reminded me that Young was leading the team in some hitting categories. Again, I said “Any team with Delwyn Young leading the team in major hitting categories doesn’t have a good immediate future.”

It’s not that the cupboard is completely bare. Stephen Pearce hit two homeruns today. And Andrew McCutchen has been as good as advertised since the team brought him up.

But deals like the one that allegedly cleared space for McCutchen – Nate McLouth to Atlanta for three prospects – are the reason I am suspicious of team ownership’s motives. If they had a history of turning those deals into an improved product or at least into improved prospects for the future, one might be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But that’s not the case with these guys.

Out of curiosity I rewound through yahoo to find out what the Pirates’ starting lineup was on April 2, 2008. It is listed below. Shockingly, seven of the eight position players are no longer with the team. A look at the team’s first five starting pitchers of the 2008 season revealed that two are still on the team, two have been traded, and one is out of baseball. There was talk that one of the guys that is left, Zach Duke, was on the block before the deadline.

The lineup and where those players are currently is below:
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RACINE, Wis. – I’m no baseball analyst, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

And when I picked the complimentary USA Today off the floor in front of my door this morning, I turned to the sports page and saw a story about Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, and their respective contributions to the New York Yankees this season.

“It’s incredible how important these guys have been,” Johnny Damon told the paper. “I feel like they’ve been worth about seven or eight games a piece.”

AMAZING HOW IMPORTANT THEY’VE BEEN?!?!?

You spent $423.5 million last offseason to bring them in. I’d say for that amount they’d damn well better be important or the Steinbrenners would have every right to be as stuffy and huffy as they have been the last seven or eight years while the Yankees have languished below mediocre by their high-priced standards.

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Despite being an east coast team, the Washington Nationals don’t get much publicity.  And for good reason, what with their 11-21 record.

But if you play for them, you’d probably like to get an occassional headline.  Like, oh, say, if you went on a 30-game hitting streak, like Ryan Zimmerman recently did.  However, I didn’t hear about his hitting streak until today–when it ended.

Now, I don’t follow baseball as closely as Rich and Andy do, but I typically check the headlines each day. But I have to imagine that if a player on the Yankees or Red Sox was in the middle of a 30-game hitting streak, ESPN would probably be breaking in with live coverage of every at-bat.

Hell, if it were Alex Rodriguez or some other star player, ESPN on-air personalities would probably be joined by executives for an on-air circle jerk.

With Manny Ramirez’s recent 50-game suspension, it appears that Major League Baseball and commissioner Bud Selig may have an opportunity for the first time to increase the punishment handed down to a player found guilty of using performance enhancement drugs.

Ramirez is the first true star player to earn a suspension–but even with him missing 50 games, he will be eligible return to the field around the begining of July–which means he will be active for before the All-Star break.

And since Manny is a fairly popular player (for some reason, people enjoy the aloofness and me first attitude he has displayed for most of his career), there stands a chance that despite missing nealry 2/3 of the first half of the season, Ramirez could be elected by fans to start the “Midsummer Classic.” (subscription required for full article text)

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I turned on Sports Center this morning for probably the first time in at least a couple years–not really intentionally, but I ended up there, so I figured I’d watch a bit.

And I’m actually noticing that they seem to really be focusing on the news again, rather than all the feature stories that they started jamming in over the past few years, which is one of the main reasons I stopped watching it.

Then they get to the Top 10 Plays of the Day, and gave me a whole new reason not to watch–Play #2 of the day yesterday, according to ESPN, was Alex Rodriguez hitting a home run.

Yes, it was the first pitch he saw in his season debut.  But it’s the 554th time in his career he’s hit a home run.  And, oh yeah, now we don’t know how many of those home runs are legit, since he’s admitted taking steroids in Texas.  And there are allegations that he did in New York.  And high school.  And that he tipped pitches, which if true, hopefully will finally earn Rodriguez some punishment from the league (and possibly some retribution from some fellow players).

In the mean time, at least I now know I don’t have to worry about trying to catch Sports Center any time soon again.

St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter grounded out in the fourth inning of Tuesday’s game against Arizona. When he returned to the mound to warm up for the bottom of the inning his left rib cage hurt more with each pitch.

Wednesday morning it was reported that he has a rib cage strain and that he may be forced to make yet another trip to the disabled list.

This has to be frustrating, not just for Carpenter but for the Cardinals, who got just 21 1/3 innings out of their former ace in 2007 and 2008 combined. Still, as upsetting as this setback might be, the Cardinals have to be happy with the signs they’ve seen from Carpenter’s two starts so far in 2009.

In three innings last night, he shut out the Diamondbacks on four hits with two strikeouts. That followed a seven inning, one-hit, two-walk, seven-strikeout performance last week against Pittsburgh in his 2009 debut. That’s 10 shutout innings with a 0.00 ERA, a WHIP below 1.00 and nine strikeouts – it’s a small sample size, but them there are ace numbers.

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This can’t be the start CC Sabathia envisioned for his debut in pinstripes.

The Yankees high-buck starter gave up six runs and 13 baserunners in 4.1 innings this afternoon against Baltimore.

My guess is CC will be fine. But Hank Steinbrenner and many short-fused New York Yankee fans will undoubtedly be spewing anger tonight.

Ahh, watching Yankees fans get uptight about their $423.5 million worth of free agent investments after one day on the field – priceless.

The Yankees just, by all accounts, built the greatest ballpark in history.  I will reserve the right to disagree with that notion until I actually see it. Frankly, it better be. They spent $1.3 BILLION dollars on the thing, and remember they didn’t have to buy the land on which it stands. That came from a land swap with the city. So the thing ought to be the Taj Mahal of Ball.

They spent another half-a-billion dollars on three players in December. Remember December? While some people were wondering how they were going to fill their kid’s Christmas stocking and unemployment numbers were gaining a big head of steam, the New York Yankees were throwing around $20 million dollar salaries like they were bricks of government cheese.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m fine with this. If the New York Yankees want to pump $2 Billion into the economy, I have no intention of standing in their way.  Hank, Hal, knock yourselves out, boys.

I just don’t think you’re going to get the immediate results you’re expecting.

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As Opening Day approaches and life begins again, every team has hope – and everyone has a prediction. We at Brushbackpitch.com are no different. Here are our guesses for how the 2009 season will play out. We’ll have much, much more in the days and weeks to come.

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