Pittsburgh Pirates

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Travis Ishikawa slides into home ahead of Derek Norris' tag with the tying run in the eighth. -- GETTY

Column: Beating teams they should? Yeah, and?

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by • Coverage •

By Dejan Kovacevic
The Pirates stink!

Nothing they do means anything until they beat the good teams!

If Neal Huntington doesn’t get a top-notch starter, two more everyday bats and a whole new bench, this team is going nowhere!

Am I doing this right?

No, really, I’m rehearsing lines for next week, by which point, if I’m reading this correctly, the very fate of the Pittsburgh Baseball Club will have been stamped into stone following the four-game set with the St. Louis Baseball Gods that opens Thursday at PNC Park.

Because no success matters anymore unless it comes at the Cardinals’ expense, right?

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Josh Harrison celebrates a run Sunday at PNC Park. -- GETTY

Harrison has thumb surgery, out seven weeks

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by • Coverage •

BylinesNATE-1
The Pirates will be without Josh Harrison for seven weeks after he underwent thumb surgery Wednesday. Dr. Thomas Graham, a hand specialist with the Cleveland Clinic, repaired a torn ulnar collateral ligament in the thumb on his left hand that was injured during an awkward slide Sunday.

Harrison had sounded cautiously optimistic earlier in the week after his initial examination, but the team’s statement about the surgery said this diagnosis confirmed the first.

 

Podcast: Cutch, Kessel on 105.9 the X

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by • Podcasts • ,

By Dejan Kovacevic
Here’s the podcast of my weekly appearance at the 105.9 the X studios with Mark Madden, in which we discussed weird Root interviews, Andrew McCutchen, Phil Kessel, more.

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Gregory Polanco tears into his eighth-inning RBI triple that proved decisive for the Pirates. -- GETTY

Polanco’s patient process finally pays off

by • Coverage •

BylinesNATE-1
On Monday night at PNC Park, Gregory Polanco saw more pitches, 17 in three plate appearances, than any of the Pirates against the Padres’ James Shields. But the dividend of his approach was a 1-for-4 night.

On Tuesday, he saw four or more pitches in four of his five plate appearances, for a whopping one-man total of 19, and the results appeared: Polanco finished 1 for 3 with two walks and an eighth-inning RBI triple that proved the difference in a 3-2 victory.

“It’s good for him,” Clint Hurdle said of the results. “He’s another guy that’s got to settle into that mindset that ‘I’m looking for pitches I want to hit.’ Once it’s out of the pitcher’s hand, you’ve got to own it.”

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Morning Java: Whither women’s team sports?

by • Videos • ,

Bylines double
This week’s Morning Java tries figure out the Cardinals, the Penguins’ fourth-line vacancies and the great gap between women’s team sports internationally and nationally.

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Meghan Klingenberg, right, and Becky Sauerbrunn take the stars and stripes for a lap Sunday in Vancouver. -- GETTY

Tuesday 10 Qs: Meghan, Phil, Kelvin, PEDs

by • Tuesday 10 Qs • , , , ,

By Dejan Kovacevic
Thanks to all who submitted 171 Qs Monday, and without any ado …

Tuesday12Qs-1

Jeffreygray10: Considering some local athletes are at the height of the sports world right now, i.e. Meghan Klingenberg and Brandon Saad, who is the best athlete to come from Pittsburgh? So many names popping up in my head. Since you’ve covered everything from badminton to Stanley Cups from Bloomfield to Beijing, I’d love to hear your choice.

DK: Wow, not starting easy this week, huh?

Well, it’s a powerful question and, obviously, one that has nothing close to a correct answer, whether from me or anyone else. That’s partly because of the huge field involved but also because of different values assigned to the athleticism involved in sports.

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Pedro Alvarez is rushed by Neil Walker and Jordy Mercer after his walkoff single in the ninth inning. -- GETTY

Column: The running (and smiling) of the Bull

by • Columns •

By Dejan Kovacevic
Pedro Alvarez does get excited, emotional, all that stuff.

And no, not just when he wallops a walkoff hit and celebrates like a school child, as he did Monday night in the Pirates’ 2-1 putdown of the Padres at PNC Park.

“Pedro doesn’t get excited? Are you kidding?” Andrew McCutchen was telling me in the clubhouse afterward. “You don’t see and hear everything we see from him, especially out there on the field. Trust me, man, this guy’s got some fire and shows it.”

Cutch went all the way back to, uh, the day before.

“That bomb against Cleveland, he’s pushing that the whole way out of the ballpark. He’s going up the baseline with his arms out, and he’s yelling, ‘Come on! Come on!’ to get it out. That’s how he is. We see it.”

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A.J. Burnett waves to the crowd upon exiting in the eighth inning at PNC Park. -- GETTY

A.J. Burnett, All-Star: ‘I guess I’m a yinzer’

by • Coverage •

bylines-9
A.J. Burnett has said many times that he will take snapshots in his head in this, his final Major League Baseball season.

This day will be one he remembers forever. The snapshots were endless.

He was selected Monday, shortly before taking the mound at PNC Park, to participate in Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game for the first time in this, his final season. Following the wild response from his teammates when Clint Hurdle delivered the news in the clubhouse — “It was special for everybody,” Mark Melancon said — Burnett enjoyed a few more priceless moments: He pitched another gem, couldn’t believe when a strikeout was called a foul ball, was given a boisterous sendoff from the crowd, and finished his evening alongside wife Karen, with the field all to themselves, watching sons A.J. Jr. and Ashton playfully run the bases.

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