After Cuts, Pittsburgh Pirates Roster Improves

Remember last April

when Daniel McCutchen had one opportunity to impress?  He didn’t and we went to the Photoshop hut and had Kurt whip it up.  McCutchen, or White Cutch as some call him, is a great athlete, but he has never developed that knockout attitude in the bigs.    Today the Pittsbrugh Pirates assigned Daniel McCutchen to AAA Indianapolis.  Let’s trust he gets it together in the bullpen, somewhere, anywhere but not in front of more talented arms.

McCutchen had his opportunities.  Life’s a bitch.

The Pirates reassigned pitchers Sean Gallagher and Tyler Yates to minor league camp, along with catcher Wyatt Toregas and infielder Josh Fields.

~~~~~

Here was our modified post from April 10, 2010.   It might have been the last time the Bucs were on ESPN:

Coach Kerrigan:  Psst, heh Danny no matter how well you do out there, your going back down. So go out there and knock ’em dead kid. (Ass slap)

So I have to assume that deep down, McCutchen knew this was his one shot. It’s been talked about for weeks now. April 11 was being thrown around by everyone as the one start McCutchen would make. We heard it from Neal Huntington, we swore we heard about it from the batboy too. McCutchen certainly made it memorable.

McCutchen, in his one opportunity, threw 76 pitches in 3.1 innings,  allowed nine runs, six hits, and walked three.

Oh well. At least the Pirates made the ESPN intro tonight.  A  13-run record setting Diamondback fourth inning will do that.

So with McCutchen presumably done as the fifth starter, surely his partner in yesterdays crime, Hayden Penn, will be off the Pirates pitching staff soon too. We have already discovered that Kevin Hart is done for the short term. He was suspended three games today Scott McCauley said on Twitter, so perhaps he can find the strike zone during his time away.

Bottom line, the Pirates need to find a fifth starter as soon as possible.

When Kevin Hart failed to earn that rotation spot when so many in the Pirate organization had anticipated he would, we should have saw this coming. McCutchen was a fall back plan. Sure, he pitched well in spring training, but who was it against? You know what, he pitched well for a while today too, but certainly the Pirate brass anticipated the bottom falling out. Didn’t they? It’s just amazing that Penn was the first man out of the pen. Any shot at taking the series was quickly vanished by an awful performance by Penn and Taschner.

But I am curious why McCutchen was left out there on the mound when his world was crashing down around him? Perhaps it will make him mentally tougher. Perhaps they knew Penn wasn’t going to do much better. Whatever. It sucks for Pirate fans, because Penn was thrown a life line by the Bucs, I just wish he would have grabbed it and not let it go.

Snap back to reality. Do the Bucs really think Hart will get it figured out? Now it looks like once/if/when Penn clears waivers he would join the staff at Indy. Certainly it seems a freshly beaten McCutchen will join the AAA mix as well. I can see some overtime hours being racked up for each of them.

But as Eminem says, will that moment be there again for any of the three? I trust that Hart, McCutchen and Penn don’t give up that easy.

An interesting article on pitchers. No matter how you slice it, they get worse ever year. [The Book]

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