Pirates Caffeine: No News Is Good News on Maholm

Some of you

might like the idea of Paul Maholm coming back to the Pittsburgh Pirates next year.  Pick up that option, it’s a small price to pay for a left handed workhorse like Maholm the saying goes…

We don’t like that idea.   In fact picking up Maholm’s option is a hideous mistake.

Too many pitches thrown.

Too many innings.

Too few strikeouts.

Too much contact for our blood.

Too much doing his own thing in the offseason.

In fact, Paul Maholm just seems like a pitcher that is too much of an expensive question mark in a rotation that needs exclamation points.

We think after watching Brian Burres pitch last night, there was a reason this team held onto Maholm at the trade deadline.  One, they thought they were going to be competitive and two, there weren’t many strong deals out there for the left-hander.   Three, they didn’t want to watch Burres pitch either.

After the deadline, we noticed Maholm wasn’t quite as effective on the mound.  He was strong against Atlanta, but that was the only start he went seven innings in his past seven starts.

In those last seven starts Maholm went 40.2 innings and gave up 59 hits.  The lefty surrendered 26 earned runs and four bombs.  His ERA jumped from 2.96 to 3.66.  It was becoming bad for Maholm.

He was placed on the disabled list and recently the Pirates moved him to the 60-day DL.

The lackluster outings caused his numbers to rise steadily until the muscle pull or whatever the hell the mystery injury was that overtook the body of the left-hander happened.

Was it the idea that he thought he would get moved in a trade at the deadline that made him perform so well?  Or was it simply pitching his ass off after reading  some scouting reports Hurdle brought with him from Texas?

The 2011 season was a baffler.  Perhaps he was injured earlier than he let on?  Who knows, but Maholm just couldn’t last through the season.    That’s not normal for the bulldog.

If the Pirates want him around, we trust they don’t break the bank to do it.  Maholm pitched his ass off early this year and some of his numbers were ridiculous.

Can he repeat it?

That’s the point, there isn’t a definitive answer and it seems rather obvious from this quote that the Pirates aren’t in a big hurry to re-up the left hander.

Good for the Bucs.

"“It’s up to them, they’ve got the option. I’ve been saying for seven months I’d be open to [staying], and I haven’t heard anything. So we’re just going to see; no hard feelings if anything happens. If I go test free agency, obviously Pittsburgh will be one of the teams that I hope wants me, and we’ll see how it goes.”  Paul Maholm"

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