Neal Huntington Show Notes: Jameson Taillon, Luis Heredia News

The Neal Huntington Show just wrapped up with Greg Brown serving as host.  The Pirates GM spoke about the injuries to Jameson Taillon and now, Luis Heredia.

Brown opened the show by asking the Pirates GM about the amount of close games. Huntington mentioned the trend of run-scoring going down in baseball going back to late 80’s early 90’s.

"Our offense has continued to hit and miss.  While our pitching has done the job"

Brown asked Huntington if he liked it and the response was pretty funny—-this baseball is a lot more fun than teams bludgeoning each other, he said.

Brown spoke about the Brewers trying to buck the trend in baseball–saying they are a free swinging team that makes good contact.  He alluded to the fact that this isn’t what the Pirates are doing but didnt come out and say that.  Huntington picked up on it and stood behind his offense.

“That’s a bit of a misrepresentation of our offense.  We try to attack out pitch. We don’t go to plate looking for walks,” Huntington said.

The Brewers have very talented hitters and they have chance to score a lot of runs.  (Screw the Brewers)

When asked if he was confident in the Pirates offense, the Bucs GM said, ‘we have work to do.’  He mentioned the team is in the middle of pack stated that the 12 run game skews the numbers. We are about 50 plate appearances in. It’s the beauty of the game.  (Meaning there are players that will get even better, other players have had good starts–he specifically mentioned Pedro Alvarez and Russell Martin.

Brown asked about the decision by Taillon to pick his doctor for Tommy John surgery.
Huntington responded by saying, there are large number of surgeons. He liked this doctor. He liked the track record. So much of rehab is process and mentality.   (Huntington was on the defensive a bit throughout the interview and his answers were a bit more direct than we are used to hearing–he was also calling into the show and apparently isn’t in Milwaukee today)

In wrapping up the Taillon talk, Huntington said, “We are comfortable with Jameson’s decision.”

Regarding Chris Stewart, Huntington said both runners were safe that ran on Stewart ( in the game at Indy last night ) but both throws were strong.  Now its about getting him ready to help this team.

God help us.

Regarding having Vin Mazzaro back in the fold.  Huntington said, “I was open. I thought we would have to trade a very good ML reliever. We are shocked he cleared waivers.  Glad he chose to come back. He has major league staff that believes in him. Seemed like he threw ball well last night.

Brown asked about the Jameson Taillon injury impacting the long term plans of the team as it would impact Francisco Liriano possibly being signed.

Huntington said it’s two different entities.  In the short term it makes us feel good about holding on to Jeff Locke.  Adding Casey Sadler to the roster.  He went on to talk about having to need to have Plan B, C, D, etc…

Huntington said Jeff Locke is ‘frustrated and he does not believe that he is in minor league pitcher–and he’s right.”  We’re doing everything in our power to sustain the depth in our system.  It’s going to be the crucial part of whether we can compete.

Regarding the injury to Luis Heredia, Huntington quickly corrected Brown’s blowing Heredia’s weight.  Brown said 270 and that didn’t make Huntington too happy.

The Pirates GM said when the inflamation subsides, they will evaluate again.  The problem seemeed to have been bothering the rightt hander for some time, but he didn’t communicate it.  Huntington said he hopes they are early enough to where they can get ahead of the injury.   Huntington said it had been bothering Heredia off and on.

That doesn’t sound too promising for the Pirates or for Heredia in the short term.