How much worse can the starters get?

[Greymire]

I have never seen such a run of horrible starting pitching. Tracy says it is not time to panic yet, but I wonder. Josh Fogg is 2-0 right now. How is that for a slap in the face? I agreed with letting Fogg go (he has never been consistent) so take tht with a grain of salt, but that has been our luck. Now with Casey hurt, that ties us down a bit. I had been thinking that it might be a good time to unload Craig Wilson (maybe packaged with Santos or Vogelsong) for a veteran pitche that would give us some innings. But with Casey down for at least awhile (still no report on his back) that type on scenario seems unlikely. If Casey goes on the dl we might see another pitcher come up before Eldred (though we would need a first baseman).

[00_Agent]

Well, there are a few ways to look at the situation. First, the rotation is very young and I think the organization is committed to these players. In years past, they have had sort of a reluctance to keep running their prospects out there when they struggled. These guys have shown potential mostly, and I expect at least Duke, Maholm, and Perez to come around. I'm not as nuts about Santos and Snell. Anyway I don't mind watchign them struggle a little now, as long as it has a point and they do something about it if it looks like it may go on forever.

Another thing about trading Wilson is, if he's now the starter and if he can keep hitting the way he has been (which is a possibility at least for a while because he's a streak hitter and right now he's hot) his value will go up and maybe they get more for him when a deal is finally made.

But you're right, and it has been hard for me to resist coming on here and posting a "doomsday" type post about the pitching. At least last night Duke was very impressive in our 2-1 win. Maybe he's going to be ok now. And our bullpen looks like it has righted the ship a bit. They just have to stop giving games away by bringing in Ryan Vogelsong, though I suppose when we are getting slapped around a bit he's a good guy to bring in and eat up innings that would otherwise have to be taken by usually effective guys.

Snell is pitching today, I can only speculate what the Cubs lineup is going to do to him...but I foresee more from Craig Wilson and maybe we'll win again.

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[00_Agent]

Just as an aside, I wanted to see Craig getting more playing time, but I really didn't want Sean Casey getting hurt in order to do it. What do you think, how bad (or good) is this going to be for us?

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[3-2 Changeup]

I think this year is going to be a roller coaster ride as we have already seen. The rotation will settle itself with Gorzelany and/or Burnett supplanting under poerformers. A younger veteran RHP will cost the Bucs one of their young LHP but in reality you aren't going to see a rotation with 4-5 LHP because "the book" says you can't. And to think they could have swapped Perez to Texas for Blalock. I look for Bautista to end up in RF with his arm, so I'd revisit that deal.

[00_Agent]

I hate to say it but I was thinking the same thing the other day about the Perez/Blalock deal that we didn't pull the trigger on. He's getting absolutely HAMMERED every time out. Guy Junker even wrote something in a column the other day that could be construed as an accusation that Perez was on performance enhancing drugs and now he is not anymore. He didn't come out and say Perez's name but he mentioned that "people wonder" when a pitcher suddenly loses velocity on his fastball for no reason.

I still think they should give him some time based on how great he was in '04 but how long do you go until you at least consider sending him to AAA?

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[3-2 Changeup]

Geez, I don't know. Perez is kind of thin. Maybe, but I doubt it. I think his lack of offseason work last year set him back more than anyone estimated. Will he develop the work ethic required to become an elite pitcher? Only time will tell. One thing's for sure--Perez won't bring much in return the way he is now. And if he starts to get it together, everyone will be back in love with him again. He might be one of those guys that you ask to spend the offseason in Bradenton.

[00_Agent]

Hmmm...I hadn't thought about that, but you are right - he wouldn't bring much in a trade now, and Littlefield wouldn't trade him if he were doing well.

I don't know if his work ethic will be enough. Where's the heat?!

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[Greymire]

The pitching has been much improved, but now we can not hit. How can this team be doing orse than last year? The look like they have improved in every area but they can not win. If it is this frustrating to us, imagine how the team feels.

[00_Agent]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Especially now that they are pitching better it seems like they are improved in every aspect of the game. They are finally putting a lineup out there that can really hit, they have great defense, a strong bullpen and a rotation that could be great especially once Burnett gets here and Gorzelanny. I think they are better than their record. In fact, I think they've been playing fairly well lately, losing some close games against good teams. As to what they can do to start winning some of these games, I don't know. Things just have to start breaking their way, and hopefully it will snowball from there.

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