Bucco Fever » Ross Ohlendorf

Ohlendorf Scratched, Burress to Start; Penn DFA’d

Sean H. Steimer — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:30:35 +0000

The Pirates made a few roster moves today, 2 expected and 2 unexpected. First what we already knew about. Yesterday’s starter Daniel McCutchen was optioned to AAA in order to make room on the 25 man roster for reliever Joel Hanrahan. McCutchen struggled yesterday, but this was going to happen regardless since the team has 2 off days coming up and can therefore go with just 4 starters for the next 2 weeks or so.

In addition, in an unexpected move the team has DFA’d Hayden Penn to make room on the 25 and 40 man rosters for Brian Burress, who will start tonight in place of Ross Ohlendorf. Ohlendorf has been scratched due to back spasms, but the team thinks he will be ready for his next start. All of this, and much more detail can be found in here in MLB.com beat writer Jen Langosch’s post about the subject.

Penn was hardly with the team for long enough to know his name, he was claimed off waivers during the last week of Spring Training, and he struggled in 3 appearances to the tune of 30.86 ERA. I’m curious why the team picked Burress to start (without looking closely at the AAA rotation, my guess is he may have been the only option available), but his stats are far from impressive and I’m not expecting much from him. Let’s just hope he can keep the team in the game tonight and that Ohlendorf isn’t out for more than 1 start.

EDIT: Jen Langosch has the reasoning for why Burress was the one called up in her game preview post. Basically, due to an obscure MLB rule, at this early point in the season guys already on the 40 man can’t be called up without placing someone on the DL. The Bucs aren’t ready to put Ohlendorf on the DL, so that rules out Veal, Hart, Lincoln, and Jakubauskas. Burress was scheduled to start tonight for Indy anyway, so giving him the call made the most sense.

PirateFest and Off-season in Review

Sean H. Steimer — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:34:53 +0000

PirateFest was this past weekend, and since I’m a season ticket holder, I got free tickets and made the trip over to the convention center on Saturday afternoon. Due to some other plans I wasn’t able to stay for as long as would have liked to, but I can report that I had a good time, and will likely go back next year. We got there around noon, played a few of the carnival games, won some prizes, stuck around for the player Q&A and then had to go. My girlfriend, who is infinitely lucky, got drawn to play both Deal or No Deal (with Ross Ohlendorf as the banker) and the pierogi eating contest. She ended up with some pretty nice prizes, including this ball signed by the banker.

With PirateFest now in the past, and pitchers and catchers reporting in just 13 days, I think its safe to call this the unofficial end of the off-season. Lets take a quick look back at what has gone on over the last 4 months.

October 4, 2009: The Pirates end their ignominious 17th consecutive losing season with a loss to the Cincinatti Reds, their 99th of the year.
October 17, 2009: The Pirates announce that Perry Hill will not return as their infield instructor in 2010. He would eventually be replaced by former Bucco Carlos Garcia.
November 3, 2009: Second baseman Akinori Iwamuri is acquired from the Tamba Bay Rays in exhcange for relief pitcher Jesse Chavez
December 10, 2009: In the Rule V draft, held annually at the winter meetings, the Pirates select OF John Raynor from the Florida Marlins.
December 12, 2009: Former AL ROY Bobby Crosby signs a deal with The Pirates. Crosby is expected to back-up incumbent Ronny Cedeno, with the chance to win the starting job in Cedeno struggles.
December 13, 2009: In a surprise move, The Pirates opt not to tender closer Matt Capps a contract offer by the midnight deadline, making him a free-agent. Capps would eventually sign a one year deal worth about $3.5 Million with the Washington Nationals.
January 13, 2010: Free agent OF Ryan Church agrees to terms with the Pirates. Church will be the Pirates 4th outfielder, but will likely get plenty of at bats backing up all 3 outfield positions.
January 16-20, 2010: After losing Capps(voluntarily so) earlier in the off-season, GM Neal Huntington made a flurry of moves within a matter of just a few days to revamp his bullpen by signing D.J. Carrasco, Octavio Dotel, and Brendan Donnely.

Game Notes – June 25th – Indians @ Pirates

Sean H. Steimer — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:29:51 +0000

I was at this game with a Cleveland friend of mine, and it turned out to be a good one, and a win for our buccos, even if attendance wise, there seemed to be more support for the road side. Starting pitchers Ross Ohlendorf and Cliff Lee were both solid, each allowing 2 earned over 7 innings. Andrew McCutchen was the real star on this night though. He went 2 for 4 with 2 RBIs. Forget about the walkoff single. It was impressive, but his best at bat was the walk he drew in the seventh against Lee with the bases loaded. Lee got ahead early 0-2, but from there ‘Cutch settled in, fouling off several pitches and taking a few other close ones to draw the walk and score the tying run. All I have to say is wow. To not get rushed, not get over agressive, against a cy young winner in that situation, wow! At just 22, he has been nothing short of amazing so far.

I was at the concessions when Nyjer Morgan came to bat in the 6th, was hit by a pitch, and then JR was run for arguing it. But even from the concessions, the fans were deafeningly loud when it happened. Its a good thing JR was ejected and not T-Plush. The HR Nyjer pulled back in the 8th clearly saved this game for the bucs.

The win moved the Pirates to 33-39 on the year as we head into a weekend series against KC.