As a baseball fan growing up in Pittsburgh, I watched some pretty awful Pirates teams. The names of the players are probably remembered only by Pirates fans and diehard fans in other cities:

Clem Koshorek, Bobby Del Greco, Tony Bartirome, Eddie O’Brien, Johnny O’Brien, Vic Janowicz, Dino Restelli, Pete Castiglione, George Metkovich, George Strickland, Paul LaPalme, Dick Hall, etc., etc., etc.

As bad as the Pirates of those days were – the 1952 team won 42 games and lost 112 – they did not eclipse the Pirates of these days for consistent futility. These Pirates are days away from matching a major league record for consecutive losing seasons. By losing a few games this week, these Pirates can insure their 16^th consecutive losing season, a streak achieved by only one team in major league history.

That would be the cross-state neighbor Philadelphia Phillies, who posted losing records from 1933 through 1948 after staggering through 14 successive losing seasons 1918 through 1931 – 30 losing seasons in 31 years.

Sixty years after the Phillies began their record streak, the Pirates took off on their own path of futility, and, like the Energizer bunny, they’re still going and going and going.

After the first game of their weekend series with Milwaukee, the Pirates had lost 77 games, leaving them five short of securing another losing record. It’s not every team that can pull off such a feat, and it’s not every year that a team can achieve such ignominy. Lest anyone think the Pirates can end the streak next season, do not bet on it. The Pirates have offered no indications this season that better times are on the horizon.

To the contrary, the Pirates have demonstrated an admirable consistency, if consistent losing is to be admired.

Not since Barry Bonds left the Pirates as a free agent after the 1992 season have the Pirates had a winning record. The closest they came was in 1997 when they had a 79-83 record. That season a four-game winning streak brought their record to 78-80, but they lost three of the last four games.

The Pirates blame their futility on their status as a low-revenue team, but they ignore two problems with that excuse: Other low-revenue teams, such as Minnesota and Oakland, not only attain winning records but also reach the playoffs, and the Pirates have been operated poorly through a succession of chief executives and general managers.

They too often have squandered the money they have had to spend on players, and they have traded away promising players before economics forced the moves. Their signing of Pat Meares and Derek Bell epitomizes the former factor and the trade of Aramis Ramirez the latter.

The Pirates chose a curious set of circumstances to try to reverse their fortunes. Bob Nutting, the new board chairman, named Frank Coonelly as club president even though Coonelly never worked in a team’s front office but was a labor lawyer for Major League Baseball.

Coonelly, in turn, named Neal Huntington as general manager even though Huntington had primarily been a scout and talent evaluator, serving in an outside role rather than in an office position. Huntington then named as manager John Russell, a 10-year minor league manager with no major league experience.

Huntington acknowledged that their first season has been disappointing.

“I think from a surface standpoint we have not won enough games,” he said. “Our goal is to put the organization in a position to play meaningful games in September and that is not happening this year.”

Had he expected the Pirates to win more games? “Absolutely,” he said. “The reason we are in this is to win games. Any time you lose, it’s frustrating. We’re not accepting losing as part of the process. We expect our guys to compete every night.”

Off the playing field, on the other hand, Huntington feels the Pirates have made progress. “We talked about changing the culture and we feel good about that,” he said, “but we need to win more games. We feel that is something that is coming.”

The Pirates, the general manager said, “have reconfigured our top 15 prospects with 13 different names as we move forward. Infusion of talent was a goal. We are pleased with where we are.”

But once more the Pirates traded their better players, Xavier Nady and Jason Bay, continuing the policy of exile. One of the best remaining players is Nate McLouth, a 26-year-old outfielder, who was the team’s All-Star representative. He has experienced only three of the first 15 losing seasons.

When the Pirates got close to .500 earlier in the season – 40-44 July 2-3 – McLouth said, “there was a lot of comment made about it. We’ve been there a few times throughout the course of the season. We haven’t been able to get over the hump. Five-hundred isn’t anyone’s goal, but it’s a goal on the way to better things. It sure would be nice to get over that hump.”

Asked if he has heard talk about tying the Phillies’ record, McLouth said, “only by people outside the organization. Nobody has been there for even half the seasons. It’s not really on us, but we certainly would like to end it.”

Even the Phillies ended their 16-year losing streak in 1949. The next year they won the National League pennant and lost to the Yankees in the World Series. The Pirates already have beaten the Yankees in the World Series, and they are not likely to get back there soon.

Mussina Twilight Time

Mike Mussina deserves a lot of credit for his surprisingly good season, but his performance may not be good enough. Good enough for what? Good enough to win 20 games for the first time in his 17-year career.

The Yankees won Mussina’s last two starts, but he didn’t get credit for the victories, staying on hold at 16. That means he has to win four of his remaining five or six scheduled starts to reach 20. He’ll get the extra start if manager Joe Girardi schedules him every fifth day and not every fifth game.

In any event two of his next three starts are expected to be against Tampa Bay, a team he beat twice in the first six weeks of the season but that is a stronger team now as it goes for its first division title.

Mussina has precedent this season for winning four of six starts. He won five successive starts from April 23 through May 14 and more recently won five of seven. On the other hand, he has won only one of his last four starts and three of his last seven.

Questionable Rules Change

Commissioner Bud Selig talks about the good relations between the owners and the players and how that new, improved relationship has benefited baseball economically. Why, then, does he allow his labor executives and the clubs to violate collectively bargained rules and force the union to file a grievance over the violation?

The union has filed a grievance, contending that the commissioner’s office unilaterally and illegally extended the draft signing deadline beyond the negotiated deadline of midnight Aug. 15. At the center of the dispute is the Pittsburgh Pirates’ signing of Pedro Alvarez, a college third baseman, for a $6 million bonus.

The union did not cite Alvarez in its grievance, saying simply it was challenging baseball’s unilateral act. But it just so happens that Scott Boras is Alvarez’s representative, and Boras’ presence usually complicates matters. In this instance, however, Boras doesn’t seem to be culpable.

According to a person familiar with the dispute, talks between the Pirates and Alvarez went to the wire. Four minutes before the deadline the Pirates raised their offer from $5 million to $6 million. At 11:58 p.m. Alvarez made a counteroffer.

The Vanderbilt student subsequently agreed to $6 million after the Pirates told him he had to sign with them or no one. But their agreement clearly came after midnight, and it doesn’t matter if the Pirates say they had permission from the commissioner’s office to go beyond the deadline.

The commissioner’s office can’t act unilaterally. A rule is supposed to be a rule, although the owners weren’t deterred from colluding against free agents in the mid-1980s by the negotiated rules barring concerted action.

This would seem to be a straightforward case for the arbitrator, Shyam Das, but arbitration cases can be unpredictable. Even if Das rules for the union, what will he do about the Alvarez contract? Will he let it stand, will he void it, will he order Alvarez to go back in the draft next June, will he give the Pirates and Alvarez a new period of negotiation?

Union officials have not decided what remedy they will seek from Das in the case that is expected to be heard Sept. 10. At the minimum, they will ask that he order the commissioner’s office not to change rules on its own.

Boras was at the center of a deadline dispute in 1997. That one involved Andy Benes, another Boras client, who was a free agent. Boras negotiated a five-year $30 million contract for the pitcher with St. Louis, but they went beyond a mutually extended deadline.

The agent maintained that the signing occurred before the deadline, but the clubs’ labor arm disputed that view. The union filed a grievance but abandoned it after the first day of hearing.  

Make Mine Chocolate Creme

The Tampa Bay Rays have already broken the franchise record for victories, and they have assured themselves of finishing the season with a winning record for the first time. But here’s another way of measuring the Rays’ surprising success:

Dunkin’ Donuts has given out more than 200,000 free doughnuts this season compared with approximately 116,000 last season.

What do doughnuts have to do with the baseball team that has eclipsed the Yankees and the Red Sox this season? This is the second year of a Dunkin’ Donuts promotion that links Rays victories to free doughnuts in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area.

“In 2007 Dunkin’ Donuts started partnering with the baseball team,” said Toby Srebnik, a Dunkin’ spokesman. “It started as ‘Devil Rays win, you win.’ This year it’s ‘Rays win, you win.’ When the team wins a game, either at home or on the road, go into any Dunkin’ store in the Tampa area and you receive one free doughnut. Just say to the cashier that the Rays won and you get a free doughnut.”

Srebnik estimated that the Dunkin’ stores surpassed last year’s total of distributed doughnuts by the end of June. The latest count for this season was computed after Rays win No. 79 – 199,475. That’s an average of 2,525 doughnuts per win. Srebnik said he expected that last year’s total would be doubled by the end of the season.

Srebnik said glazed and chocolate glazed have been the most popular doughnuts requested by Rays fans, but he added, “Every time they beat the Red Sox the Boston crème doughnut was the big doughnut.”

 

The comment seemed to be universal. Before the season began, everyone said the Mets didn’t have enough starting pitching. No way they could win with the starters they had. They didn’t have enough of them, and not all of the ones they had were reliable.

“There was a question about our pitching,” Omar Minaya, the Mets general manager, acknowledged. “They were saying that even though we got Santana it wasn’t going to be enough.”

And what did Minaya think about his pitching?

“At the time I kept saying I thought getting Santana put a front-line starter on the staff.  

When we started the year I felt we had Duque, Martinez, Maine and Perez We thought Pelfrey would start as a long man in the bullpen. I felt he would develop into a starter, but he had to develop. We’d have to wait for him. I thought somewhere in the second half of the season.” 

Injuries have kept El Duque, Orlando Hernandez, out all season and drastically curtailed Pedro Martinez’s season. John Maine is on the disabled list for the second time. Mike Pelfrey? He didn’t wait until the second half of the season to develop.

Early in the season Pelfrey looked like a pitcher in serious need of development. The ninth player selected in the amateur draft only three years ago, Pelfrey struggled in his first nine starts with a 2-6 record and a 5.33 earned run average. He averaged barely five innings a start.

Then 17 days before Jerry Manuel replaced Willie Randolph as the Mets manager and Dan Warthen replaced Rick Peterson as the pitching coach, Pelfrey began blooming. No rose has ever turned out as sweet.

In his last 17 starts, the 24-year-old right-hander has compiled an 11-2 record with a 3.00 e.r.a. and has averaged six and two-thirds innings per start. He has pitched complete games in his last two starts.

“He’s developed; he’s been dominant,” Minaya said.

Pelfrey has become a No. 1 starter. He has to do the job for more than half a season, but his performance is matching his potential.

“A lot has to do with confidence with these young guys,” Minaya said. “It gets down to him trusting his best pitch, which is a hard sinker. Once they get to the major leagues they feel they have to find ways to get guys out with their best pitch. He’s sticking with his strength right now.”

Pelfrey has teamed with Johan Santana to give the Mets a strong 1-2 at the head of the rotation. Santana has a 12-7 record, but his record could be a lot better. Since June 1, he has a 2.25 earned run average but only a 6-4 record.

Santana and Pelfrey epitomize the Mets strength. Their pitchers have the National League’s fourth lowest e.r.a. among starters, 3.90; the third highest won-lost percentage, .582, and the second lowest opponents batting average, .248.

In the 15 games before they went to Philadelphia the starters won nine, lost one and had a 2.71 e.r.a. Subtract Maine’s recent start against Houston, in which the Astros scored eight runs against him, and the record is 9-0 with a 2.13 e.r.a.

Maine’s outing against the Astros preceded his placement on the disabled list with an ailing shoulder, the second time this month the shoulder has interfered with his pitching. 

“The schedule works in our favor because we have a couple days off,” Minaya said, discussing the plan to replace Maine.

Whenever the Mets have lost a player to injury this season, Minaya has not rushed out to trade for a replacement. When Ryan Church missed so much time recovering from a concussion and with Moises Alou out for the season, Minaya eschewed the quick fix and stuck with the outfielders already on the roster, Fernando Tatis and Endy Chavez, and added two minor leaguers, Daniel Murphy and Nick Evans.

So it apparently will be when the Mets need a starter for a game in Milwaukee next week. “Most likely we’ll stay internal,” Minaya said. The most likely candidate is Jonathon Niese, a 21-year-old left-hander, who has a 5-1 record for AAA New Orleans.

They could use Brian Stokes, who started a game earlier this month, but he has been relatively effective in relief since, and the Mets desperately need relatively effective relievers. 

“He is in a good spot right now,” Minaya said. “When a guy is having success you want to keep him there.”

The Mets’ relief pitching generally gives people a different feeling. Call it nausea. Anybody who can consistently get through an inning without giving up the lead would be a welcome addition to the corps of arsonists. The bullpen weakness was on painful display once again in the Mets’ 13-inning 8-7 loss to the Phillies Tuesday night.

Four relievers contributed to that loss, though Aaron Heilman was not one of them. Heilman is a maddeningly inconsistent reliever, a total enigma. He can look great one night, quickly dispatching three batters in an easy inning, then squander a lead and the game in his next appearance. Earned run averages are often meaningless for relievers, but in 69 games this season Heilman has allowed runs in 21 innings, hits in 42 and walks in 31. He has allowed 1.6 baserunners per inning, his worst record since his rookie season of 2003.

Luis Ayala is the latest addition to the bullpen. Often ineffective with Washington in 62 games, the 30-year-old right-hander was nevertheless attractive to Minaya because of his makeup.

“When you get to this time of year,” Minaya said, “you want to have guys who if they fail are not afraid to go back out there. You don’t want guys who are afraid to pitch in a pennant race. Ayala didn’t have a good record with the Nationals, but numbers can be deceiving. He pitched in the eighth inning with a lead 30 some times and held the lead.”

Ayala, pitching in place of the injured closer Billy Wagner, gave up the Phillies’ tying run in the ninth inning Tuesday night but the next night gained his second save to go with one win in six appearances as the Mets supplanted the Phillies in first place in their game of division leapfrog.

As the season has developed, the Mets have had enough starting pitching to reach the playoffs, but the relief corps has undermined the starters’ effort. If the Mets reach the playoffs in spite of the bullpen, it will be a minor miracle.

The Minnesota Twins lost Johan Santana and Torii Hunter last winter and are in first place this summer.

“No question we felt the losses,” Bill Smith, the Twins first-year general manager, said. “You can’t lose Hunter and Santana and not feel the loss. At the same time our scouting staff and minor league staff got a few guys ready over the last few years.”

Glen Perkins, Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey, Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano. They are some of the players the Twins staff got ready for the major leagues. They happen to be the pitchers who make up the team’s starting rotation. Combined, they have pitched in the majors for four and a half years. Except for Liriano, who had a sensational start to his major league career with a 12-3 record in 2006 but then missed all of last season following elbow surgery, normal fans are most likely unfamiliar with the Twins starters.

The four who aren’t named Liriano all came to the Twins in the amateur June draft. They didn’t get the attention the Yankees created for Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy in New York, but they are a large part of the reason the Twins supplanted the Chicago White Sox atop the American League Central last Friday night.

“Their pitching has been giving them a chance,” Mark Shapiro, general manager of the rival Cleveland Indians, said. “Their pitching has been exceptional, their young pitching in particular.”

Perkins, a 25-year-old left-hander, who didn’t join the starting rotation until May 10, pitched the Twins into first place by shutting out the Angels of Anaheim for eight innings and raising his team-best record to 11-3.

The fifth member of the rotation, Liriano, is like a trading-deadline acquisition, specifically a CC Sabathia-type addition. Banished to the minor leagues after losing all three starts in April with an 11.32 earned run average, Liriano returned this month and has won all four starts with a 1.14 e.r.a. That is the Liriano the Twins knew and loved in 2006.

“We had Livan Hernandez at the start of the season,” Smith said, referring to the free agent the Twins signed who had a 10-8 record with a 5.48 e.r.a. “It worked perfectly that Liriano was ready to go and we found a home for Hernandez with the Rockies.”

In the genre of low-revenue teams that supposedly can’t compete with the New Yorks and the Chicagos and the Bostons, the Oakland Athletics are usually cited as the team that practices a different system that enables them to compete with the rich guys. But they get the attention because a book glorified them.

No one has written a book about the Twins and their system, but the Twins have outdone the Athletics and deserve as much, if not more, credit for their operation. This season is a good example of the sort of thing they do.

Last season the Twins finished with a losing record (79-83) and 17 games out of first, then lost Hunter to free agency and traded Santana because they were going to lose him after this season.

Now they are scrapping for their fifth division title in seven seasons. They have looked vulnerable at times; last month they suffered three-game series sweeps to the Red Sox and the Yankees and a month earlier lost all four games of a series with the White Sox. But even with the Red Sox and Yankees sweeps, the Twins have the league’s best record (43-21) since June 11.

“After each of those series we bounced back,” Smith said. “Our guys are amazingly resilient. They turned the page and moved on. Since June 11 our team has played very, very well. I think Ron Gardenhire and his coaching staff have done a marvelous job this year.”

The Twins do not have an explosive offense, but Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, the A.L. most valuable player in 2006, have produced impressive statistics. Entering the weekend games, Mauer was leading the league with a .323 batting average and Morneau’s 98 runs batted in were third.

Denard Span is a 24-year-old rookie outfielder, whose .258 batting average in April prompted the Twins to return him to the minors. Since coming back after a two-month stay, Span is hitting .337. Another rookie, third baseman Brian Buscher, has batted .315 in the last two months. Second baseman Alexi Casilla is hitting .303.

“We’ve had four huge contributions from the minor leagues,” Smith said, naming Perkins, Span, Casilla and Buscher. “They all started the season at Rochester. When we got hit with injuries we had those guys come up. Each one in a different way stepped in and did the job.”

Because of their low-revenue status, the Twins live by the annual amateur June draft. The four starting pitchers besides Liriano were drafted as were Mauer, Morneau, Span, Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel.

Smith said the decision to “go young” was made by his predecessor, Terry Ryan, and Jim Pohlad, a son of the owner and the team’s chief executive officer, around the start of the new century. The Twins were mired in a string of eight consecutive losing seasons and, Smith recalled, Ryan and Pohlad said, “We’re going to go young and develop our own players. If we suffer from it, we’ll take that.”

Carl Pohlad is the team’s enlightened owner. He is probably the wealthiest man in baseball, but he doesn’t tell his baseball people how to do their jobs.

“We were in a meeting once, talking about roster moves,” Smith related. “A few people started to make suggestions about who we should go after. Bob Pohlad raised his hand and said ‘who are we to make these decisions? That’s why we hired Terry Ryan.’ Everyone agreed.”

When Ryan was the general manager, he didn’t feel that the Twins had to take a back seat to the Athletics, and Smith feels the same way.

“Everybody has a different way of doing things,” he said. “There are multiple ways of being successful. Whatever Oakland does works. Our way works for us. It might not work for someone else, but it’s our way.”

And once again this season the Twins’ way is successful.

Baseball’s First Hyphen

With Rich Harden, Dan Haren and Joe Blanton gone, Greg Smith is considered the Athletics’ No. 1 starting pitcher, but that’s a relatively unheralded distinction compared with the one held by the pitcher Smith beat in a game with Seattle last week.

Ryan Rowland-Smith, according to Elias Sports Bureau research, is the first major leaguer with a hyphenated last name.

Rowland-Smith, a Seattle starter, is Australian, left-handed and 25 years old. Signed by the Mariners as a free agent in 2000, Rowland-Smith was selected by the Twins in the 2004 draft of unprotected minor league players, but the Twins returned him to the Mariners rather than keep him on their roster all season.

He spent the next two seasons in the Mariners’ minor league system, then had three different visits with them last season, making a total of 26 appearances in relief. He relieved in 32 more games this season before moving into the starting rotation at the beginning of last month.

Over-all Rowland-Smith has a 2-2 record and a 3.84 earned run average in 5 starts and 32 relief appearances.

Babe Zambrano Strikes Again

Carlos Zambrano, the talented Chicago Cubs pitcher, slugged his fourth home run of the season last Thursday, leaving him two homers from the career high he reached in 2006.

Zambrano is one of the best hitting pitchers in the majors, if not the best. He has a .361 batting average on 26 hits in 72 at-bats. In contrast, Ryan Theriot, his infield teammate, has hit one home run in 474 at-bats.

Then there are the players with the most times at bat and no home runs:

Chone Figgins, Angels, 362
Jason Bartlett, Rays, 349
Juan Pierre, Dodgers, 330
Jamey Carroll, Indians, 262
Joey Gathright, Royals 251

See CC Win and Win and Win, Hit and Field, Too

Nothing that CC Sabathia has done with Milwaukee – 8-0, 1.60 in 9 starts – has surprised the man who traded him to the Brewers. Mark Shapiro, the Cleveland general manager, said that despite his record with the Indians – 6-8, 3.83 in 18 starts – Sabathia had turned around his season by the time he left seven weeks ago.

“He made the adjustment and he was dominant, same as last year,” Shapiro said. “He went from being a good starting pitcher to a dominant starting pitcher. His one flaw is he can care too much and that manifests itself in his delivery. It affects his command, and he loses the ability to throw his slider.”

In his last five starts for the Indians Sabathia, who won the American League Cy Young award last year, compiled a 3-0 record with a 1.80 e.r.a. That means in his last 14 starts he has an 11-0 record and a 1.67 e.r.a.

“Everyone here is pulling for him,” Shapiro said. “We all watch him with interest. We’re excited and we’re pulling for him.”

The Indians traded Sabathia because he can be a free agent at the end of the season, and they were unsuccessful in their effort to sign him to a contract extension.

“We wouldn’t have made the move without exploring that,” Shapiro said. “We can sign him in the off-season, but that would be unlikely.”

Sabathia is expected to want to sign with a National League team on the West Coast. Money isn’t expected to be a holdup for any team that pursues the 28-year-old left-hander, but number of years in the contract may be.

As one general manager put it, “Are you willing to pay for six years for getting four years of pitching?” Sabathia, however, will very likely seek more than a six-year contract.

He might ask for additional money for his hitting and fielding. In his start last Monday Sabathia singled home two fourth-inning runs in a close game, then singled again in his next time at bat, setting up another run, and sacrificed a runner into scoring position in his next at-bat.

In the seventh inning, he induced Miguel Tejada to ground into a double play that he started by snaring Tejada’s hard bouncer.

A New Old Yogi-ism

The umpires’ acceptance of the use of replays to get home run calls correct reminded Steve Jacobson, the former Newsday columnist, of an incident from the days he was covering the Mets.

“Way back in the Original Mets time,” Jacobson wrote in an e-mail, “ playing at old Crosley Field, Johnny Lewis hit a ball off the wall in center field where the dividing line for in-play was a wooden planking on the wall: hit concrete and the ball is in play and off the wood, home run.

“Anyhow, the umpire said it was in play. Yogi–must have been a coach–came running out to argue. He explained: “Anybody who can’t hear the difference of a ball hitting wood or hitting concrete must be blind.”