Avarez' Walk-Off; Bye-Bye to the Coaches

The Pirates may stink, but they do manage to make news in the most peculiar way. Some thoughts from the Mental In-Box....

• The game last night was an amazing piece of work. The newly reconstituted bullpen blows a three run lead in the ninth, gives up two in the top of the tenth, but the team wins in the bottom of the 10th in most dramatic fashion: A three-run dinger by Pedro Alvarez. Talk about emotional swings. It was fantastic watching that one.
• We should all know by now NOT to get too excited about anything the Pirates do, but you have to wonder if someday will we look back on THAT game last night, that 8-7 win over the Rockies, and say that that was the ground floor of something good? (Probably not.)
• Now for the peculiar news. The team announces on Sunday morning that pitching coach Joe Kerrigan and bench coach Gary Varsho are fired. Strange timing. The announcement says that this was John Russell's call, and that there were questions of "loyalty" involved in the firings.
• Judging from the performances of Pirates starting pitchers, you can say that Kerrigan lost his job on merit. As for Varsho, well, what exactly does a bench coach do anyway? Could he have been undermining JR among the players? Is this where the loyalty question comes into play?
• Speaking of coaches, in the 8th inning of the game on Friday night, with Pirates down by one run, Jose Tabata was frozen off of first base when a pitched ball got away from the catcher. You could almost read his mind: should I go to second, or get back to first? He froze for a fraction a second too long, and Chris Ianetta picked him off of first base. My question: Was first base coach Carlos Garcia yelling at him what to do, and, if not, why not?
• Also on the subject of pitching coaches, I remember reading - I think it was in Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" - that on a ten man pitching staff, a pitching coach will help two guys, hurt two guys, and make not a bit of difference to the other six.
• In Andrew McCutchen, Jose Tabata, Neil Walker, and Padro Alvarez, the Pirates sure appear to have four guys around who you can build a nice everyday line-up. Now, if they could only come up with one or two or three pitchers who are their equivalents.
• Pedro Alvarez does not hit cheap home runs. To use the catch phrase of Lanny Frattare, when Pedro gets hold of one, there is nooooooo doubt about it.