First off, let me state that I've got no beef with Pirates infielder Josh VanMeter. He's a fringe ballplayer on a bad baseball team. A utility player on a team filled with utility players. He seems like a nice young man, and he certainly tries his best every time he is called upon by Derek Shelton and the front office stats geeks who make out the lineups every day. Through no fault of his own, though, he - or, rather, what Sheltie has chosen to do with him - has come to symbolize what a goddamn disaster the Pirates are.
Three times this year VanMeter has been called upon to pitch in mop up duty when the team is getting drubbed. This culminated in his third - THIRD!!! - appearance last night when he was asked to pitch the ninth inning with the Yankees leading 10-0. In that ninth, VanMeter gave up eight hits, two of them home runs, and six runs. In three appearances and three innings pitched this year, Josh has accumulated an ERA of 39.00.
Now, if I am Josh VanMeter, I might be sorely tempted to go to Derek Shelton and say something along the lines of "I'm a team guy, and I'll do whatever I can to help you and the team out, but I've got some pride in my craft so please do not embarrass me any more by making me pitch. Enough!"
Oh, and toss in the fact that infielder Diego Castillo has also been given the dubious "honor" of pitching in these kinds of games. In two appearances and two innings pitched, his ERA is 36.00. That makes five - FIVE!!! - times in half a season that the Pirates have used position players to pitch in games this year. What used to be a rare maybe once a season occurrence that caused a few yuks among the players, has become, it seems, a part of the Pirates overall pitching strategy. It's not funny, and it's an embarrassment. Even Pirates Chief Propaganda Minister Greg Brown said "This is ridiculous" when VanMeter served up his second gopher last night.
Post Script. I decided to call the Pirates office today and ask for Ben Cherrington to express the sentiments I just wrote of. My hope was that I would get to his voice mail and leave a message. When I got to an operator I was told "We are not allowed to put calls like that through." Like Claude Rains, I was shocked, SHOCKED to be stonewalled like that.
Pirates Fever. Catch it!!
Thanks for trying, Bob… some might argue that is more than the Pirate front office is doing
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