Short Hops: Just the Bucs being the Bucs

Just the Bucs Being the Bucs

Folks in the Pirates front office should just take a vacation the week before the trade deadline and return at 12:01 on August 1. Last July, they dealt for a broken-down/washed-up Matt Morris and are still writing him MONTHLY checks for three-quarters of a mil. Before federal withholding and FICA, of course.

Now they’ve sent Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte to the Yankees for four minor leaguers. Saves them about $3 million (less than a quarter of what they committed to Morris), but this was the highest bid for two fine players most contenders would take in a Pittsburgh minute? And why did they pull the trigger last week when his players’ value would be higher this week?

Short Hops suspected as much but, to be sure, we asked an opposing team’s scout about the merit of prospect quartet. “The Pirates got nothing,” was his response. Outfielder Jose Tabata was ostensibly the centerpiece but, while talented, he’s been horrible in Double-A and has character issues many baseball people think will preclude him from ever making it. The three pitchers  — Ross Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens and Dan McCutchen — will scuffle their whole careers to be No. 5 starters. (Well, maybe No. 2s in Pittsburgh.) McCutchen has a little extra perk on his resume: a 2006 suspension for performance-enchancers.

“We need depth. We need options,” was GM Neal Huntington’s justification. Pirate Fan would have rather heard him say, “We need wins.” Now Huntington is shopping Jason Bay, Jack Wilson and John Grabow. A team source told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette they would need to be “blown away” to deal those guys. That shouldn’t be hard to do.

The Yankees’ “Big Pepi”

When Joe Pepitone played for the Yankees in the 1960s, he was known as a carouser, a showboat and an all-around piece of work. Supposedly he showed up at his very first spring training penniless, having blown his $25,000 signing bonus on a T’bird, a boat, a shark-skin suit and a dog. He concluded his career in Japan, where his late-night exploits were so infamous that the word “Pepitone” — and we’re serious about this — has been adopted into the country’s vernacular to mean, roughly translated, “lazyass.” The native Brooklynite returned to the States in time to pose full-frontally nude for Foxy Lady magazine and spend several months in Rikers for drug and weapon offenses.

Now 67, Pepi hasn’t lost his eye for the ladies. In a recent interview concerning the last throes of Yankee Stadium, he said Whitey Ford was the one pitcher who most defined the ballpark, but “only because I like his wife.” He then added that the current Yank he’d most want as a teammate was A-Rod because, “Maybe he will share Madonna.”

HIT AND RUN

Short Hops’ recurring installment of slapdash observation and imprudent opinion:

C.C. Sabathia’s first four 2008 starts for the Brewers: 4-0, 1.36 ERA. His first four 2008 starts for the Indians: 0-3, 13.50.

Jack Cust leads the AL in both walks (75) and strikeouts (135). That’s more walks than hits (72), and the whiff total is 33 more than any other player with fewer than 375 at-bats. Cust is batting .222, but .381 when he puts the ball in play.

Elias Sports Bureau reports that, on Friday night, Mariano Rivera earned the ninth save of in his career in which he recorded at least five outs while protecting a one-run lead. Freshly minted Hall of Famer Goose Gossage did that 65 times.

Hanley Ramirez has driven in himself more times (24) than he has knocked home teammates (23).

On Saturday, Homer Bailey was the second Reds pitcher ever to allow as many as 15 hits in a start of less than five innings, but the fading uber-prospect can take solace that the other one is now in Cooperstown — Eppa Rixey.

John Lackey, who came within two outs of a no-hitter on Tuesday and within two outs of a two-hitter a couple of weeks ago, gave up 28 hits in 17 2/3 innings in his three starts between that pair of gems.

The Giants used four relievers behind Barry Zito on Sunday. It doesn’t matter how hardcore you are, you don’t know squat about Osiris Matos, Sergio Romo, Geno Espinelli and Alex Hinshaw, so don’t say you do.

QUOTABLES

“Every time someone comes up here who can run, everyone says, `Damn, he’s exciting.’ Well, this kid’s steady, has good at-bats, kind of looks like Bill Mueller. I’m not sure that’s not exciting." — Red Sox manager Terry Francona on rookie Jed Lowrie.