MLB pittsburgh Pirates

In a surprising piece of mid-World Series news, the Tampa Bay Rays and Pittsburgh Pirates have agreed to a trade this afternoon. Tampa will send second baseman Akinori Iwamura to the Pirates in return for relief pitcher Jesse Chavez. According to the same report by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (who broke news of the Pirates' involvement in the trade after the St. Petersburg Times first reported an Iwamura trade this afternoon), no cash or other players are involved.

Iwamura, 30, is due $4.25 million in 2010 and the emergence of Ben Zobrist makes that a price the Rays clearly weren't eager to pay for a player who'd likely be a utility man for them in '10. The Pirates, however, are looking to add payroll after cleaning house last year and have a gaping hole at second base, so Iwamura is a logical addition for them.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
One team has 100 defeats, two more could follow -- and there could even be a record-tying four 100-loss teams.

The Nationals on Thursday fell to 52-100 with their 7-6 loss to the Dodgers. And the Pirates are 56-95 after a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the Reds.

Anyone want to bet Pittsburgh -- 3-23 since Aug. 28 -- goes better than 6-5 in its final three series against Los Angeles, Chicago and Cincinnati?

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There is a perfect storm of sorts going on in Pittsburgh this week. The Pirates have lost 22 of their past 25 games (and are in the process of losing number 23 as I type this), which is the worst streak for the franchise since well before the turn of the 20th (not 21st) century. Meanwhile, the city is hosting the G-20 Summit, which has resulted in a huge spate of business and school closings in the downtown area as the city ratchets up security for the visiting heads of state.

The result is a crowd at Thursday afternoon's Pirates-Reds game that is so small, the entire upper deck at PNC Park is closed. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Dejan Kovacevic has some pictures of the empty park on his blog; he estimates that the actual attendance as the first pitch was thrown may have been below 200 people (UPDATE: apparently, attendance climbed during the game a bit to around 2,000, per both Kovacevic and MLB.com beat writer Jen Langosch)

The Pittsburgh Pirates are playing some terrible baseball right now. They've won just three games in September, just 12 games since Aug. 1, and are 20-50 since July 1. After emptying their roster in late July, their lineup has been composed mostly of players that only have an opportunity to play regularly in the majors because the Pirates exist.

These players, with the possible exceptions of Garrett Jones and Lastings Milledge, obviously haven't made much of the opportunity afforded to them by the Pirates' firesale. Monday, word got out that they don't seem to be too worked up about it either. When GM Neal Huntington went around the clubhouse looking for winter ball commitments, he got an apathetic response from most players. In fact, John Perrotto is reporting that not one American player on the Pirates has agreed to go to Latin America for the winter.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That in a little over 24 hours the Rangers went from in the hunt for the AL wild card to hanging on by a thread. Texas split a doubleheader with the Mariners Sunday and dropped two of three to Seattle over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox -- the team the Rangers are chasing -- swept the reeling Rays, who have now lost 11 straight, including taking both games of a day-night doubleheader at Fenway Park.

Boston doubled its lead in the race -- from two games to four -- with 20 games remaining for each team.

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Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That it took a lot of work for the Rangers to climb within two games of the Red Sox in the American League wild-card race.

Texas swept a doubleheader at Cleveland, 11-9 and 10-5, and the games took a combined five hours, 59 minutes.

"It's pretty good to get back on track and win some ballgames," manager Ron Washington said. "We'll come back tomorrow, get greedy and see if we can get a [series] sweep."

Texas has played three regular (i.e., not day-night) doubleheaders this year, most in the majors, and has swept all three.

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With a 4-2 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Monday afternoon, the Pittsburgh Pirates clinched their 17th consecutive losing season, a new record for any North American sports franchise. The Pirates haven't had a winning season since 1992, the year that Barry Bonds, Doug Drabek, Andy Van Slyke, and Jim Leyland took the Pirates to 96 wins and a National League East championship.

Since '92, the Pirates have managed no more than 79 wins, reaching that mark just once in 1997. They've currently lost nine of their last 10 and have only 18 wins since July 1. In fact, this record has been a foregone conclusion for most of the season, long before the Pirates traded Nate McLouth, Jack Wilson, Freddy Sanchez, Adam LaRoche, Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny, and John Grabow in a full-on rebuilding effort.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That the National League wild-card leaders are all playing well this weekend, leaving the Braves in the dust. For the second consecutive day, the Rockies, Giants and Marlins all won. The Braves have lost four in a row, falling six games out in the wild-card race.

The Rockies have won four of five games since getting swept by the Giants last weekend. They got a boost on Saturday night when Jose Contreras gave up one run in 6 2/3 innings in his Rockies debut. The Marlins have also been hot, winning four games in a row. They have scored eight runs in each game, a first in the franchise's history.

The Giants, meanwhile, still aren't scoring much, but their pitching is carrying them. Five games into this tough six-game trip through hitters parks in Philadelphia and Milwaukee, the Giants have scored 13 runs. They've won three, including a 3-2 victory on Saturday that snapped Matt Cain's eight-start winless streak.

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Futilitywatch '09 is a our semi-regular update on the Pittsburgh Pirates and their march toward their record 17th consecutive losing season.

Remember last week's Futilitywatch? The one that was so filled with vague optimism because the Pirates went 7-2 on a homestand and took a series from the Phillies? The Pirates have quite literally not won a baseball game since then, dropping seven straight on the road to the Brewers and Reds. That leaves them just three losses away from clinching their 17th consecutive losing season, which as you likely know by now would be a record for a North American sports franchise.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
Jon Garland couldn't beat them. So he joined them. And then he beat the old them.

Traded from the fourth-place Diamondbacks to the first-place Dodgers earlier in the week, Garland on Friday faced Arizona in his first start for Los Angeles.

"It was fun. I grew up coming to games here, and getting a chance to pitch for this team is definitely a dream come true," Garland said. "It's kind of awkward the way it happened -- but nevertheless, it did -- and I was able to throw a good one up. I didn't leave too many tickets. I cut the phone off and told people if they want to come, they can pay for it and support the team."

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