FanHouse John Russell

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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When the Pirates cleaned house before the trade deadline last month, they left their roster mostly with young players trying to get established (Andrew McCutchen, Lastings Milledge) and career fringe guys trying to prove they belong in the big leagues (Delwyn Young, Garrett Jones). The one exception to this is Ryan Doumit; currently the longest tenured Pirate with 384 games in black and gold since 2005.

Doumit, however, is apparently not pleased with this arrangement. During last night's 8-6 loss in Miwaukee, Doumit did something mid-game that caused manager John Russell to pull his starting catcher from the lineup in the fourth inning. No one's talking, but Russell made it clear that it wasn't injury-related and that he was very disappointed in Doumit. At this point, though, it seems likely that whatever happened is stemming from Doumit's displeasure with the trades made by the Pirates earlier this summer.

With the Pittsburgh Pirates in the midst of their 17th consecutive losing season, a lot of Pirates players have been walking the plank and being shipped to other teams around the majors. Still, even with all the roster upheaval in Pittsburgh it seems there will be at least one person left who will be returning to the Bucs next season.

While in Chicago on Sunday during a rain delay -- the game was eventually postponed -- team president Frank Coonelly talked about the future of current manager John Russell and said that he would be back manning the ship in 2010.

It hasn't been the greatest week for Cubs manager Lou Piniella. Not only is he feeling the heat of the Chicago media with the Cubs scuffling, but he's also gotten into an argument with Milton Bradley in which he called his right fielder a "piece of [expletive]." Regardless of whether the exchange should have ever left the clubhouse or not, it's not exactly the type of thing you want the world to know about.

All of this was done after a recent poll by Sports Illustrated in which Major League players were asked anonymously which manager in baseball they would least like to play for, and which one they'd most like to play for. Guess which one Sweet Lou emerged "victorious" in.

This year was supposed to be different for Andy LaRoche. After a nightmare 2008 in which he began the season as the Dodgers third baseman of the future and ended it with a .458 OPS in 49 games after being banished to Pittsburgh, he worked with Pirates hitting coach Don Long over the winter to try and reclaim his status as one of the most promising young third baseman in the game.

For a while, it seemed to be working. In spring training, he hit.333/.453/.471 with a pair of homers. Spring training stats are rarely predictive, but for a guy that seemed completely clueless at the plate last fall, it was the exact sort of camp that Pirate fans had hoped for. His swing looked good, his injured thumb seemed to be healed and it was looking like maybe this year would be different.

If you click the "Pirates" tag, you may be surprised to see one or more Dugouts on every page, despite the fact that we almost never do Dugouts about the Pirates. What this means is this: even people who infrequently mention the Pirates do so more than the rest of humanity. I'm going to google "Pirates blog" and get a bunch of black and yellow webpages with news about the Mets.

This afternoon's Dugout of March is after the jump. Arrrr, bottle of rum, Johnny Depp, etc.

With the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies getting together for a few games over the weekend, members of the media asked Pirates manager John Russell for his opinion on the game's oldest player, Jamie Moyer. After all, Russell was Moyer's catcher with the Texas Rangers back in 1990, so he knows a little something about him. While praising Jamie's work ethic and preparation, Russell went on to say that he wouldn't be surprised if Moyer, who's now 45, pitched until he was 50.

Obviously the media then ran over to Moyer's locker to ask him what he thought about the idea, and though it's a few years off, Jamie didn't say he wouldn't do it.

"John said that, huh? Well it's something that's five years away," Moyer said. "Right now, I'm going pretty well and I feel pretty good, trying to take things one step at a time. The point with me is being able to stay healthy and pitch effectively. I still deal with the minor aches and pains, and we're talking about five years from now. I'd have my family to talk to about it, and they're first. But you never know, I'm not ruling it out.

For a long time now, most managers in the National League have been content to bat their pitchers in the nine slot of the batting order, making only the rare exception for guys like Micah Owings and Dontrelle Willis. Starting a couple years back, Tony La Russa began batting his pitcher eighth from time to time. This year, the trend grew when Ned Yost has been hitting Jason Kendall in the nine slot most of the time. Tonight a third convert emerged when the Pirates' John Russell moved Jack Wilson to the nine slot and hit Paul Maholm eighth.

I haven't seen an official explanation from Russell as to why he made the shuffle, but it's already been shown that batting the pitcher eighth and putting a real hitter in the nine slot, allowing for more of a chance to put runners on base when the best hitters at the top of the lineup comes up. Since Wilson has an OBP of .346 but only five extra base hits this year (all doubles), I'm going to give Russell the benefit of the doubt and assume that was his reasoning.

As for the actual result, Wilson did go 1-for-3, but he didn't score (maybe because Freddy Sanchez and Jason Michaels batted 1/2 and defeated the purpose). As they are wont to do, the Pirates lost the game, though not through any fault of John Russell's lineup shuffle ... Ken Griffey Jr. hit a two-run walkoff homer in the ninth to erase a one run deficit. Will the experiment continue tomorrow? Why do only NL Central teams seem willing to try this? I don't have the answers.

It's been bizarro world at PNC Park this year. The Pirates were supposed to be a terrible offensive team that would be kept vaguely mediocre (read: about 73 wins) by their young rotation. Instead, Xavier Nady, Jason Bay, and Nate McLouth have formed the best hitting outfield in baseball (I'm not kidding), the Pirates are among the NL leaders in runs scored, and their pitching absolutely stinks. Yesterday, Ian Snell got rocked for eight hits and six runs in four innings, dropping his record to 2-5 and raising his ERA to 5.94. Luckily for Snell, manager John Russell knows what's wrong:

"I thought if you take away the five-run inning, he pitched OK," Russell said. "His fastball had a lot of zip on it, his slider was working. I mean, they got five runs in the inning and they never got the ball past the outfield. I thought it was a better game as far as his stuff, I just thought it was unfortunate they found some holes, but other than that I thought he threw the ball very well, he just has to avoid the big inning."

Got that Ian? Make sure you write that down. "Stop giving up five runs in an inning and you'll be just fine." Good thing he's a manager. Did you know the Pirates are actually 26-0 this year when outscoring opponents?!? If they can just do that every night, maybe they'll finish .500!!!

At some point, everyone has to say enough is enough. The Pirates' started the year with Matt Morris in their rotation, mostly in hopes that he could shake off last year's awful second half and replicate 2007's hot start, allowing the Pirates to ship some of him and his $10 million salary out of town. Of course, most people didn't expect that and wondered just how long the Pirates would stick with Morris. The answer? Five starts, 22 and 1/3 innings, six home runs, and 24 earned runs. After being shelled by the Phillies last night, the Pirates had had enough:

"It's been kind of a whirlwind morning,'' manager John Russell said. "Matt Morris has been a true professional. He's had a great career. He wanted to help us win, and it just wasn't happening."

It was obvious to everyone that Morris didn't have anything on the ball. His last two starts were more painful to watch than anything, because it was obvious that he was every bit as frustrated by his struggles as the fed-up Pirate fans. In the end, it was obvious to even the low-budget Pirates that eating the remainder of his salary was best for both Morris and the team. Well, I don't know that putting Phil Dumatrait into the rotation can qualify as "best for the team," but a change definitely had to be made.