FanHouse Robinzon Diaz

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

In the three weeks since the initial Futilitywatch ran, the Pirates have been on a bit of a rollercoaster. They went on an impressive run, swept the red-hot (at the time) Marlins, and at one point stood at 11-7 in the waning days of April. Since then, they've lost nine of 10, dropping to 12-16 and reminding just about everyone why this 17th losing season was more of a foregone conclusion than anything since well before this season started.

Bad news coming out of Pittsburgh today for the Pirates. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the CT scan on Ryan Doumit's right wrist (which he injured swinging the bat on Sunday) showed a "minimally displaced fracture of the scaphoid bone." I don't know what that really means, other than that he needs wrist surgery to insert pins and he'll be out 8-to-10 weeks while he heals.

This is just about the worst news possible for the Pirates, who are off to a surprising 7-6 start behind an excellent starting rotation that leads the majors in ERA. After trading Jason Bay and Xavier Nady last year, offense was already a big question for the Bucs. Now they're losing one of the three guys they were really counting on for offense this year. Things could get ugly over the next two months.