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Well some revenge from the previous two defeats in Spring Training to the Yankees with a 12 - 7 win

Well so far it's been up and down for the Pirates, going down to both the Yankees and Braves in their first games although things looked good until the back up players started to come into the games. This was followed by a win against Baltimore and a tied game against the Phillies and a big win against Minnesota so things seemed to be getting better until a split squad day on Monday were they suffered two defeats in a day against the Yankees and Rays.

At this moment in time their playing against the Yankees again, but this time they are winning 8-7 in the top of the 9th.

Stat wise a couple of players for the future aren't doing too bad with Pedro Alvarez and Jose Tabata doing well although Jones and LaRoche aren't doing to well but hopefully it's just one of those Spring Training things and not a OOTP decline.

Pitching wise not much to tell really as the highest pitch innings wise is 3 innings by a few players, hopefully Maholm and Ohlendorfs era's go down the more they get into a groove.

Sorry for not updating this for a couple of days, been busy with work and while I was in a writing mood been doing some back stories and such for the Mastport Fishermen of the LBA. There will be an update today at some point, been a bit of an up and down week for the Pirates but I think it's what you expect from them

The upcoming week should be good though as according to MLB TV they have 3 of the Pirates games on, those being Baltimore, Boston and the Yankees.

I'll be updating in comments, what I'm thinking of doing though is doing a different blog for each month of the season then updating through comments, that way it seems easier to keep up with what I'm posting rather than come say August you'll be able to click on the month you want rather than scroll through 4 months of comments.

Will you be doing all the updates in the comments section? I'd really like to be able to subscribe to this. It's like a reverse version of Chuck Culpepper's Up Pompey!

As we speak the Pirates are playing the Yankees and it looks like Pittsburgh are doing the same as they did in yesterdays game and that is having each pitcher pitch just 1 inning, at the moment we are in the bottom of the 4th the score being 0-0 and only 1 hit so far that going to McCutchen the Pirates lead off hitter in the very first at bat.

I know that people are reading this, no idea if your liking it or not maybe you just like being punished

Anyway I'd like a bit of input on something, I'm thinking of doing comments like I have been doing through Spring Training then opening a fresh blog report for every month of the season, that way you wont be scrolling for ages near the end of the season.

Thanks for the visit and comment HGV, yeah one of the smaller reasons I'm happy with the Pirates is I don't look good in red and maybe have ended up with the Phillies.

Anyway Pittsburgh played their first game of Spring Training yesterday when they faced Manatee-Sarasota or as I think their called now the State College of Florida, Pittsburghs line up was as follows.

CF Gorkys Hernandez
LF John Raynor
RF Jose Tabata
3B Pedro Alvarez
1B Steve Pearce
DH Brandon Moss
C Eric Katz
SS Argenis Diaz
2B Doug Bernier

Pirates took the lead with a RBI double from Alvarez and stretched it to a 2-0 advantage when Brandon Moss doubled and Eric Kratz drove him in. Looks like Moss (1 rbi) and Kratz (2 rbi) were hot with the bat as they both hit homers along with Pearce (1 rbi) to make it 6-0 further on in the game, Jeff Sues lost the shut out for the Pirates when he gave up a home run late on and the game ended 6-1 to Pittsburgh.

Pedro Alvarez one of the young stars of the future went 3-4, Moss went 2-2, the Pirates used 7 pitchers during the game all pitching an inning each with only Sues giving a run up. Guess what I'm undefeated as a Pirates fan, maybe I've brought them the luck they need 162-0 anyone ? Bring on the Yankees today in the first official Spring Training game.

Pittsburgh 6 - 1 Manatee-Sarasota

There's just something about those Pirates uniforms and colors. Best of luck with this.

Been doing a bit of work article wise on my LBA team the Mastport Fishermen so kind of let this slip the last day or two, anyway an update. I just picked up my MLBtv subscription so I can watch all the Pirates games, usually I just get the bog standard version but went for the premium version this year so I can listen to the Pittsburgh broadcasters in every game.

Good news and bad news on the roster front the last few days, looks like Joel Hanrahan might be fit for Opening Day just one week after they predicted he would miss it, glad their not doing my medicals. The bad news although isn't major news is Octavio Dotel is on the bench with soreness in his left side although it's not expected to keep him out long.

Other news is that they are going to try and cut the workload of Zach Duke this season so as to get a better quality from him, Akinori Iwamura the Pirates 2B guy was told by the Rays to seek help from the Japanese version of Bill Mazeroski that being Yutaka Ohashi and by all accounts it helped him, this year he's being helped by the real Bill Mazeroski, so hopefully a bit of the 8 time Gold Glove winner will rub of on Iwamura.

A player at the crossroads, Lastings Milledge could be at the last chance saloon even at his young age. He may have found his home however, Pittsburgh isn't the fish bowl that New York is plus he lived not far from the Pirates spring training complex and watched them while growing up, maybe just maybe he's found his real home.

#28 SP Paul Maholm

Born 6/25/1982 Greenwood, MS.

Bats/Throws L/L HT 6'2" WT 220

Debut 8/30/2005 College Mississippi State

This is Maholm's 6th year in the big leagues all of those being with the Pirates, The Mississippi State product was drafted in the 1st round with the 8th overall pick in the 2003 draft. He has a career record of 4.33 38-44 with 2008 being his best full season with a record of 3.71 9-9.

Maholm although never using it as an excuse saw his era go up to 4.44 in 2009 due partly to an injury he carried during the season, hopefully for Pittsburgh and Maholm he'll have shrugged the injruy off and can return to the 2008 era of 3.71 or better.