I liked Salomon Torres last year. I’m not liking him so much this year – especially tonight. I could have gone to bed at 10:30pm if he hadn’t blown his 3rd save of the season (out of 9 opportunities) tonight. Instead, when he came into the game in the 9th with a 3-1 lead, he promptly gave up 2 runs to even the game. This led to a 16-inning marathon, which didn’t come to an end until after 11:30pm. Fortunately, Shawn Chacon and John Wasdin turned in outstanding work out of the bullpen. Chacon pitched 4 scoreless innings and Wasdin pitched 2 scoreless innings to keep the Pirates in the game until the Pirates’ offense could do something. After too many 3 up/3 down innings, the Pirates finally got some hits in the bottom of the 16th inning. The rally was capped by Adam LaRoche’s single, driving in Jack Wilson to end the game. The hit lifted LaRoche’s batting average to a lofty .106.
It’s not a good thing that Torres has blown 1/3 of his save opportunities. It’s also not a good thing that LaRoche is only hitting in the .100 range. At the risk of repeating myself, the Adam LaRoche for Mike Gonzalez trade is not looking very good right now. If LaRoche doesn’t turn things around, they’re going to put Brad Eldred at 1st and send LaRoche to AAA. I don’t know what they’re going to do about Torres. Maybe they’ll make him a setup guy and give the closer role to Matt Capps. Hopefully, he’ll get his problems sorted out. However, if he keeps blowing saves, Jim Tracy will have no choice but to shake things up.