Pirates Fire Two on Coaching Staff

The Pirates relieved a couple members of their coaching staff of their duties this morning. Relax, unfortunately it wasn’t manager John Russell. Instead, pitching coach Joe Kerrigan and bench coach Gary Varsho were informed their services would no longer be needed by the franchise.

While Russell and hitting coach Don Long also need to go, this is a start for the Pirates to hopefully get a quality coaching staff around their young talent for next season.

Kerrigan came to the Pirates two seasons ago and talked a great deal about what his pitchers would do, but we never saw it executed on the field. We’ve heard a ton about pitching inside and throwing first pitch strikes. Pirates pitchers have no clue what the inside of the plate looks like and more often than not begin the count behind 2-0 on every hitter.


The Pirates staff as a whole has an eye popping 5.07 era on the season, which just can’t happen. Not one starting pitcher has seen improvement on Kerrigan’s watch. In fact, most have regressed so bad, that you have to wonder if they ever will recover. That’s a long list of names that include: Charlie Morton, Zach Duke, Ross Ohlendorf, Brad Lincoln and Paul Maholm.

Kerrigan will be replaced on an interim basis by Roy Searage, who served as the assistant pitching coach under Kerrigan.

Varsho will be replaced as bench coach by Minor League Field Coordinator Jeff Bannister, also on an interim basis. Varsho’s duties included setting a Pirates defense that plays in the exact same spot, every pitch to every batter. Maybe Bannister will take a look at a scouting report or two and adjust accordingly.

As the Pirates begin plans for 2011, two down and two to go when it comes to the Pirates coaching staff.

Around the Diamond- Part 6 - Left Field

Having to do both Pirates and Wild things games, I've fallen a bit behind on the Around the Diamond series, but will wrap it up this weekend.

So far I would like to see
C- Anyone other than Doumit
1B- Garrett Jones
2B- Neil Walker
3B- Pedro Alvarez
SS- Ronny Cedeno

The promotion of Walker helped some things fall into place and now the promotion of Jose Tabata has helped even more.  My original post on this topic was to promote Tabata and move Lastings Milledge to right.  Now that I don't have to write about that, let's look at what Tabata brings to the table.

Offensively, the top of the order should perform.  One through three, Tabata, Walker and Andrew McCutchen should be on base a ton.  Now they just need to find someone to drive them in.  That could happen when Alvarez comes up.  The lineup just gets deeper and tougher to pitch to if Jones is batting 5th, Milledge 6th and Doumit 6th.  Until then, there are still holes in spots where guys need to drive in runs.



I'd like to see the rest of the way, how John Russell plays things.  I would love to see him utilize the speed of Tabata, Walker and Cutch and be very aggressive on the bases.  It will turn into more runs in the long haul.  I'm not overly concerned about running out of an inning here and there.  Knowing JR though, they will likely be even more passive then they have been in the past.

Tabata's presence should make the Pirates a better defensive team as well.  We may actually see a Pirates left fielder get to a ball hit down the line.  I'm sure bench coach Gary Varsho won't adjust to Tabata's speed so I'm sure he won't play too much of a traditional left field, so don't hold your breath.

Either way, as the youngsters start to emerge, the team is slowly getting better.