Bucco Blog: Pirate Tidbits; Monday's Game Matchup

Link: Bucco Blog: Pirate Tidbits; Monday's Game Matchup.

This will be a surprising stat to those who don't follow Bucco Blog: take a wild guess who leads all pitchers on the Pirates staff on getting ground balls hit off them?

Shawn Chacon, who also has an amazing 95% strand rate.

And how about Jonah Bayliss with a startling high 79% of balls in play hit off him converted to an out.

You have to like the Pirates bullpen so far until you look at Salomon Torres who has allowed one in every four fly balls hit off him to go yard.

Of course, the stat won't surprise those of us who loved watching Chacon strand man after man as a starting pitcher for the Yankees, even if he did load the bases first, just for fun!  It seemed like his special tease  for Torre, who turned positively green on the bench.  No surprise he didn't make the club the next year, I suppose, but I miss him.  I'll bet even Torre misses him now, with Mussina, Wang, and Pavano down.

As I remember, Chacon had quite a good record as a closer for Colorado a few years ago as well.