BTSC Talks With Pirates Pitcher Ross Ohlendorf
by Michael Bean on Jul 15, 2009 3:01 PM EDT
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Changing gears just a bit here on Behind The Steel Curtain as we patiently await the start of training camp later this month. Today we have an interview with a good friend of mine - Ross Ohlendorf, a starting pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Ross was kind enough to answer a few questions for me during the All Star break festivities of Major League Baseball.
The Pirates currently stand at 38-50 in the NL Central, 9.5 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals. They are however just 8 games back in the loss column of the Cards and 6 games out of third place. With the division seemingly a three or four team race at least, the Pirates could very well find themselves back in the thick of things if they could get on a couple week run. I spoke with my old friend, Ross Ohlendorf, about his first season with the Pirates during the All-Star Break. Ohlendorf is currently 7-7 with a 4.64 ERA. He has a solid 2:1 K/BB ratio The interview can be found after the jump.
1) First of all, congratulations on your 7 inning, 2-hit shutout gem a few weeks ago that was highlighted by 8 strikeouts and 0 walks. That gives you 7 wins for the year, tied for 23rd most in all of baseball and good for second most on the Pirates (Zach Duke 8). Being that this is your first year as a regular starter since 2006, do you feel pleased with your individual progress making the transition to pitching every five days rather than out of the bullpen?
2) How does a young pitcher negotiate 'pacing' himself over the course of a long season, particularly after spending the previous two years pitching in relief where 'saving' one's arm is less important? You've of course been clocked in the mid to high 90s, but seem to be trying to 'pitch' rather than merely throw hard now that you're starting. On a somewhat similar note, are there days out there where you just feel significantly fresher or looser out there on the mound and what kinds of things do pitchers think about when they know they don't have their best stuff or aren't feeling their best physically?
3) Switching gears here - how are you liking Pittsburgh so far? How does it compare to living in the New York area where you were pitching last season?
4) Favorite place to have a sitdown, nice dinner in Pittsburgh? Favorite place to grab a quick bite?
Ohlendorf: I really like a restaurant called Eleven, though it is expensive. I eat at Atria's quite a bit - it is attached to the field and they have really good salmon.
5) Favorite book you've read since the start of the season?
6) I've played a few games of cards with you over the years and I know you're never shy about splashing some chips in the middle of the table. Do you and your teammates play on the road? Any player you particularly enjoy playing against?
7) Anyone who knows you knows how modest you are for all your tremendous accomplishments athletically, scholastically and even with you and your father's business venture/hobby raising Longhorn cattle back in your native Central Texas. What was it like having a feature article written about you by ESPN's senior writer Tim Kurkjian. He seems like a really nice man in addition to a great columnist and baseball historian.
8) Did you catch Penguins fever at all during the team's run to the Stanley Cup? I know us Texas folks weren't raised on hockey whatsoever, but from the sound of it, the city was just electric during the NHL playoffs.
9) The team finished the month of June 15-14, the first winning June since 1996 (if I recall correctly). Despite a couple of tough stretches in May and having the lineup altered with multiple personnel changes, you guys are just 6 games out of first place and perhaps just one or two solid weeks of play from being right back in the thick of things in the NL Central during a year where it seems like all the teams are going to beat up on each other and prohibit any one club from running away with things. Do you guys still feel optimisitic about your chances to make a run later this summer?
10) Favorite Pirates pitcher to watch on your days off?
11) Toughest batter for you thus far in your Big League career?
12) Favorite city to travel to? Favorite ball park to pitch in outside of PNC Park?
13) Can you promise us here at Behind The Steel Curtain that once you've befriended Ben Roethlisberger or any other Steelers players that you'll tell them what's up on our behalf and to come by for a chat with us? :) Just kidding, Ross! Congratulations on a solid start to the season for you individually and best of luck to you and the Pirates for the remainder of the year. We'd love to do it again sometime in the future.
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Thanks Blitz
Hey….do you remember if I said he would be a 15 or 14 game winner this year? :)
"The team that scores the most points wins."
John Madden
(Master of the obvious)
i do remember :)
was thinking about that earlier today in fact. i think u said 16 though which i thought was maybe a bit high. we’ll see. if he could get some run support!
Freel free to email me anytime at behindthesteelcurtain@gmail.com with questions, suggestions, complaints, etc, or to just say what's up. -Michael Bean (Blitz)
by Michael Bean on Jul 15, 2009 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions
If he duplicates the first half
and gets a couple tight ones to go in his favor…..
"The team that scores the most points wins."
John Madden
(Master of the obvious)
Never mind
Ouch…I said 16, but I did say he would need some support which he hasn’t gotten on many outings.
"The team that scores the most points wins."
John Madden
(Master of the obvious)
If I never see another Pirates article on here it will be too soon.
They are dead to me as an organization.
Ouch
Can’t blame a guy for interviewing an old buddy, though, can you? Especially, if he gives Blitz a possible connection to Big Ben! :)
by WolfpackSteelersFan on Jul 15, 2009 3:45 PM EDT up reply actions
No I don't blame Blitz at all.
Just don’t like the Pirates much these days.
Blitz is awesome and this site is awesome.
True it's hard to like them much
Hopefully, it’ll turn around soon. Although, I can’t really watch baseball, anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever watched an entire game all the way through.
by WolfpackSteelersFan on Jul 18, 2009 4:25 PM EDT up reply actions
tell us how you really feel
I'll drink your Milkshake, I'll drink it up!
by Frank Mineo (DYMS) on Jul 15, 2009 3:45 PM EDT up reply actions
perhaps
but Ross is a great guy. Easy to cheer for. Keep an eye on him at least!
Freel free to email me anytime at behindthesteelcurtain@gmail.com with questions, suggestions, complaints, etc, or to just say what's up. -Michael Bean (Blitz)
by Michael Bean on Jul 15, 2009 4:10 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm sure he is a great guy.
And for that I hope he gets some experience with the Bucs and moves on to a team that cares about winning.
I’m not hating on the guy, just the team that continually falls flat every year.
Can you promise us here at Behind The Steel Curtain that once you’ve befriended Ben Roethlisberger or any other Steelers players that you’ll tell them what’s up on our behalf and to come by for a chat with us? :)
I’m not kidding…he better get chummy with some steelers and get them pointed in our direction.
I'll drink your Milkshake, I'll drink it up!
by Frank Mineo (DYMS) on Jul 15, 2009 3:46 PM EDT reply actions
What I’m curious about, and maybe some know the answer here, is what is the feeling in the locker room? I’m not a big fan of baseball, for many reasons. One of the reasons is also prevalent in hockey, and that’s the ability of players to hop teams. Kunitz and Guerin were fantastic pickups and by all accounts seem happy to be here, but the ability to “turncoat” in baseball and hockey doesn’t appeal to me that much (though I’m a big hockey fan).
How many players for the pirates are looking to get out of pittsburgh ASAP? Do any see it as a challenge to help the franchise post a winning record? How much loyalty, if any, is there to the pirates organization (I’d certainly understand not much at all)?
The penguins for a few years didn’t have much to go on. Now they have keystone guys that will be penguins for a very long time. The pirates have no face of the franchise, everyone seems willing to take the next deal that comes their way, and if they aren’t, the franchise seems very happy to trade them for a guy that threw a ball once. Without having a consistent face, in management or players, its hard for me to get behind them. Not because I need a star player to rally behind, but because without the development and retaining of said players there seems to be no loyalty by either the management or the players to the organization.
And I can’t root for a team with no loyalty.
The only managing Ben does is that he manages to win games. - chewiesteeler
The loyalty thing is a bit overblown. The Steelers have very little loyalty to players unless they help them win, but I don’t see any of us complaining about that. One difference between baseball and football, though, is that baseball players are a lot more interchangeable. If we traded Santonio Holmes for Lee Evans, Evans would have to learn a new playbook, work on timing with his QB, learn how to communicate and work with his teammates. Even if that trade was available to us and we thought it increased our team’s overall talent, we wouldn’t make it, not out of loyalty to Holmes, but because it doesn’t help us get better as a team.
On the other hand, baseball is primarily made up of individual battles. Jason Bay is doing the same things for the Red Sox that he was doing for the Pirates: catch the ball, hit the cutoff man, take balls, hit strikes. If the Pirates think they can get more talent by trading him, they should do it. Did they make a good trade in that case? Well, it’s not looking great at the moment, but in exchange for 1.5 years of Bay playing LF at a moderate cost (after which he would be a free agent and get a very large deal), the Pirates got 3 players that they can control very cheaply for 4-6 years in the majors.
It’s nice to have a “face of the franchise” that you can root for (like Nate McLouth), but it doesn’t help you win games beyond what they do on the field. If someone makes you a good offer for your “face of the
franchise” and you’re committed to winning, you think long and hard about that deal.
Since the Nuttings took over majority control of the Pirates and Huntington and Connelly became GM and president of the team, they’ve shown that they are committed to winning by making the tough-to-stomach deals that they must make if they want the team to do more than take a shot at a .500 season before completely collapsing. Unfortunately, the previous management was terrible (in part because they tried to “build the franchise” around mediocre players) and left them very little in both the major and minor leagues, so it’s going to take several years to turn things around. In less than 2 years, they’ve dramatically increased the amount of talent in the minors, while not completely collapsing at the major league level. Not every prospect works out, but a lot of them do and for a small market team like the Pirates to succeed, they have to farm their own talent, which they are on their way to doing.
They’re not going to break .500 this year, and probably won’t next year, either. If they stick to the plan, though, things should get interesting in 2011, and in 2012, the possibility exists that they could be a good team.
charity standing orders
The loyalty thing is a bit overblown. The Steelers have very little loyalty to players unless they help them win, but I don’t see any of us complaining about that.
And while I would be hard pressed to name a pirate player that made the team win, there are certainly plenty of players who helped them win that they traded away. I can’t say I see the correlation you are trying to make here.
Unless of course the trades panned out, and then the trade was worth it.
My 13 yr. old brother is a huge baseball fan. Unfortunately due to my location he has become a pirate fan, and was upset when Jason Bay left. I explained to him that it had to be done. I’m a big fan of trading players like him, and hell, everyone, if it is going to help the pirates the win. Unfortunately the talent at scouting, right now, looks very poor even though we are scouring the continents. Until the pirates can show some capacity to actually know what they are getting with a trade, it seems like a big gambit. The pirates can’t Favre their way into a world series, but there isn’t anything wrong with winning a game or two along the way.
In the meantime, I’ll probably see the next 6 games at PNC park since my brother is in town. The good part about having a consistently lousy team is that even if your taxes helped pay for the park, at least you get cheap tickets to see them. I’ll cheer for the pirates, but it’s going to be pretty half-hearted. I respect what the current organization may be doing but I don’t know if it is going to end up any differently in a few years, regardless of how many manic depressives they have in the minors. I can wholeheartedly cheer for a team if I love the sport or love the organization. Since I don’t love baseball and there is nothing to love about the pirates now or for a few decades, it is pretty hard to get behind them.
Bandwagoning? You could probably make a case for that. I guess I just can’t bring myself to root for an organization I don’t respect, which is why I could never get behind the yankees or sox in my tenure in new england. Impressive fans are able to look past their players and organizations and root for their team. I’m unable to. If the Rooneys all die and some douchebag takes over the helm and starts running the steelers like the cowboys…I’m out of here.
The only managing Ben does is that he manages to win games. - chewiesteeler
Trades have a lot of uncertainty associated with them. The Bay trade, like you said, had to be done. Bay wasn’t going to put us into contention in the 1.5 years we had him under contract, so we might as well trade him for some pieces that could help in 2012 (or whenever). In return, we got Andy LaRoche, who is better than the 3B we had last year and many think could still develop into an above average 3rd baseman, Brandon Moss, a good defensive outfielder with decent power who is still transitioning into the majors, and a boom-or-bust pitching prospect (Brian Morris) who got injured in training camp. Moss and LaRoche have both underperformed expectations a bit, and the injury to Morris makes this a disappointing deal.
Compare that to the Xavier Nady deal, though. We traded Nady, who was sort of a journeyman OF having a good year, and a relief pitcher to the Yankees for Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens, another AAA pitcher (the other McCutchen), and very good OF prospect Jose Tabata. Ohlie and Karstens have both played significant roles on our pitching staff this year, and Ohlendorf in particular may continue to improve and start for us long term. Tabata dominated in the minors last season after the trade. He missed some time due to injury this year, but is playing fairly well at a young age for AA. On the other hand, Nady’s performance dropped back to career averages before having season-ending surgery after we traded him and Marte, the relief pitcher mentioned, sucked with the Yankees before getting injured himself. We basically got a starting pitcher and a good OF prospect for nothing.
The deals they made this year are too recent to tell at this point, but Nyjer Morgan was basically a scrap and we turned him into a very talented outfielder who may or may not have his head on straight. If it works out, it’s a huge steal; if not, we didn’t really lose much. The Nate trade, well that’s the hardest of the bunch to stomach, but they got back 3 players that could each turn out better than McLouth. If even one does, it’s a pretty good deal.
Anyway, I’m not trying to be some sort of Huntington appologist, but even good teams who evaluate players well make bad trades sometimes. With what they had to work with, I think the sum of these trades is as least an average return, and average is a big step up for these Pirates.
charity standing orders
Good to hear another perspective and someone having some faith in our woebegone team. I’ll enjoy watching a few games in the meantime. It’s nice that the pirates play in a division that being in the basement means they are only 6 spots away from 1st. Not much to hope for, but at least it’s something. In many ways I wish I was a diehard pirates fan so I could at least sympathize with the Browns and Bengals. I haven’t been following the pirates long enough to see them post a winning season, they’ve been losing for more than half of my life. It’s hard to get ones hopes up with that kind of inconsistency…at least the browns and bengals have occasional glimpses of decency to cling to.
As I see it the pirates are on the right path now, but who knows how long that will last. I just hope they aren’t banking on an indian pitching team to draw in the crowds, because gimmicks never work to bring in the crowds at PNC park. Oh wait.
Speaking of, tickets start at $4.50 when the nationals come to town.
The only managing Ben does is that he manages to win games. - chewiesteeler
because gimmicks never work to bring in the crowds at PNC park. Oh wait.
Lol. Yeah I grew up watching Barry Bonds choke in the NLCS, and I’ve followed them inconsistently since then. Usually it was a pretty depressing lot, but I got a lot more interested in them recently when they hired a new management that actually had a credible plan. All the offense last year didn’t hurt, either.
I see rooting for them as a kind of pennance for being a fan of a front-runner like the Steelers, who have pretty much been good and easy to root for since I was a kid.
charity standing orders
It was fun to watch the all-star game this year because I thought it was a pretty good game. That robbery on the home run was tough.
I liked watching an “important” (and I do like that there is an effect of the game unlike pro-bowl) and have a competent team to watch. My brother likes to cheer for Victorino to since I used to play against him growing up. I was bummed that neither of the pirates got to play, but it was a stretch to have them in there (esp. duke) in the first place, so I understand. It’s difficult to watch the pirates because none of the games are very important. Sure they can pull one off against the Yankees, but even the best teams in baseball lose 1/3 of the time, so it isn’t very satisfying. At least if you are a browns fan that win against the steelers would make your season. I’ll be rooting for a sweep against the brewers, but the chances are just so slim.
The overall unimportance of individual games is a bummer, and since the pirates aren’t anywhere near contention the body of their work is equally unimpressive. I certainly understand the sentiment of rooting for them as penance though, and I wouldn’t be following them at all if they didn’t have what I deemed a potentially competent management team and strategy in place.
The only managing Ben does is that he manages to win games. - chewiesteeler
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