Ian Snell Is Struggling, John Russell Knows the Reason

It's been bizarro world at PNC Park this year. The Pirates were supposed to be a terrible offensive team that would be kept vaguely mediocre (read: about 73 wins) by their young rotation. Instead, Xavier Nady, Jason Bay, and Nate McLouth have formed the best hitting outfield in baseball (I'm not kidding), the Pirates are among the NL leaders in runs scored, and their pitching absolutely stinks. Yesterday, Ian Snell got rocked for eight hits and six runs in four innings, dropping his record to 2-5 and raising his ERA to 5.94. Luckily for Snell, manager John Russell knows what's wrong:

"I thought if you take away the five-run inning, he pitched OK," Russell said. "His fastball had a lot of zip on it, his slider was working. I mean, they got five runs in the inning and they never got the ball past the outfield. I thought it was a better game as far as his stuff, I just thought it was unfortunate they found some holes, but other than that I thought he threw the ball very well, he just has to avoid the big inning."

Got that Ian? Make sure you write that down. "Stop giving up five runs in an inning and you'll be just fine." Good thing he's a manager. Did you know the Pirates are actually 26-0 this year when outscoring opponents?!? If they can just do that every night, maybe they'll finish .500!!!