Spencer Horowitz was, in my initial assessment, too old to be a prospect, too low power to be manning a corner position, and two platoon splits, if you will, for someone who's supposed to be playing every day.

Good morning to you. Good Tuesday morning. I'm Dan Kovachavich of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports.

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Cardinal 7 Pirates 6 last night in St. Louis on a walk-off blast by Eric Barlison,

who happens to be St. Louis's first baseman and who also happens to be on quite a roll of late

for those guys. From the Pittsburgh perspective, Johann Oviedo made another start, one run,

three hits and a walk over four innings. He struck out five. Pitched fine, was lifted after

53 pitches coming off Tommy John. I'll have to presume that there's a

plan behind that. Andrew Heaney came in and, man, he never stops getting bombed anymore, does he?

Five runs. Five hits. Four of those hits in a row over two-thirds of an inning.

Offensively, Horowitz homered.

So did Brian Reynolds.

Ronnie Simon came up with a really critical at the time.

Tying RBI double, the top of the ninth.

Horwitz's season stats at this stage look a little closer to what they were expected to be when he was

acquired. And while I know there aren't exactly, you know, parades to be thrown for that sort of thing,

you do get a little tired of seeing player after player after player come to Pittsburgh and then just get

worse. So at the very least, he hasn't gotten worse. He's whatever he was before this.

It's a 727 OPS. That's lower than his 759 career mark. At 329 on base percentage, that's lower than his 344 career mark.

258 batting average, that's lower than his 262.

Okay, so maybe he has gotten a little bit worse.

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