Month: July 2023

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Golf Diary

Round: Played South Park Score 79 Greens In Reg. 7 Putts 32

The Good: I drove the ball pretty well. The weather was beautiful.

The Bad: The iron game was bad. The short game and putting were pretty horrid. I had one long putt from off the green that went in for a birdie on the 2nd hole but I failed to get it up and down the other 10 times. I made a long birdie putt on the 11th hole and another one of about 8 feet on 10 for 3 birdies on the day. Other than that, my putting was not good. But the short game was the culprit today for the high 70 score, 0 for 10, just like most of the Pirates. I was doing all sorts of things today trying to find something that would work and nothing could really get me going.

The Luck Of The Round: Made two long putts and I always feel that has to be a little luck. Never really had any bad luck today. It’s not that I often that I make 3 birdies, but I could not do the basic things that you need to do in order to score.

The Next Round: Tomorrow, Beaver Valley Golf Course.

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Pirates Morning Report: I Thought The Home Run Derby Was Over

Final Score: Pirates 5 Angels 8

Why The Pirates Lost: Each team hit 4 home runs, but thanks to walks and a strikeout on a wild pitch, the Angels’ home runs drove in 7 runs, compared to 5 for the Pirates. The Pirates did not get a hit with runners in scoring position. Oviedo pitched well for 3 innings but then his old nemesis, the walk and home run ball contributed to his undoing. Out of 75 pitches he only threw 23 fastballs. One of them did get hit out of the park for the 5th run, but other than that they did not get a hit off his fastball. I really do not know why he does not throw it more. He did seem to lack some velocity last night with only one pitch topping 96 MPH. The bullpen gave up the other 3 runs, all on home runs. Henry Davis hit a couple of home runs and raised his average to .295. Another bad pitching day for the Pirates as two big innings were enough to give the Angels the win while only getting 6 hits. Pirate staff did issue 6 walks which really came back to haunt them.

Key Moment Of The Game: The Pirates had hit 2 home runs in the top of the 4th inning to take a 2-0 lead. Oviedo had not given up a hit in the first 3 innings with one walk. Then boom, walk, double, walk and 3 run home run, and before you knew it the Angels were ahead 4-2. Two outs later, another home run and it was 5-2. In the bottom of the 5th, Jose Hernandez just coming off the IL, got lit up for 2 more home runs making the score 8-4 and the game was over.

Next Game: Tonight, Angels in Anaheim. The Pirate offense showed some pop last night hitting those 4 home runs, but it was to no avail. The pitching was bad last night, which it has been for about a month now. The Angels seem to be getting hot right now which does not bode well for the Pirates. Maybe .500 road trip was too much to expect. Time will tell.

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Pirates Morning Report: Trade Deadline and Other Things

The trade deadline, everywhere you go, you read about the trade deadline. I have never understood the high interest in this, and all the speculation of what is going to happen. In the long run most of it does not happen. I do not expect to see much activity from the Pirates. Names that are mentioned are Rich Hill, Carlos Santana, Ji Man Choi, Rodolfo Castro, Tucupita Marcano, and Ji Hwan Bae. One name you do not see mentioned is Ke’Bryan Hayes who I think is the best trade chip the Pirates have. Austin Hedges may be a possibility, also. I suppose the Pirates could make a few moves, but I do not see anything earth shattering happening. I would not be that surprised if the Pirates do not make one single trade. I love seeing trades and I will be following deadline day as much as anybody, but I do not pay attention to all the pre-trade talk.

At the beginning of the season, I felt the Pirates would be playing meaningful games in August. Unless the Pirates win almost all of their games the rest of this month, that is not going to happen. This is not going to be a major analysis of the season so far, but a short version of what went wrong. Injuries played a big role in the Pirates downfall. Managements lack of motivation to replace the injured players with some quality was another factor. The surprising regression of Roansy Contreras, Luis Ortiz, Rudolfo Castro, and Ji Hwan Bae from their 2022 performances. Granted Bae’s was a small sample size but he has not come close to what he did in 10 games in 2022. After getting off to a good start, the bullpen has struggled mightily. Derek Shelton’s in game decisions have left a lot to be desired. There are other factors but the bottom line is the Pirates are back in last place in July and just playing out the string. The one good thing is management has brought the young players up and it will be fun to see what they can do. You never know there could be a few positive surprises left in this season, but I do not think it will be at the trade deadline.

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Pirates Morning Report: Stop The Presses The Pirates Won

Final Score: Pirates 7 Guardians 5

Why The Pirates Won: The Pirates finally had some breaks go their way in the pivotal 7th inning. They did hit better scoring 7 runs on 9 hits while collecting 4 walks. They were 5 for 10 with runners in scoring position. Rich Hill pitched his typical mediocre game giving up 4 runs on 8 hits, walking 1, striking out 1, in 5 and 2/3 innings. I can’t imagine any team really wanting this guy or giving up any highly rated prospects in return. Time will tell if there is some team that is really desperate. This was an afternoon game and after I got home from the golf course, I watched the game which I taped. I listened to most of the broadcast, and I am glad that I roll through a game quickly when it is at night so I can get to the blog. For some reason the producer of the game must think that it is more interesting listening to three individuals discussing hitting than the game itself. It is sooooooooooooooooooooo boring listening to those three droning on and on about how to hit. Meanwhile there is a lot going on in the game that they just ignore. Let me give you a big tip AT&T, if you want to create interest in your broadcasts take a listen to the San Diego Padre broadcast team as they go through the nuances of what is going down on the field, pitch by pitch. I get to listen to them when I am out in San Diego, and it is pure joy. No fast forwarding when that duo is on the air.

Key Moment Of The Game: The bottom of the 7th the Pirates put 5 runs on the board to go from a 4-2 deficit to a 7-4 lead. There were three huge plays in the inning. The Endy Rodriguez bloop single with one out to put runners on 1st and 2nd. Connor Joe got an infield single to load the bases. That brought up the laboring Bryan Reynolds. It looked like he grounded into an inning ending double play. The Pirates challenged both outs at 2nd and 1st and the Reynolds’s out call was overturned. It was so close that I felt they could have let the call stand. Instead of the inning being over, the Pirates had a run in, with runners on first and third with two outs. Carlos Santans drew a 6 pitch walk, after being behind in the count 1-2. For the final big play of the inning, Ji Man Choi lined a 1-1 pitch into right field to give the Pirates the lead 5-4. One walk later, Jared(I’m The Real Reason Hayes Is Unhappy In Pittsburgh) Triolo lined a single to left to score 2 more insurance runs that the Pirates would eventually need. The Pirates won 7-5 with Bednar closing out the win and the losing streak was over.

Next Game: Friday night, Angels in Anaheim. The Pirates embark on another western trip playing 3 against the Angels and 3 against the Padres. I feel they have a decent chance of playing .500 ball on this road trip. Both the Angels and Padres are in disarray for various reasons. It was a nice comeback win yesterday and there is a chance that the Pirates may feed off of it to get on a little bit of a run. Another week of late night baseball, with a couple of afternoon games thrown in. The late night games would be so much more tolerable with a few wins.

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Pirates Morning Report: This Is What Happens When You Don’t Let Your Ace Pitch For 10 Days

Final Score: Pirates 1 Guardians 10

Why The Pirates Lost: Mitch Keller got knocked around right out of the box as Guardians scored 5 runs in the first inning, with 4 of them scoring before an out was recorded. In fact, it took only 7 pitches for the Guardians to score the 4 runs. Why the Pirates did not pitch Keller sooner after the All Star break, I would have no idea. What rationale could they possibly have? He only pitched 1 inning in the All Star game, which was last Tuesday. He should have pitched either Saturday or Sunday this past weekend. In 6 innings of “work” he gave up 8 runs on 10 hits, walking 2, and only striking out 1. Do you think he was rusty? Another blowout loss for the Pirates as they did manage to score 1 run, which does avoid them from being shut out in an entire series like the Reds. They only managed 5 hits as their hitting woes continue. They have won only 2 games in July. This is one hell of a massive team slump in every phase of the game. This team is going to have to dig deep to come out of this to even look respectable the rest of the season.

Key Moment Of The Game: Another blowout loss where there was no key moment of the game. You could say the key moment of this game was Saturday or Sunday when Keller did not start either one of those games. It makes you wonder if Keller didn’t or still has some kind of hush hush injury that would make them delay him starting a game. In fact, even two days ago the starting pitcher for last night’s game was to be determined. It does make you wonder, doesn’t it?

Next Game: This afternoon, Guardians in Pittsburgh. Rich Hill goes today to see if he can stop this slide. Yes, the pitching has been horrible in this series but again the Pirates’ bats have gone completely silent. They better get those I pads cranked up because it looks pretty hopeless at this point in the season.

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Golf Diary

Rounds played 3: Rittswood Score 80 Greens In Reg. 5 Putts 31

Quicksilver Score 78 Greens In Reg. 8 Putts 31

Highland Springs Score 76 Greens In Reg. 12 Putts 34

The Good: My driving was the best of the year. Not only in straightness but in distance. I did hit some bad drives here and there particularly at Quicksilver and in the early going at Rittswood but other than that, I hit some really good drives with some extra distance. My iron game improved with every round and was really good at Highland Springs where I hit 13 greens. I had some short irons into some large greens but overall my iron game was very good. My short game was neither good or bad as I got up and down 4 for 13 at Rittswood, 4 for 10 at Quicksilver and 3 for 6 at Highland Springs.

The Bad: Putting, Putting and more Putting. Even though the numbers do not look all that bad I could not make anything. The best putting day was at Quicksilver as I did make some nice par saves and two nice birdie putts. The worse was today as I had some very good birdie looks and could not make a thing. I had 5 putts under 15 feet for birdie, and none were made. If I had had a good putting day I would have shaved off 2 to 5 strokes in each round.

Luck Of The Rounds. I had two lip outs today on those birdie putts that could have gone in. Overall though, luck was not much of a factor in any of the three rounds.

Next Round: Saturday, at South Park.

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Pirates Morning Report: Welcome To The Big Legues

Final Score: Pirates 0 Guardians 11

Why The Pirates Lost: The Pirates brought up 3 players yesterday, Quinn Priester, Endy Rodriguez and Liover Peguero. It was a rude reception. Priester gave up 7 runs in 5 and 1/3 innings. Both Rodriguez and Peguero were hitless, striking out 5 times between them. It was a blowout loss as the Guardians scored at least 1 run in each of the last 6 innings, while the Pirates took my challenge of getting shut out for an entire series, like the Reds, seriously, and are a third of the way home. There were things the management team did in this game, while it would not have affected the outcome, is mind boggling, nonetheless. I do not understand leading off with Suwinski. He is 0 for post All Star break and this is his MO. He goes through some long hitless streaks. This is not the man you want at the top of the order. It was hard to believe that they left Priester in as long as they did, to take the beating he took. After pitching a solid opening 3 innings where he sent 9 batters down in a row, you could see for whatever reason he was starting to lose command. In the beginning he was throwing nothing but strikes and did have this ridiculous low pitch count after 3 innings. He would up throwing 73 pitches and only 47 wound up being strikes. Granted the big hits came fast and furious but you could see it coming if you were paying any attention, which apparently the Pirate dugout was not. Of course, when you don’t score any runs, it doesn’t really matter what you do managerial wise.

Key Moment Of The Game: There was none. Once the Guardians started teeing off on Priester this game was over. The Pirates did get a one out double in the bottom of the 5th inning with score 3-0 but failed to do anything. The Pirates have now lost 4 in a row.

Next Game: Tonight, Guardians in Pittsburgh. Despite the disastrous game, I like all the moves the Pirates made to bring up the young players. Mitch Keller pitches tonight and he has pitched only 1 inning since July 8th. Why, I don’t know. If he has a bad outing tonight, I am sure they will blame it on being rusty. The last time the Pirates were blown out they followed it up with a 6 game winning streak. Could it happen again. Listen, when you are a Pirate fan you grab for straws.

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Pirates Morning Report: Lost Weekend

Final Score: Pirates 4 Giants 8 10 innings

Why The Pirates Lost: Another frustrating day at the plate for the Pirates. They managed to score 4 runs, but it took 8 hits and 6 walks to do it. They left 11 runners on base and were 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position. Osvaldo Bido could only go 2.2 innings, so this turned into a bullpen game, and they did very well until the blow up in the 10th inning by Yerry De Los Santos. Where do the Pirates come up with these relief pitchers with the long names. The bullpen had pitched fantastic the previous 6.1 inning, giving up 0 runs on just 2 hits and 1 walk. There were a lot of good things that happened this weekend for the Pirates, but they could not do the things that you have to do to win ballgames, while the Giants did. The Giants had only one more hit and one less walk than the Pirates but produced 8 runs. They came up with the big hit when they needed it and swept the series.

Key Moment Of The Game: In the bottom of the 8th the Pirates loaded the bases on a single and two walks with nobody out and trailing in the game 3-2. Jared Triolo hit a sacrifice fly that not only scored a run but moved the runner over to third base. Tucupita (I Think I Will Try To Bunt Even Though It Did Not Work The Last Time In The Exact Same Situation) Marcano, after getting ahead in the count 2-0 fouled off not one but two bunt attempts and then struck out on a pitch outside the zone. What made this even more frustrating is the infield was playing in and a ground ball has a good chance of getting through. Gonzales gets hit by a pitch to reload the based. Then Jason Delay puts on a little league exhibition. Takes a strike, swings at two pitches outside the strike zone, luckily fouling off one. He does take a pitch that almost hits him. Then tops off this great at bat by swinging at a pitch in the dirt to end the inning. In the last 30 games Delay has a lower batting average than Hedges. A pinch hitter may have been in order here, do you think? The Pirates should have taken the lead, and not had two of the worst at bats possible.

Next Game: Tonight, Guardians in Pittsburgh. Quinn Priester makes his major league debut, which will add some interest to the game. There are reports that other players are being brought up. It will be interesting to see who goes down. This was a tough weekend for the Pirates but hopefully one in which they learned something. I must toot my own horn a little bit as I just mentioned how offense in baseball can be a sometime thing. This weekend the potent Red’s offense got shut out 3 straight times by the Milwaukee Brewers. At least this gives the Pirates something to shoot for. I’m talking about what the Reds did.

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Pirates Morning Report: Three Hits Are Enough When You Are Playing The Pirates

Final Score: Pirates 1 Giants 3

Why The Pirates Loss: This was another game where the good team wins, and the mediocre team loses contributing to their own loss in a big way. The Pirate bats were particularly bad this game. They did get 7 hits to along with 3 walks but were 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position and left 9 men on base. I think it is time to get Suwinski out of the leadoff spot. His last two at bats were particularly discouraging. With runners in scoring position, he took first pitch fastballs that were right in the middle of the plate both times. The first at bat the pitch might have been inner third, but it was the perfect pitch to drive. If you do not swing at it, that is not going to happen. It was a great performance by Johan Oviedo as he gave up only one hit, unfortunately it was a home run, struck out 10 and did walk 3. It was nice to see him get back on track and hopefully we will see this kind of performance the rest of the season.

The Key Moment Of The Game: In the top of the 8th the Pirates brought in Carmen Mlodzinski in to pitch. After getting one out, he walked the next batter on 4 pitches. Then on a 0-2 count he throws Joc Pederson a pitch out over the plate just above the knees and he drills it into right field for a single. Then the Pirates make the right move, and it still doesn’t pay off. They bring in David Bednar when the game is on the line. He strikes out the first batter he faces. He gets ahead of Michael Conforto 1-2. He out does Mlodzinski by throwing the next pitch out over the plate, except this time it is belt high. Here, have a hit. Conforto drives the ball into right for a single, then the Pirates throw the ball around(Do the Pirates have a catcher than can throw the ball to 2nd base) that allows the Giants to score a 3rd run, which was critical. In the bottom of the 9th the Pirates got a runner to 3rd base with one out. With a 2 run cushion the Giants did not have to play the infield up. The Pirates made 2 outs and the game was over sending the Pirates to 10 games below .500.

Next Game: Today at Noon, Giants in Pittsburgh. Friday night the Pirates were on Apple TV and today they are on Peacock in what they call the opener or something like that. All I can say is these streaming services must think that baseball fans want some comic relief or why would you keep televising the Pirates. The Pirates have been on Apple TV 3 out of the last 4 Fridays. I am not complaining. It is such a pleasant break from the Pirate announcers. These announcers on the streaming services are not that great but they talk about what’s going on during the game, rather than how a guy grips a ball or stands in the batter’s box or God knows what they talk about up in that Pirate booth. I swear, I do not think they even watch the game. By the way, the Pirates have called for a throwing practice at 9 AM.

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Pirates Morning Report: Defining Game

Final Score: Pirates 4 Giants 6

Why The Pirates Lost: As Forest Gump would say the Pirates lost for no particular reason. This was the type of game that good teams win, and mediocre teams lose. The Giants scored 5 or their 6 runs on hits. The Pirates scored 1 of their 4 runs on hits, and that was a home run. The Giants bullpen protected a lead, the Pirates bullpen did not. Rich Hill had the mediocre “quality” start giving up 3 runs on 7 hits, walking 2 and striking out 2, over 6 innings. Holderman and Borucki came in the game to ensure that the Giants would score three runs. There was too much made of the error in right field by Henry Davis. As the rest of the inning unfolded, the run would have scored anyway, on the two out single. It was the 2nd straight change up that Borucki threw, and it was right down the middle. Another great pitching sequence by the Pirates. It was essentially the lack of the big hit that sealed the Pirates fate, and some awful catching by our defensive, pitch framing, waste of cells Austin Hedges.

Key Moment Of The Game: The Pirates had the bases loaded and nobody out in the bottom of the 6th, trailing 3-2. A sacrifice fly, a walk, and another sacrifice fly had the Pirates up 4-3 with runners on 1st and 2nd with two out, and Nick Gonzales at the plate. On the first pitch he ripped a drive down the left field line that was not pulled enough, and Mike Yastrzemski made a nice running catch to end the threat. Holderman crapped the bed the next inning and the Pirates never really threatened again, starting the 2nd half with a typical loss.

Next Game: Tonight, Giants in Pittsburgh. Oviedo starts for the Pirates tonight, another young pitcher going in the wrong direction. In his last 3 games he has given up 14 runs. If I was Paul Skenes, I would be worried. There were many good things about the game last night for the Pirates, but winning was not one of them. Let’s see if they can check that off the list tonight.