Month: August 2023

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Pirates Morning Report: At Least We Only Used Two Pitchers

Final Score: Pirates 2 Mets 7

Why The Pirates Loss: Another poor performance by Quinn Priester giving up at least one run in every inning he pitched. Osvaldo Bido came in the top of the 6th inning and gave up a home run enabling the Mets to score in each of the first 6 innings. It is not a formula for victory. The Pirate offense had a lot of traffic in the first 6 innings thanks to 6 walks, but could not get the big hit, leaving 10 men on base for the game. They only had 5 hits for the game and none after the 6th inning. They picked up their 7th walk in the 8th inning but did nothing with it. The only good news for the Pirates is that they only used 2 pitchers so the bullpen should be well rested for these final two games of the series and there is an off day on Thursday. Priester has been a slow starter at every level, but this is a little ridiculous. After 6 starts he has an ERA of over 9. WOW!!!!! Despite the pitch clock this game took almost took 3 hours to play. It is a good thing the Pirates laid down and died at the end because it may have pushed 4 hours if they had rallied.

Key Moments Of The Game: This game boiled down to the Mets getting some 2 out hits, scoring 4 of their 7 runs after two were out. The Pirates did score their first run after 2 outs but had many opportunities and failed the rest of the way. Top of the 3rd, bases loaded, 2 outs no runs. Top of the 4th, 1st and 2nd, 2 outs, no runs. Top of the 6th, 1st and 2nd nobody out, 1st and 3rd one out, no runs. After that the Pirates felt why bother and only got a walk in the 8th the rest of the way. Against mediocre pitching the Pirates struck out 11 times.

Next Game: Tonight, the Mets in New York. Bryan (And You Thought Rich Hill Was Bad) Falter makes the start tonight. Maybe he will have a good game tonight, who knows? Last night was another lack luster performance by the young Buccos, with lots of mistakes on all sides of the ball. They have bounced back from previous bad games. We will see what happens tonight.

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Pirates Morning Report: Too Bad The Whole Coaching Staff Was Not Ejected.

Final Score: Game 1 Pirates 4 Reds 2

Game 2 Pirates 5 Reds 6 10 innings

Why The Pirates Split: The 1st Game they won because of a good, not great, performance by Mitch Keller, and a clutch 3 run homer by Jared Triolo in the bottom of the 7th. They lost the 2nd game because the bullpen could not protect a two run lead, and they made one of the most horrendous coaching decisions in the bottom of the 8th, when they had a chance to win the game. If the Pirates had lost both games, it would have been easily blamed on poor defense. Every morning from 8-12 somebody should be hitting fly balls to Henry Davis in right field. He definitely needs that much work. From 1-2pm the team needs to go through pop up drills. In the first game the Pirates probably had one of the strangest winning lines of the year, 4 runs, 3 hits, and 2 errors. Even though they did not get charged with any errors in game 2, there were many balls that should have been caught but were not. When the Pirates blow a game like they did in game 2 it is explained away by youthful mistakes. This loss needs to be put right on management’s stupidity.

Key Moments Of The Day: The 1st game was Triolo’s big home run. The 2nd game boiled down to the bottom of the 8th. The Reds had just tied the game 5-5 in the top of the 8th thanks to another misjudged fly ball by Henry Davis. The bottom of the inning started off just fine for the Pirates with Henry Davis singling and Endy Rodriguez drawing a walk, to put runners on 1st and 2nd with nobody out. This brought Liover Peguero to the plate who was 2-3 with a home run, single and 2 RBI’s. The Pirates decided to have him bunt and to do so 3 times to foul bunt out. WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Endy Rodriguez was in such a state of shock that he promptly got picked off 1st base. The Reds walked Triolo, but the inning ended when Ke’Bryan Hayes, pinch hitting, grounded out to short. The Pirates lose the game in 10 innings and instead of getting a sweep, they just handed another game to a team on a silver platter.

Next Game: Tonight, the Mets, in New York. The Pirates embark on a 6 game road trip to face the Mets and the Twins with an off day on Thursday. I really do not know what to expect on this trip. The team went through a very tough schedule over these last 3 weeks and came out right around .500. They battled in every game except for 2 blow out losses to the Brewers and the Reds. I still feel this team could go on a good run yet. I thought they had an excellent chance of sweeping the Reds when this series started. Friday night’s performance and this last game were very disappointing to say the least. I am not optimistic but let’s hope this coaching staff wakes up. The most disconcerting thing to me is that this team does not seem to learn from it’s mistakes. I guess, if nothing else, it will be interesting the rest of the way.

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Pirates Morning Report: Well, At Least They Got To See A Concert.

Final Score: Pirates 2 Reds 9

Why The Pirates Lost: Simply put, the Reds came ready to play and the Pirates did not. Oviedo looked like he had not warmed up enough as his fastball was touching 95 MPH, he had no command, and looked tentative from the beginning. As a result, 4 batters into the game, the Reds had 3 runs and no outs. Contrast that with the Pirates, who went down in order through the first 3 innings, got one hit in the 4th that did not leave the infield and repeated the 3 up 3 down performance in the 5th. The first two batters were retired in the 6th, when Ke’Bryan Hayes hit a home run. Reynolds got a weird hop double followed by an RBI single by McCutchen. The Pirates got one more hit in the bottom of the 9th and were slaughtered like sheep 9-2. It was a very disappointing game considering how they had played against the Braves in the previous 4 games. They did not draw a walk the entire game. Let’s hope they are not developing the Ke’Bryan philosophy of hitting. For the fans that spent their hard-earned dollars to go to the game, let’s hope that at least they got to see a good concert, because they did not get to see a team than knew how to pitch and hit.

The Key Moment Of The Game: Oviedo seemed to be getting a little better in the 2nd and the 3rd innings. His fastball was ticking up to 97 MPH again, and did not allow a hit, only a hit batsman. In the top of the 4th, he got the first out on a nice play by Bryan Reynolds. He hit another batter and gave up a line drive single to left. Then on a 2-2 count, Oviedo grooved a slider right over the inside middle of the plate, that Luke Maile drove out of the deepest part of the stadium to give the Reds a 6-0 lead and you knew this game was over.

Next Game: Tonight, Reds in Pittsburgh. A very bad performance by the Pirates last night. Hopefully they will learn from the experience. We will see if they can rebound tonight, to at least have a chance at taking the series. It looks like a bullpen game tonight with Andre Jackson starting for the Pirates. Their bullpen games so far this year have been pretty successful. Jackson has had starting experience so maybe he will go longer than anticipated. The Pirates really need a win tonight.

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Pirates Morning Report: 9 Game Summary.

The Record: 4 Wins Losses 5

Why They Won 4 Games: After getting off to a miserable start, losing to the Detroit Tigers and getting blown out by the Brewers 14-1, the Pirates went on to win the next 4 out of 7 games against some pretty stiff competition. They took the next 2 out of 3 from the division leading Brewers, before returning home, to split a four game series with the Atlanta Braves. It was surprisingly, the offense that carried the team to victory. During the last 7 games they averaged 5.5 runs per game. Many players got some hot bats. Bryan Reynolds slugged .731 with 3 home runs and 5 RBI’s. Ke’Bryan Hayes slugged .607 with 2 home runs and a whopping 10 RBI’s. Despite the hot streak Hayes is still a bit of an enigma. For a guy that takes as many strikes as he does, he does not walk much and his on base percentage is way less than league average, which leads to an OPS+ of 88, 12% worse than a league average hitter. Most of that is due to the fact for the entire season he has walked only 17 times. With 37 to 55 more plate appearances Jack Suwinski, Andrew McCutchen and Carlos Santana, each walked 53, 63 and 45 times respectively. Despite these numbers the Pirates continue to try a get him to lead off. His current OBP of .291 stinks. Alfonso Rivas has had a nice start for the Pirates slugging .762 and hitting 2 home runs with 5 RBI’s. Overall, the offense has been looking up.

Why They Lost 5 Games: The pitching staff has had its issues. Oviedo pitched an excellent game, and the staff pitched another good game giving up only 2 runs in 9 innings but the Pirates could only produce 2 runs, losing in 10 inning 3-2. They had the blowout loss 14-1 that was a pitching disaster. In the other 6 games they gave up at least 4 to 8 runs per game and were able to win a game where they gave up 6 runs. Almost every pitcher seemed to get touched up. The only exception was new acquisition Andre Jackson. It seems like he is one of those guys making the transition from starter to reliever, with improved results. Mitch (Who Is Jeff Locke?) Keller continues to struggle post All Star game. He pitches this Sunday against the Reds. Wouldn’t It Be Nice to see him turn it around.

Next Game: Tonight, Reds in Pittsburgh. The blog is back from a trip to London and Paris. Had a great time but it is good to be back and watching the Buccos. They did better than I expected them to do, while I was away, even before the first two bad games. I thought they would be about 2-7 or 3-6 at the best, especially with all the troubles they usually have in Milwaukee. A sweep of the Reds would go a long way to perking up this team and making this a .500 season.

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Pirates Morning Report: Just A Solid Win

Final Score: Pirates 4 Tigers 1

Why The Pirates Won: Johan Oviedo had his 2nd solid start in a row. This time he went 7 innings allowing only 1 run on 6 hits, walking 2 and striking out 5. He became very efficient after the 1st inning. He only threw 74 pitches over the last 6 innings. The Pirate offense was not overwhelming but effective enough to put 4 runs on the board. The big blows were an RBI triple by Endy Rodriguez followed by a home run by Liover Peguero to make the score 3-0 after 2 innings. The Pirates added another run in the 4th and with the way that Oviedo and the bullpen were pitching they were never really threatened in this game. It was a very nice 3rd win in a row.

The Key Moment Of The Game: Going into the 7th the Pirates were leading 4-0 when the Tigers did mount a bit of a rally. On the first pitch of the inning Javier Baez singled to center field. A swinging bunt out moved him to second base. Then Akil Baddoo reached out his bat a placed a ball out to left field to score Baez to make the score 4-1. Things were getting a little tense at this point. Two pitches later Jake Rodgers grounded into a slick double play, Williams to Peguero to Joe to end the inning. After that, the Tigers never got another man on base in the last two innings.

The Trade Deadline: There were two big ticket items traded, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. Other than that, as far as I am concerned this trading season was garbage for garbage, including what the Pirates did. They did get some prospects that might pan out but it will be surprising if we see any big contributors in the near future. The whole process seemed to indicate that teams were hoping, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that a change in scenery would improve their acquisitions performance. I thought it showed how bad things were when a headline read Brewers acquire Met’s star outfielder. They were referring to Mark Canha whose slash line is currently 245/343/381. His defensive metrics are not that great, but you could say he was one of the better players that were moved. It will be interesting to see if any of these trades really work out on the short term. There sure does not seem to be any Fred McGriffs in this traded group.

The Next Game: This afternoon, Tigers in Pittsburgh. The Morning Report will be taking a 10-day hiatus as I will literally be out of the country. I may write a couple of blogs while I am gone, commenting on how the young Bucs have done over a 4 to 5 game span. It will be interesting to see the new rotation. The Report will be back on a daily basis around August 11. It would be nice to see the Pirates win today, because after that, the competition really gets tough over the next 11 games.