Month: September 2023

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What Am I Doing This Evening, You Got To Be Kidding

Daily writing prompt
What are you doing this evening?
View all responses

I think the writing prompt person is running out of ideas. First of all, this is Wednesday Evening. Not a big night for excitement or painting the town. Fix dinner, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed. I think we need some new ideas for writing prompts so let me be of some assistance.

  1. Would you castrate Trump if you had the chance and how painless would you make it?
  2. Do you think the USA should be led by people in their 80’s?
  3. Is climate change related to animal feces?
  4. Do you think that Aaron Rodger’s Achilles is really torn?
  5. Do you wish the South had successfully seceded from the Union in the in 1860’s
  6. Should West Virginia still be a State?
  7. Will the sun ever come up in the West?
  8. Is there really a heaven?
  9. How many illegal drugs have you sold this week?
  10. Who is smarter, a dog, a cat or a Republican? No, this is not a trick question
  11. Does a bear really shit in the woods?

You’re welcome, no charge.

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Pirates Morning Report: What A Difference A Day Makes

Final Score: Pirates 5 Nationals 1

Why The Pirates Won: This was a pitching win. If the Pirates pitching does not shut down the Nationals, this could have been known as the game that got away. The Pirate batters were 2 for 12 with runners in scoring position and wound-up stranding 15 runners. If the Nationals had been able to generate any offense, this game could have been a disaster. All is forgiven when you win. Josh Palacios hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 2nd to get things going for the Pirates. Naturally, the Pirate broadcast booth was effusive with praise for Palacios making him sound like he was the 2nd coming of Dave Parker. Here is his slash line, .224/.269/.409 for an OPS+ of 80 and a WAR of -0.4. If this guy is playing next year, it will be another wasted season. He might make an acceptable utility/bench guy but even that is really stretching it. I will give him, that he has had some big hits this year, but it is not enough to think that he would be a major part of a playoff contending team. The Pirates were able scratch out 3 more runs with 2 of the runs scoring on outs. This was a night for the pitchers. Baily (Last Night Was Not My) Falter pitched a solid 6 innings giving up only 1 run on 4 hits, walking 1, striking out 4. The bullpen gave up no runs the rest of the way with only Mlodzinski having a shaky inning, being bailed out by a strong throw by Josh Palacios to nail a runner at the plate. I know there he is again, but he still stinks. It was a nice bounce back win by the Pirates, but they need to keep the momentum going.

Key Moment Of The Game: In the top of the 4th with the score 2-0 Pirates, Falter had his only shaky inning. After getting a routine ground ball out, he served up a hanging 85 MPH slider to Lane Thomas who drilled it 108 MPH to left field. Bryan Reynolds made a great over the shoulder catch that as it turned out saved at least 1 run. The Nationals got some 2 out lightening going with a single, double, single, to score their run. The last 2 hits were drilled well over a 100 MPH. The single was hit so hard that even with 2 outs the runner could not score from 2nd base. The final out was recorded on another hard hit ball on the ground that Ke’ Bryan Hayes made a nice play to force the runner at second that ended the inning. From that point on Falter retired the final 6 batter he faced.

Next Game: Tonight, the Nationals in Pittsburgh. Even though it does not say this on the Pirate “official” website, that gets updated about every 3 days, I believe that Quinn Priester is going to start tonight. Let’s hope that he can get off the run an inning schneid. The Pirates stand at 67 wins. They will have to win 8 of their last 17 games to get to the 75 win mark which would be a 13 game improvement from last year. They need to win as many games at home as possible because they have a tough 9 game road trip coming up. Can Derek Shelton inspire this team? Hell no, they will have to do it themselves.

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Red Flag Personality Traits

Daily writing prompt
What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?
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The big red flag for me is when I meet someone and within 5 minutes they tell me one or more of their accomplishments. One time I met a veterinarian and within 5 minutes of the conversation, she worked in that she had a Ph. D. in physiology. Now, how do you do that? It goes hand in hand with how many times someone says I. I did this. I went there. I ran a company. Granted after you meet someone and become acquaintances over a period of weeks or months, during the course of conversations you might even ask a question of what this person did during their career or job. You are the one that is initiating this interaction. To be honest I am not interested why a person is so compelled to mention some of their accomplishments in such a short time. Maybe it is from some form of insecurity, but what person is not insecure at times. To me it just shows a form of self centeredness that is probably so ingrained in this person, that nothing you say or do is ever going to matter. This does not make you unique. They probably do not care what anybody is feeling or doing in their life at the moment. For these people, the center of the universe is themselves. Certainly this is ridiculous because everybody knows that I am the center of the universe😉.

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Pirates Morning Report: Base Running 101

Final Score: Pirates 2 Nationals 6

Why The Pirates Lost: This one is easy. They couldn’t pitch, they couldn’t hit, they couldn’t field, and they couldn’t run the bases. But enough of the Pirates, the Nationals put on quite a display on the bases themselves. First, Keibert Ruiz singled to right field and then had designs of stretching it into a double. He put on the brakes about 30 feet from the bag and tried to get back to first but was out by a mile. Later in the game, Dominic Smith hits a ball off the wall in right center field, that if you heard Greg Brown tell it, Josh Palacios bobbled the ball on purpose. Smith, who runs a 7 sec. 40-yard dash, saw this and tried to go third. He was thrown out at third by a mile. The Pirates not to be out done, had runners on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs and the score was 2-1 Nationals in the bottom of the third. Then Connor Joe got picked off first and Bryan Reynolds tried to score and was thrown out easily. Greg Brown thought this was not a planned play. The Pirate pitching stunk as any pitcher who pitched more than 1 inning gave up a home run. We’re not going to mention any names here just to have some respect for their families and any children they might be involved. The Pirate bats were just as bad. They could only muster 2 runs on 7 hits, 2 walks, while striking out 10 times. Then there was the double play that wasn’t. Luis Garcia hit a ground ball to 2nd that Liover Peguero fed perfectly to Alika Williams to start what would have been an inning ending double play. Instead of setting himself and throwing a hard strike to first base, he came flying across the bag, half stumbling, throwing weakly to 1st enabling the lumbering 6’2″ 220 lb. Garcia to beat it out, allowing the 4th run to score.

Key Moment Of The Game. The score was 6-1. going into the bottom of the 7th and the Pirates could only scrape together 1 run on 2 doubles and a walk. It was simply their last chance to get back in the game and they could not get the big hit. Other than the home runs that were given up, all the runs the Nationals scored and all the runs the Pirates did not score could all be attributed to a lack of baseball sense by the Pirates. Coaches, where are you? Who knows, only The Shadow knows.

Next Game: Tonight, the Nationals in Pittsburgh. A very disappointing start to the homestand. It was not so much about the loss, as it was on just how badly the Pirates played. Hopefully this was nothing more than a glitch, with the Pirates righting the ship tonight. The Pirates have not announced a pitcher. 75 wins is in jeopardy.

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My Ideal Week

We have to start somewhere so let’s go Monday Through Sunday. Playing golf 5 of those days. Playing well would add icing on the cake but it is not necessary. Since I am the cook of the house, I would like all my meals to turn out to be very delicious. We usually go out one night to a bar restaurant and that is a good experience. Sleeping well is a must which I usually do as long as I don’t get too big of beer buzz on the night we go out. The Pirates winning 7 in a row. I know it’s just supposed to be an ideal not miraculous week. This is football season so all my teams winning. It did not happen this week to say the least. The most important part of an ideal week is to stay healthy and not fall down. The bottom line is things do not have to be perfect but avoiding disaster will make any week ideal.

Daily writing prompt
Describe your ideal week.
View all responses

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Pirates Morning Report: Pirates Tried But Just Couldn’t Do It

Final Score: Pirates 2 Braves 5

Why The Pirates Lost: This was a bullpen failure. In 2 and 2/3 innings they gave up 4 runs on 4 hits and 2 walks. This erased a very good performance by Luis Ortiz. He pitched 5 and 1/3 innings giving up just 1 run on 3 hits and 2 walks. He did not strike out anyone and the Pirates did play very good defense behind him snagging some very hard hit balls. Regardless, he kept the best offense in baseball in check. He had only thrown 72 pitches when the Shadow decided to take him out. A little surprising considering the bullpen must have been strapped, because he used Singles and Homers, I mean Selby and Hatch, to try and finish the game. He might as well used Starsky and Hutch as good as they were. The Pirate offense could not do much, scoring 2 runs on 7 hits, striking out 11 times, while not drawing a walk the entire game. The bottom third of the order went 0 for 10. It was a good tight competitive game, but the Pirates lack of pitching depth just caught up with them.

The Key Moment Of The Game. The Braves scored 1 run in the bottom of the 6th after the Pirates had scored 2 in the top of the inning. With the score 2-1 Pirates going into the top of the 7th, Josh (I Will Be Here Next Year Despite What You Say) Palacios led off the inning with a booming triple. The bottom third of the order failed miserably and could not get him in. In the bottom of the 7th the Braves broke open the game against the B squad and the game was over. Naturally, a walk was involved.

Next Game: Tonight, the Nationals in Pittsburgh. The Pirates start a 7 game homestand against the Nationals and the Yankees. If the Pirates are going to reach the mid 70’s in wins it is critical that they have good homestand, with at least a 5 and 2 record. After that they go on a 9 game road trip where they will be playing all contenders, the Cubs, Reds, and Phillies. As usual, who is going to take the mound is a mystery. Only The Shadow knows.

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Pirates Morning Report: Holy Shitballs The Pirates Beat The Braves.

Final Score: Pirates 8 Braves 4

Why The Pirates Won: The Pirates simply out hit the Braves. In both the 3rd and the 5th innings the Pirates scored 3 runs on 4 hits. Bryan Reynolds who had a big night hit a 2 run home run to highlight the 3rd and Jack Suwinski singled in the 2nd run in the 5th, stole 2nd, which enabled him to score the 3rd run of the inning on the Ji Hwan Bae single with 2out. The Pirates took a 6-3 lead in the 5th and added a run in the 6th and 9th to win going away. Johan Oviedo pitched 4 innings giving up 3 runs on 9 hits and a walk. He was lucky that the damage was not worse. Oviedo pissed off Ronald Acuna Jr. when he pitched inside and almost hit Acuna about waist high. Acuna should have realized that Oviedo has no idea where the ball is going and probably couldn’t hit him even if he wanted too. The bullpen pitched 4 and 2/3 innings giving up only 1 run, on 3 hits, all given up by Carmen Mlodzinski. It was a shocking win by the Pirates, on par with the Miracle on Ice in the 1980 Olympics.

The Key Moment Of The Game: Going into the bottom of the 4th inning the Pirates held a 3-1 lead with Oviedo on the mound. The Braves got a single sandwiched between 2 outs. It looked like Oviedo might have an easier inning than the 3 previous ones. But it was not to be, as things went from bad to worse. Oviedo gave up 3 straight singles which tied the game 3-3. Then he promptly hit the next batter to load the bases. In comes Ryan (See, I’m Better Than U Thought I was) Borucki with the bases loaded and two outs to face Matt Olson. I could see the grand slam coming from a mile away. But Borucki got Olson to pop out to the shortstop and the Braves could only get those 2 runs in the inning. From that point on the Pirate bats got smokin hot, and scored the next 4 runs before the Braves added a run on Matt Olson’s home run in bottom of the 7th. The Pirates held them off the rest of the way.

Next Game: This afternoon, Braves in Atlanta. Luis Ortiz is pitching for the Pirates and I expect him to get racked and the Pirates to lose. Of course, I never thought they would win one game and they have. YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!! No matter what happens today the Atlanta series is a resounding success.

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Pirates Morning Report: A Quick Humane Death

Final Score: Pirates 2 Braves 8

Why The Pirates Lost: They are playing the Atlanta Braves. In fairness to the Mitch Keller, even though his stats looked bad, in the bottom of 3rd, the Braves had 6 singles and 4 of them were under 80 MPH. The other 2 were 83 and 94 MPH. It is bad enough you are playing the team in the National League with the best record, but then they get a bunch of soft serve hits that result in 4 runs. In the bottom of the fourth they did hit some rockets including a 2-run homer to score 3 more runs. The only good thing, that despite a combined 10 runs, 18 strikeouts and 3 walks, the game only took 2 hours and 14 minutes to play. It was a humane slaughter by the Braves. The Pirate offense was about as ineffective as you could get. In the first and third innings, they had a runner on 2nd with no one out and failed to score. Jack Suwinski did hit a 2-run homer for the Pirates scoring, but they were only able to manage 5 other hits for the game. Overall, just an expected beating with 2 more to come.

Key Moment Of The Game: When Pirates plane touched down in Atlanta. The Pirates could not take advantage of the early scoring opportunities and the Braves fortunate 3rd inning set the tone for the game. I know this is only one game, but it shows how far the Pirates have to go before they can really contend for a championship. It was nice to see how the game should be played even though it was an opponent of the Pirates and not the Pirates.

Next Slaughter: Tonight, Braves in Atlanta. Johan Oviedo takes the mound tonight and if he thinks he was uncomfortable in his last outing, wait until he faces this lineup. He may not be able to move. The Pirates are facing Dylan Dodd, who has an ERA of over 7 through 5 games but has a record of 2-1. Maybe the Pirates can out hit the Braves tonight. I apologize for writing that.

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Pirates Morning Report: Nice Outside Strike, Pirates Get The Call

Final Score: Pirates 5 Brewers 4

Why The Pirates Won: The Pirates were able to get to Freddy Peralta in the bottom of the 6th inning, and the Brewers had another bullpen failure, enabling the Pirates to pull out a 5-4 win and take the series. After the sad start by Colin (Don’t Worry I Won’t Be Here Next Year) Selby, giving up 3 runs on one hit, a home run, walking 3, while throwing 35 pitches in just one inning of work, the rest of the bullpen did fine. Colin Holderman had his typical mystifying inning giving up the 4th run to make things quite interesting in the top of the 9th for David Bednar. Everybody got one hit except for Peguero but they were close enough together to bring 5 runs home which was just enough to pull out the victory. Taking 2 out of 3 from the Brewers is no small feat with their pitching staff. The Pirates at least have a little momentum to take to Atlanta. Let’s hope the Braves show some mercy. Would it be too obvious if the Braves picked a position player to start one of the games on the mound. Yes, I guess it would be.

Key Moments Of The Game: With the score 5-3 heading into the top of the 8th, Colin Holderman took the mound. After getting one quick out the fun began. After 3 straight singles none of which were under 95 MPH the Brewers had a run in, runners on 1st and 3rd with just one out. The Brewers decided to pinch hit with slow footed Rowdy Tellez even though he had the same batting average against right handers as the man he pinch-hit for Brice Turang. He promptly hit into an inning ending double play because he is heavy and slow. Thank you, Craig Councell. David Bednar pitched the 9th inning and gave up an opening single. Tyrone Taylor hit a line drive that Connor Joe almost misplayed but was able to reach up and make the grab. Bednar struck out Christian Yelich. This brought up catcher William Contreras. Bednar fell behind 3-0, but 4 pitches later the count was 3-2. The 8th pitch of the bat was clearly outside, but the ump who had dinner reservations at Ruth Chris called strike 3 and the Pirates had won the game. Hallelujah, Sweet Jesus!!!!!!!!!!

Next Game: Friday night, the Braves in Atlanta. After a 6 day rest Mitch Keller with take the hill, probably making this our best chance to win one game from the Braves. If the Braves want to clinch everything real early, they may be super serious about this series. If they are, the Pirates are going down 3 times.

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Pirates Morning Report: It Was Just One Of Those Innings

Final Score: Pirates 3 Brewers 7

Why The Pirates Lost: You knew that this was not going to be the Pirates night when Greg Brown talking about the red hot Ke’Bryan Hayes, said he hit the 2-run homer to tie the game the night before. Brown at least knew that Hayes hit a homer, but it was Jack Suwinski that hit the 2-run homer to tie the game. Hayes’s home run was a solo homer that gave the Pirates a 3-2 lead. I imagine that Brown needs GPS to find his way home. From there you knew the day was going downhill. Andre Jackson started for the Pirates and despite what the broadcast booth said, if this guy is in the starting rotation next year, the Pirates are in big trouble. I think he can be a tremendous asset out of the bullpen. Last night, Jackson went 4 and 1/3 innings giving up 6 runs on just 3 hits, but he walked 5. This after pitching a perfect 3 innings. The Pirates offense was completely stifled by Brandon Woodruff getting only 2 hits and 2 walks in 7 innings. Woodruff threw 97 pitches and finished strong by striking out the final 2 batters he faced. Thanks to Greg Brown it was the Brewers night.

Key Moment Of The Game: In the top of the 4th Jackson walked the bases loaded with no one out. He escaped with only 1 run scoring, and you felt that this game had the feel of the previous game, when the Brewers failed to capitalize on the situation. However, in the top of the 5th, things went in the other direction, big time. Jackson opened the inning by issuing his 4th walk. Andruw Monasterio hit a triple in the left center field notch to make the score 2-0 Brewers. From this moment on, everything went the Brewers way. A little dribbler down the third base line, a bloop just between the 1st and 2nd basemen, and finally a deep fly ball to center field that Suwinski lost in the twilight sky for a double. There was a sacrifice fly and walk sandwiched between all of this, giving the Brewers a 5-0 lead. The scoring mercifully ended on an 81 MPH single to left field by Mark Canha that was booted by Josh Palacios to allow the final run to score. It was 7-0 and the game was over. Connor Joe hit a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 9th to make the final 7-3.

Next Game: This afternoon, Brewers in Pittsburgh. Again, the Pirates do not know who the starting pitcher is. It would be a nice win today considering that they are heading to Atlanta to get the crap beat out of them this weekend. Their only hope is that Atlanta may already be in some kind of rest mode to get ready for the playoffs. They do have a 6 game lead on the Dodgers for the best record in the National League. Maybe the The Shadow Shelton has some really close friends in Atlanta, and they will let Pirates win one game.