Month: June 2024

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Pirates Morning Report: Pirates Bounce Back For Solid Win

Final Score: Pirates 8 Blue Jays 1

Why The Pirates Won: Even though it took him 106 pitches, Mitch Keller pitched another solid 6 innings. He gave up 1 run on 5 hits, 1 walk, while striking out 8. Then Luis Ortiz piggy backed him with 3 very strong innings only allowing 1 hit, no walks, striking out 3 while throwing only 36 pitches. The bats came alive right in the 1st inning, highlighted by a Ke’Bryan Hayes 2 run homer to take a 3-0 lead right off the get go. The Pirates continued to add on, finishing strong by scoring 5 runs in the last 5 innings and collecting 11 hits for the game. It was hard to believe that this was the same team that played the night before. The Pirates will have a chance for a series win today.

Key Moment Of The Game: In the bottom of the 1st with Pirates just getting that 3-0 lead, Keller gave up a one out triple to Daulton Varsho. He walked Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on 5 pitches and the Blue Jays had 1st and 3rd with one out. Keller struck out Bo Bichette on 3 pitches. This brought up Daniel (The Turtle) Vogelbach, the famous Pirate leadoff hitter. Can you believe that the Pirates had this guy leading off to start the 2022 season. Typical for The Turtle he did not swing at the first 5 pitches to work the count to 3-2. Unbelievably he swung at the 6th pitch which was out of the strike zone to strike out. If he had taken it in the usual Vogelbach fashion, the Blue Jays would have loaded the bases. Instead, Keller got out of the inning with no runs scoring. Keller did give up a run in the bottom of the 6th but by then the score was 6-0 Pirates.

Next Game: This afternoon, Blue Jays in Toronto. This will wrap up this brief road trip and determine if it will be a winning or losing road trip. The Pirates in their own goofy way still have not announced the starting pitcher. I almost don’t want to know. The Sunday goofy lineup may be at its peak today. Well, I just looked on the website and they say it will be Quinn Priester. Who is going down? Only the Shelton knows for sure. I wish I could just understand their thinking. Tuesday starts a homestand against the Dodgers and the Twins. They need to get their act together now.

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Pirates Morning Report: Pirates More Inept Than Blue Jays

Final Score: Pirates 3 Blue Jays 5 in 14 innings.

Why The Pirates Lost: From the bottom of the 9th on there were 11 times that a team had a runner on 2nd base with nobody out and they failed to score 6 times. The Pirates did not get a hit the last 8 innings of the game. The fundamental of situational hitting went out the window for both teams. Inept hitting was pretty much equal, although the Blue Jays did get a huge 2 out hit in the bottom of the 11th to tie the game 2-2. Of course, baseball fans would not have been put through such an appalling performance by both teams stretching out for 14 innings if Ji Hwan Bae had not lost a big high lazy fly ball in God knows what by none other than Daniel “The Turtle” Vogelbach, that tied the game 1-1 in the bottom of the 7th. All of this wasted another solid performance by Bailey (It Was Shelton’s) Falter again. Over 6 innings he gave up 2hits and 2 walks throwing only 81 pitches. Shelton then decides to take him out for a bullpen that stinks. Sure enough, the combination of Colin Holderman and Ji Hwan (Blind As A Bat) Bae gave the Blue Jays their tying run. Five of the Pirate starters hung big O for collars led by Connor Joe going 0 for 6. Grandal and Reynolds were next going 0 for 5. Stop the presses Rawhide Rowdy did get a hit.

Key Moments Of The Game: If you count ineptness there were about 25 key moments to this game. No question the big hit by George Springer in the bottom of the 11th with 2outs to tie the game 2-2 kept the Blue Jays alive to play another mediocre 3 innings. What really hurt was it was on a 1-2 count. Hunter Strickland decided to throw a four-seam fastball right out over the plate. This was the 21st inept moment. The walk off homer to win the game again with 2 outs was huge, if for no other reason it put the fans out of their misery. The Pirates lost another game to a floundering team to put their record at a floundering 26-31

Next Game: This afternoon, Blue Jays in Toronto. Mitch Keller starts today and has looked great his last 4 outings. The interest is high for this game to see how many innings the Pirates can go without getting a hit. Right now, it stands at 8. The Blue Jays are throwing a lefty so it will be unlikely that Tellez will get 2 starts in a row, but with Shelton you never know. This guy rolls the dice like managing is gambling in Vegas, and not a thought out skill. He has the record to prove it too.