Month: July 2024

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Pirates Morning Report: Offense Back To Normal, Putrid

Final Score: Pirates 2 Mets 3

Why The Pirates Lost: Even though Oneil Cruz hit his home run in the game before against a left hand pitcher, the Pirate dumb trust decided to not play him today. They did put him in the bottom of the 7th, but without being in the flow of the game he struck out twice against right handed pitching. This offense is so bad that it is unbelievable. Yesterday they were amazing getting only 6 hits and one of those was a single that Joey Bart tried to stretch into a double and was thrown out. This all wasted another great performance by Luis Ortiz who went 6 innings giving up 0 runs on 4 hits, no walks while striking out 5. The way the Pirates think this will probably be his last appearance of the month. The bullpen gave up all the runs including 2 in the ninth after the Pirates managed to scrounge for 2 runs to take a 2-1 lead. The Pirates are five games below 500 which is the most since they were 6 games under on May 15. This is a club that is fading fast. I do not even know if the Chicago White Sox can help this team at the end of next week. The home stand is now 2-4 which is pretty sad. It’s hard to find anything positive to say about this team but I am sure the web site will.

Key Moment Of The Game. It was the top of the ninth, with the Pirates leading 2-1, when Aroldis Chapman came in and came very close to closing the game for Pirates but just couldn’t do it. He walked Francisco Alvarez on 8 pitches after being ahead 0-2. Harrison Bader singled on a 7 pitch at bat putting runners on 1st and 2nd. Miraculously Chapman struck out the next two batters on 9 pitches with 5 of the 6 pitches being called strikes including both 3rd strikes. During the two at bats, he wild pitched one runner to third. This brought to the plate the much traveled 34 year old Jose Iglesias to the plate. In a battle royale where again Chapman got ahead in the count 1-2, Iglesias battled off pitch after pitch to draw a walk after 8 pitches. Francisco Lindor took a 3rd pitch 1-1 slider and looped it into left field to drive in the 2 runs to give the Mets the lead 3-2. Chapman walked the next batter on 5 pitches and was done for the day. I would say it was valiant effort by Chapman, but he came up one strike short. Kyle Nicolos got the last out of the inning but it was too late. Naturally the Pirates did nothing in the 9th

Next Game: This afternoon, the Mets in Pittsburgh. Mitch Keller will try and get the split to end this very disappointing homestand. Just when you think this team has had it, they do seem to come back, but I do not know about this time. These were games that were against teams that were slightly above them in the race and the Pirates failed miserably to gain some ground. One has to feel that this season is slipping away.

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Pirates Morning Report: Batting Order + B Squad= Defeat

Final Score: Pirates 2 Mets 5

Why The Pirates Lost: I thought the only way that management could mess up the lineup yesterday was to not play Cruz and Taylor. Boy was I wrong. First why would you bat Ke’Bryan Hayes, who in the last 15 games, has a slash line of .175/203/.246, third in the order. Nick Gonzales should have batted third, with Hayes moving down to 7th or even 8th. Why would you start Josh Palacios a left-hand batter who has seen very little left-hand pitching in his major league career. I know Edward Olivares has not done all that well lately, but that is why you got him to face left handers. If you are going with someone else, then use Suwinski who is starting to show some life. Greg Brown was happy, because Palacios brings so much energy. I have never heard a game end 2 energy to 1 energy. But since Brown is going to Wrigley Field before the All Star break maybe he has. Then the Pirates decided to go with the B squad bullpen despite the fact that this was supposed to be an important game and nobody on the A squad pitched yesterday. The score was 3-2 Mets going into the top of the 6th inning. No Holderman, Mlodzinski, Nicolas despite this being a close game. The Pirate’s bats went back to normal yesterday anyway, so it might not have made any difference.

The Key Moment Of The Game: The Pirates trailed 5-2 going into the bottom of the 7th when it looked like the Mets were about to gift the Pirates some runs. A bloop single by Rowdy Tellez and two walks loaded the bases with one out. Then Sleepy Shelton and the umpires decided not today Pittsburgh fans. This is where Shelton should have pitch hit for Ke’Bryan Hayes. Hayes had his typical at bat. Despite having the bases loaded, Hayes takes a pitch over the outer third of the plate that is belt high for a strike. He swings at the next pitch, while it was a strike, was on the outside corner at the knees breaking away. He hit a soft 73 MPH liner that Lindor made a nice play on for the 2nd out. Jack Suwinski pitch hit for Connor Joe, and it was right here that you had to figure that this was not going to be the Pirates day. In what I could only describe as the worst pitch calling I have ever seen, there were 5 pitches that were not even close to strike zone, Suwinski never swung at one, and yet the count was 3 balls and 2 strikes. It was so bad, even Sleepy Shelton realized it and was tossed from the game. Suwinski swung at the next pitch that was low, but who could blame him, ending the threat. The Pirates never came close again and the home stand is now 2-3.

Next Game: This afternoon, Mets in Pittsburgh. Luis Ortiz emerges from wherever he was since he last started. The Pirates, with all their wisdom, have allowed Ortiz to pitch only 2 innings since he had the great start on June 26th, 10 days ago. Who knows what they are thinking? Do you think he might be rusty? He was stretched out. Do you think he still is? Another injury waiting to happen. I hear Dennis Santana may be starting against the White Sox. How long can this management team be allowed to ruin a pretty good team?

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Pirates Morning Report: What The Hell Just Happened

Final Score: Pirates 14 Mets 2

Why The Pirates Won: You can kiss it good-bye, the Pirates went long ball 7 times which accounted for all 14 runs. Bryan Reynolds hit 2 home runs including a grand slam to drive in 6 runs. Rowdy Tellez was not far behind with a solo shot and another grand slam for 5 RBI’s. Paul Skenes went 7 gritty innings giving up 2 runs on 4 hits, walking 2, striking out 8, while throwing 107 pitches. He won his 5th game without a loss. You never know what the effect of a blowout win will be. Last year a big blowout win against the Nationals seemed to put an end to the Pirates strong start. On April 30th the Pirates fell 3 games below .500. For the last 66 days the Pirates are 28-28. It looked like if you hung around .500 that you would have a legitimate shot at the wild card. San Diego and St. Louis have upped the ante on that idea as they stand 6 and 5 games above .500 respectively. Will this type of win propel the Pirate offense to produce some numbers over the last 9 games before the All Star break. It could be a confidence builder. Michael Taylor yesterday went 4 for 4 with a home run, what else, after seeing only 5 pitches. The Pirates famous for ignoring the hot hitter will probably give Taylor another start against the left hander today. He should continue to start at least until he has a hitless game.

Key Moments Of Game: The first 3 innings looked like the same old Pirates as they scored 0 runs on 3 hits and a hit batsman. When Skenes got nicked for another run in the top of the 4th you figured this game was over, with the Mets leading 2-0. In the bottom of the 4th Rowdy (I Never Heard Of The Series Rawhide) Tellez and Jack (I Can’t Believe I’m In The Big Leagues) Suwinski homered to tie the game at 2-2. This seemed to inspire Skenes as retired 7 batters in a row and 9 of the last 10 in his last 3 innings of work. In the bottom of the 5th the Pirates had 2nd and 3rd with 0 outs when Michael Taylor got picked off third base. Right there the Pirates looked like they were going to blow a big scoring opportunity. Bryan Reynolds unloaded a 400 foot 107 MPH bomb and the Pirates led 4-2. The Pirates blew the game open after that for a nice easy win.

Next Game: This afternoon, Mets in Pittsburgh. Bailey (It’s Not My) Falter what lineup they put on the field, but I hope that both Cruz and Taylor are in it. Maybe a game like this will loosen this team up a little bit. The old saying is hitting can be contagious. It looked like that was case last night except for Ke’Bryan Hayes. It looked like he took the anti-hit vaccine.

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Pirates Morning Report: The Horrible Offense

Final Score: Pirates 2 Cardinals 3 in 10 innings

Why The Pirates Lost: Not counting the 2 extra innings the Pirates played 27 innings against the Cardinals and scored runs in just 4 innings. If you go back one more game they played 36 innings and scored runs in 5 innings. This was another game that was lost by the Pirates management team. For all the rest days they give their young players they should have rested McCutchen yesterday. In his last 7 games he is hitting .143. They are battling their division rival in the rubber match of a 3 game series when they put their waiver pitcher in the game in the 10th. Carmen Mlodzinski had only thrown 9 pitches the day before. They used Holderman and Nicolas who threw 23 and 15 pitches respectively, in the previous game. If they were available then certainly Mlodzinski was. The only good news was that Martin Perez pitched a great game going 7 and 1/3 innings giving up 1 run on 6 hits. He came through, too bad nobody in the starting lineup did.

Key Moment Of The Game: It was the top of the 10th when the Pirates brought in Dennis Santana to lose the game. No further words needed.

Next game: Tonight, Mets in Pittsburgh. Paul Skenes goes tonight but who cares. This team stinks. The Pirates put Jared Jones on the IL and brought up Josh Palacios. I don’t have any problem with Palacios being brought up but send Suwinski or Triolo down. Why wasn’t a reliever brought up. Big sigh.

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Pirates Morning Report: Going From Sellers To Byers On One Swing Of The Bat.

Final Score: Pirates 5 Cardinals 4 in 10 innings

Why The Pirates Won: The offense had an up and down game. On the plus side they got 11 hits, only struck out 7 times and really hit the ball hard. On the negative side they were only 2 for 12 with runners in scoring position with both of those hits coming in the 10th inning. Same thing could be said for the pitching. Jared Jones pitched well but was only allowed to throw 78 pitches despite having extended rest between starts. Colin Holderman did not dance through the rain drops giving up the 2 run homer to Willson Contreras that tied the game 3-3. Here is the thing about Holderman, he has made 32 appearances and has had only 8 clean innings. When you win all is forgiven, even Michael Taylor’s ridiculous bunt attempts in the bottom of the tenth.

Key Moments Of The Game: It was all in the 10th inning. The Cardinals only scored one run and really did not take advantage of the Chapman mistake of not covering first base. In the bottom of the 10th the Pirates could not move the runner over to third base again and you thought we are going to lose. But then McCutchen walked and the Cardinals brought in lefty JoJo Romero and his 2.61 ERA. Bryan Reynolds took his 4th pitch into center field for a base hit that tied the game. Oneil Cruz wasting no time took the first pitch and lined it down the right field line for another hits and the Pirates had an amazing win.

Next Game: This afternoon, Cardinals in Pittsburgh. Martin Perez will start today and let’s hope he can get his act together. The bullpen got pretty much depleted yesterday. I would assume Ortiz will be available for a couple of innings. It is essential that Perez goes a solid 6 innings.

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Golf: The Putting Grips Of The Pros

Putting is by far the most individual aspect of the game of golf. There is more written about putting than any other aspect of the game. Despite the fact there are people that keep insisting that greens in regulation is the most important stat in the game, because they want ball striking to be more important, it really is putting. If Colin Morikawa had putted well in the fourth round of the first two majors he would have won both of them. He definitely struck the ball better than the law firm of Schauffele and Scheffler. How do the people that make a living at this game attach themselves to the putter. I divided them into four groups. The normal grip with the right hand below the left and any variation. The self explanatory left hand low grip. The yip fixing claw grip. Finally the long putter, including the one that is braced against the arm. This was far from what I would call a scientific study. I watched golf on Thursday and Friday for about 3 weeks. I included women pros, although most were men. The total number came to 108. What were the results and did I feel I learned anything.

There were 58 pros who used what I would call the conventional putting grip, basic reverse overlap. Thirty two used the left hand low. Nine used the claw grip and 9 used a unique putter. I was surprised by two things. The conventional putting grip is still the preferred method of gripping the putter by a wide margin. I was surprised at how few players use the claw. The most unique grip was by tour player Joe Highsmith. He is left handed and keeps his right hand low and claws, calling it the reverse claw. Even in the short time that I did the survey, there were some players that changed their grip method. What did I learn from this little survey? Not a whole hell of a lot, quite frankly other than something that I already knew. That putting is all in your head. The other thing, which I have advocated in the past, is do not become enslaved to one method of putting. Do it until it stops working but then move on to another method. I have what I feel are about 4 or 5 methods that I use to putt and will change them based on results. None of them involve making a major grip change. Putting is nothing more than confidence and guts.

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Pirates Morning Report: One Inning Of Hitting Not Enough This Time

Final Score: Pirates 4 Cardinals 7

Why The Pirates Lost: Again the Pirates had a putrid offense for 8 innings scoring no runs on 3 hits. For the 2nd game in a row they had a 4 run inning all on the long ball. Jack Suwinski hit a 3 run homer followed one out later by a solo shot by Andrew McCutchen. Unfortunately the Cardinals scored a lot more than just one run. Mitch Keller got knocked around pretty good giving up 6 runs on 9 hits in just 5 innings of work. The bullpen gave up another run for the final score of 7-4. The home stand gets off to a sluggish start.

Key Moment Of The Game: The score was 2-0 going into the top of the 4th. Brenden Donovan opened the inning with a hard hit line drive single to center field. This is where things went bad. Catcher’s interference and a 72 MPH bloop single to left field loaded the bases with no outs. This brought up Nolan Gorman who in his last 15 games was hitting.122 with 2 home runs. No question the man has power, hitting 16 home runs so far this season, more than any Pirate by a wide margin. He took an outside edge curve ball and went with it to hit a grand slam homer for number 17, and faster than you could say this game is over, it was 6-0. That 4 run inning got the Pirates within 2, but you never really felt the Pirates were going to catch up and you were right.

Next Game: Tonight, Cardinals in Pittsburgh. Besides being a disappointing loss it was a surprise to see Luis Ortiz coming out of the bullpen. He pitches one of the best games of the year and he is back in the bullpen? You are trying to conserve innings for Jones and Skenes. It makes no sense. Another mystery decision by the Pirates. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

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Gratitude

How do you express your gratitude?

I express my gratitude quietly. Once when I get up in the morning and then right before I go to bed. It can be a very difficult world out there. It is hard to believe what some people have to suffer through both physically and spiritually. I am not too sure what that is all about. Losing loved ones is by far the worst thing that can happen to a person. Chronic physical pain is not far behind. Suffering is a part of life and we have all suffered in some way, just by different degrees. Maybe at the end of life it will be all explained. That would be nice.

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Pirates Morning Report: Just When You Are Ready To Give Up On This Team, They Win One.

Final Score: Pirates 4 Braves 2

Why The Pirates Won: The Pirates had a solid pitching performance by Bailey (It’s Not My) Falter they think I can only throw 80 pitches, and the bullpen, who were forced to throw 4 innings because of such thinking. The bullpen was up to the task even though Aroldis Chapman had a shaky ninth inning. The offense had 8 putrid innings, scoring no runs on 4 hits. But one inning, the top of the 5th, thanks to some Braves kindness and a little luck, the Pirates were able to score, count em, 4 runs. The inning started out harmless enough when Jack (Why Do They Keep Letting Me Embarrass Myself) Suwinski got hit in his big toe. It took a Pirate challenge to get him on first base. Andrew McCutchen and Bryan Reynolds both struck out on a total of 8 pitches. Spencer (I Think Oneil Cruz Is Overrated) Schwellenbach laid a 90 MPH cutter right over the plate to the overrated Cruz on the first pitch and he belted it 452 feet to give the Pirates a 2-1 lead. S. S. as I like to call him, walked Edward Olivares on 5 pitches. This brought Rawhide Rowdy (It’s A Shame That June Has To Come To An End) Tellez to the plate. Low and behold he hit an 82 MPH splitter on the inside corner of the plate into the seats to give the Pirates a 4-1 lead they protected until the bottom of the 9th.

Key Moment Of The Game: Aroldis Chapman came into the bottom of the 9th and the fun began. He got Austin Riley to ground out to the shortstop where Cruz made a very nice play. Chapman gave up a single and a double to put runners on 2nd and 3rd with just one out. Orlando Arcia took an 87 MPH slider and lined it into centerfield where Michael Taylor made a spectacular catch for the 2nd out. A run scored, but instead of the Braves having runners on 1st and 3rd with one out at the very least, they had a runner on 2nd with two out. Zack Short hit a sharp ground ball but right at Jared (Why Am I In The Major Leagues And Jason Delay Is Not) Triolo to end the game. The last two outs were hit 97 and 109 MPH. All of this enabled the Pirates to salvage one game in the series and have a .500 road trip.

Next Game: Tomorrow night, Cardinals in Pittsburgh. The Pirates have 13 games before the All Star break, seven home games and 6 road games. They have no days off after today until the break. I heard that the coaching staff was up all night last night trying to come up with the perfect rest schedule for this aging team. Playing 13 games in 13 days will definitely be too much for this veteran team. This will be the critical factor during this stretch giving the players the proper rest. Ten of these games will be against teams that are battling the Pirates for the wild card spot or division title. The stress will be ungodly for these poor boys. I am sure the Pirate lineup cards will reflect this and be perfect for every game. I just fell off my chair laughing.