Pirates Morning Report: My Apologies

I thought there was a Pirate game last night, but instead they had an off day. I just assumed their off day would be Thursday as they traveled to the west coast. Wrong Commonsense Breath! What this does do is give me an opportunity to discuss Derek Shelton’s latest blunders and pass on a little antidote. His first blunder was not to bring in Aroldis Chapman to face Joc Pederson with runners on 1st and 2nd and two out in the top of the 7th. Pederson hits .200 against lefties and only one of his 18 homers have been against left handers. When asked about that after game, he basically just threw Colin Holderman under the bus by saying that Holderman did not execute. When the first two batters got on base in the bottom of the 9th he had Isiah Kiner-Falefa bunt, and he popped out. They were 2 runs down and Shelton under the best of circumstances is giving them an out. This was the 7th game that Shelton has caused the Pirates to lose due to lack of moves or the wrong moves. On Twitter, yes I still call it Twitter, the other day, former Pittsburgh sportswriter, Bob Smizik was singing the praises of Mr. Shelton when I pointed out that he was responsible for 6 losses. His response was, could I list those games. I replied they were all there in the Pirates Morning Report. He wanted to know what the Pirates Morning Report was. Can you imagine that? He did not know what the Pirates Morning Report was. I told him to Google it but I’m not sure he knows what that is either. Regardless, the Pirates do play tonight by God, against the streaking San Diego Padres, who have won 11 out of their last 13 games. They also bolstered their bullpen at the trade deadline. Guess who didn’t.