Month: September 2026

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Pirates Morning Report: Losing To The Worst

Final Score: Pirates 1 Angels 6

Why The Pirates Lost: For the second straight game, the Pirates scored only one run, and this time it was not nearly enough. They could only get that one run on a home run. They had seven other hits and four walks but produced zero runs. They were 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position. They grounded into two double plays after the leadoff man got on base. With the Pirates trailing 6-1 in the bottom of the 8th, Oneil Cruz got a single with two outs. He then stole second base, which you could question, considering they were trailing by five, but at least that put him in scoring position. However, he then decided to make the bonehead play of the year by trying to steal third. He was thrown out to end the inning. In my view, he should not be in the starting lineup today or for the opening game of the road trip. Of course, Don Kelly should not be managing the Pirates either. If the Pirates are trailing by two or more runs going into the sixth inning or later, Kelly always puts in his worst available reliever. He could have put in Soto (three days rest), Doval (two days rest), or Ramirez, which he eventually did. He brings Isaac Mattson in for the sixth inning. He is lucky enough to get a clean inning out of him. He allows him to come out for the seventh and of course, Mattson gets racked for three runs on two doubles and two singles. Every ball hit was over 95 MPH. He did not bring in Soto even when a left-handed batter came up. Kelly is the king of giving up. It is the main reason that the Pirates have the fewest comeback wins in the division and it is not even close. The Pirates have 21 comeback wins. The Brewers 38, the Cubs 40, the Cardinals 29 and even the Reds have 36. Just another reason the Pirates are not making the playoffs.

Key Moments of the Game: It was another pathetic lineup that was put on the field. No Brandon Lowe, even though he has been hitting left-hand pitching better. Even for the season, his OPS against lefties is .614. That is a lot better than Nick Yorke, who is .570 against lefties and a lot worse overall. Taking out Ashcraft after just 67 pitches was a mistake. In the top of the 4th, there was a pop-up double that scored on a 2-out single. He gave up the home run in the 5th and some hard-hit singles to make the score 3-0, but he finished the inning strong with a ground out and strikeout. That is when Kelly decided that this game was over.

Next Game: This afternoon Angels in Pittsburgh. The saddest thing about this pathetic performance was that 3 of the 4 teams ahead of the Pirates lost last night. Only the Diamondbacks won. This means the Pirates are in the same place where they were when the Angels series started, which is 5 games out of the wild card. There are only 19 games left. Even if they win today and with Skenes pitching that is not a given, they would wind up being 4-2 at home against the Giants and the Angels. Another opportunity lost. After today they are headed for Chicago to play the White Sox and Cubs three games each. That trip should put everyone out of their misery.

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Pirates Morning Report: Pitching Staff Wins This One

Final Score: Pirates 1 Angels 0

Why The Pirates Won: Jared Jones pitched one of his best games of the year. He went 6 innings, giving up just 3 hits, walking 1, and striking out 9 batters. Wilber Dotel pitched a solid 2 innings, not giving up a hit and walking one while striking out 2. Mason Montgomery survived a leadoff single by Mike Trout to preserve the 1-0 win and get his 9th save of the year. Konnor Griffin started his first game in over two months. He did not get a hit but still made a huge impact by scoring the only run of the game on a Jake Mangum double. He flew around the bases and scored all the way from 1st base on a bang-bang play at the plate. He made a great slide and barely touched the plate with his left hand. Thank God for those big sliding gloves. Otherwise, it was a 50-50 night for the Pirates, with the Diamondbacks and Marlins losing while the Padres and Cardinals won. The Pirates find themselves 4.5 games out of the wild card but 5 games in the loss column. They did pull themselves up to 2.5 games above last place. Obviously, they need to sweep the Angels.

Key Moments of the Game: It was the gritty inning that Wilber Dotel pitched in the top of the seventh. He had just come in for Jared Jones. He opened the inning by issuing a walk on six pitches. It took him another six pitches to get a force out at second. Christian Moore worked the count to 3-2. He took a 99 MPH fastball and laced a low line drive at 106 MPH to center field. Oneil Cruz had to come in quickly and made a great sliding catch on the ball. Dotel struck out Josh Lowe on another six-pitch at-bat to end the inning. Jones survived a first and third with no outs situation in the top of the second. He was able to induce a pop-up and struck out the next two batters on eleven pitches. This was a great pitching duel that the Pirates were able to win. They have to find a way to win two more.

Next Game: Tonight, Angels in Pittsburgh. The Angels are starting lefty Yusei Kikuchi, who is making only his second start since going on the IL in late April. In his last start, he held the Phillies to 2 runs, going 7 innings. Braxton Ashcraft is going for the Pirates. I have the feeling another shutout may be needed, given the problems the Pirates have against lefties. I wonder if Billy Cook will start. Is this one of Oneil Cruz’s “scheduled” days off? Will Nick Yorke get a chance to start? Will Konnor Griffin get a rest so his body can recover from that exhausting run from 1st base last night? I am sure Don Kely and the “brain trust” are actually considering this. Do the Pirates even know they still have a chance at the wild card? Stay tuned.

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Pirates Morning Report: Giants Gift Wrapped This One

Final Score: Pirates 5 Giants 2

Why The Pirates Won: The Giants made sure they did, especially the pitching staff. The Pirates only got 5 hits but were walked 7 times and hit by a pitch once. Starting in the first inning after an opening single by Spencer Horwitz and a fly out by Brandon Lowe, the Pirates received 3 straight walks, and Jake Mangum got hit with a pitch to make the score 2-0. The bats went really silent for four innings, getting only one hit. In the bottom of the 6th, Oneil Cruz walked, stole 2nd, and scored when Mangum’s bunt was thrown away by the pitcher. One out later, an infield hit moved Mangum to third. He scored when Jared Triolo beat out a double play ball. He was ruled out, but replay overruled the call, and the Pirates had a 4-0 lead. In the bottom of the 8th, the Pirates got a leadoff walk and a single. They went small ball again with a sacrifice bunt and sacrifice fly to make the score 5-2. Not one run scored on a hit. The Pirates were 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position, leaving 8 men on base. They only got 5 hits, all singles. If you looked at those stats, you would have thought the Pirates lost. The Giants’ pitchers could not find the plate, and the Pirates were able to score those five runs. The bullpen game went well. The Pirates only gave up 2 hits, even though they walked 5 it was not as bad as the Giants. At this stage of the season, the Pirates will take wins any way they can. Hopefully, the Angels will be as generous.

Key Moment Of The Game: The Pirates took a 4-0 lead into the 7th inning. Khristian Curtis had pitched a solid 3 innings in relief. You could see he was laboring in his 4th inning of work. Maybe it was the heat, but he struggled mightily to get the ball over the plate, walking the first two batters in the inning on 11 pitches. He gave up a double, and the score was 4-1, with runners on second and third and no one out. His laboring was obvious to everyone, except Don (Looking At My Shoes) Kelly. He did not get Yohan Ramirez up in the bullpen until the end of the second walk. The Pirates went into major stall mode. It was after the double that Ramirez came in. He was able to get out of the jam with only one more run scoring. The A-team of Weaver and Montgomery shut the Giants down in the last two innings, not allowing a base runner.

Next Game: Tonight, Angels in Pittsburgh. Here is how the Pirates stand going into tonight’s game. They are 5 games out of the wild card, with the Diamondbacks holding down the last spot. They are 4.5 games behind the Padres, 2 games behind the Marlins and 1 game behind the Cardinals. Of these 5 teams the Pirates have the best record, which is not saying much, over the last 10 games at 6-4. Greg Brown would call them the red hot Pirates. More good news is that the Angels are worse than the Giants and have lost 9 out of their last 10. Konnor Griffin will be returning tonight. The Pirates do not have any room for error. Can they get a series sweep against the worst team in baseball? Stay tuned.

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Pirates Morning Report: A Lack Of Fundamental Baseball

Final Score: Pirates 4 Giants 5 in 10 innings.

Why the Pirates Lost: This team does not know how to play fundamental baseball. The Pirates have scored a lot of runs this season. There have been too many games where they could have scored more runs if they had run the bases better or had performed situational hitting at a given moment. Last night was a perfect example. Brandon Lowe led off the bottom of the sixth with a double. Bryan Reynolds hit a line drive to deep right-center field that Drew Gilbert made a solid running catch on, taking him even further to right field. Lowe did not tag up. If he had, he would have easily made it to third base and scored on the Nick Gonzales ground ball. If everything else had played out, the Pirates would have won the game 4-3 in nine innings. Instead, they lost 5-4 in ten innings. In the bottom of the tenth, Oneil Cruz and Esmerlyn Valdez had two typical Pirate strikeouts. Cruz struck out on two pitches that were not in the strike zone. That is somewhat better than Valdez, who took 2 called strikes that were 95 MPH right down the middle and slightly above the knees. You have to wonder what he was looking for—something out of the strike zone. Again, more failures in baseball fundamentals, plate discipline, and knowledge of the strike zone cost the Pirates scoring opportunities. Whether this is just the type of players the Pirates have or it is a coaching staff failure makes no difference. Besides the reason why they lost last night’s game, it has also cost them from being in the playoffs.

Key Moments Of The Game: Bubba Chandler pitched well for 5 innings. However, the walk came back to haunt him again in the top of the 5th. With a runner on second and one out, Chandler walked Gilbert. The Pirates lost a pop-up in the sky that fell between Triolo, Cruz, and Valdez to load the bases. Chandler threw an 0-2 pitch right down the middle to Bryce Eldridge, who hit it deep enough to center field to score run number two. Turner Hill took the first pitch and ripped it into right field to make the score 3-1. The Pirates were able to tie the game to send it into extra innings. The Pirate broadcast booth was bemoaning the fact that both Bryan Reynolds in the 8th and Jacob Gonzalez in the 9th just missed home runs by about a foot. They called it a game of inches. They were right to some degree; luck was not on the Pirates’ side last night. If they had played good, solid fundamental baseball, they would have won despite the bad luck. They are now 5.5 games out of the wild card with 22 games to play. I guess you could call these games meaningful, but just barely.

Next Game: This afternoon, the Giants in Pittsburgh. The Pirates are going to have a bullpen game today. They have been pretty successful when they have gone that route. It will be fun to watch the Pirates stick to their “game plan” rather than let the game determine how long to use each pitcher. The lineup should be interesting today also. We will be waiting with anticipation to see what baseball fundamental the Pirates fail at today. The win streak was stopped a 3. Unfortunately, it was stopped by the Pirates themselves. They are one game out of last place. Stay tuned.

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Pirates Morning Report: Good Thing We Are Playing The Giants

Final Score: Pirates 13 Giants 12

Why The Pirates Won: The Pirates “pounded” out 17 singles, a double, a home run, 4 walks and had 3 batters hit by a pitch but almost lost the game. That is because the Giants had 16 hits with the Pirates giving up 8 walks and one hit batter. Paul Skenes could not get through 5 innings looking lousy doing it. The Pirates blew an 11-5 and 12-7 lead with some of the worse bullpen work of the year. Why is Evan Sisk even on this team. Plus, the Pirates yesterday added the worse pitcher they could think of in Brandon Eisert and his 6+ ERA, when there were so much better options. Gregory Soto threw 7 pitches in the 6th inning but did not come out to pitch the 7th. The Pirates won this game simply because they were playing the Giants one of the worse teams in baseball. After all the disasters from the bullpen it was appropriate that the Pirates would walk it off on a throwing error by the Giants. A competent 1st baseman would have made the scoop that would have sent the game into extra innings.

Key Moments Of The Game: Both teams combined for 35 at bats with runners in scoring positions getting a total of 14 hits. Evan Sisk came into the game in the top of the 8th got the first out of the inning and proceeded to throw 14 out of the next 17 pitches out of the strike zone to walk the bases loaded. The score was 12-7 at time. This brought in Luke (Get Me Out Of This Organization) Weaver. He threw the next 5 out of 6 pitches out of the strike zone to walk in a run. Sisk and Weaver threw 4 pitches in the strike zone over 4 batters. Weaver then gave up a double and a single and the game was tied 12-12. Christian Koss grounded into a double play to finally end the disastrous inning. In the top of the 9th even Mason Montgomery almost blew it. After hitting a batter, he got Pirate player of the game Rafael Devers to hit into a double play. Bryce Eldridge, who must be the slowest running 21 year old in the history of baseball, ripped a single to left. Jonah Cox hit a line drive double into the right field corner that Eldridge did not even try to score on. He must have been wearing lead underwear. Montgomery got Jung Hoo Lee to hit a ground ball to Brandon Lowe who after making the stop threw low to Spencer Horwitz who made the pick. The Pirates walked it off thanks to Devers not making the pick. Could we play the Giants the rest of the season?

Next Game: Tonight Giants in Pittsburgh. Pirates are now 5 games out of the wild card. Their playoff odds have moved up to 1%. They need to win 5 more games on this homestand. Last night was a gift. Will they be able to take advantage. I am sure the broadcast booth will be giddy tonight. Jared Jones will start for the Pirates. Landen Roupp will start for the Giants. He has given up 12 home runs in 73 innings. Could any team really be this bad? Well, maybe the Angels. Hey, they come to town next. Stay tuned.

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Pirates Morning Report: The Six Game Home Stand

The Pirates open a 6 game home stand against two of the worst clubs in the league, the Los Angeles Angels and the San Francisco Giants. They both have rather poor offensive clubs ranking 24th and 23rd in runs scored. What is interesting is they have allowed less runs per game than the Pirates ranking just ahead of them at 20th and 21st. Neither team has shown much signs of perking up. In August the Angels were 11-17 and the Giants 10-18. Of course the Pirates were 12-15. The Pirates need to win all 6 games to get back in the race.

I hope the Pirates will stop platooning Jared Triolo with Jacob Gonzalez. Triolo is on a bit of a hot streak. In the last 7 games his slash line is .364/.417/.500. He has had hot streaks like this before and they do seem to occur in the 2nd half of the season. Jacob Gonzalez has shown he can’t hit or field. I never thought I would say this but Triolo needs to be in the lineup every day. Repeating myself once again the Pirates need to start playing a set lineup. They do not need to give anyone days off. They do not play on Monday the rest of the season. This should be the starting lineup and batting order. Mangum DH Reynolds LF Lowe 2b Valdez RF Gonzales 3b Cruz CF Flores C Horwitz 1b Triolo SS. Once Griffin comes back have him lead off play SS. Gonzales becomes the DH. Jake Mangum with his recent struggles has dropped to an OPS+ of 96. In defensive runs save he is a +5 defender overall but -1 in centerfield. This is the best lineup the Pirates can put on the field for this stretch run. I wonder how many times we will see it, let alone with that batting order. Henry (.166/.263/.293 Slash Line) Davis will probably start tonight with Skenes pitching. I always thought you were supposed to try to win with your best players. The Pirates haven’t thought like that for 10 years. It is do or die starting tonight. Stay tuned.