Author: vet4golfing51

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Pirates Morning Report: The Total Priester Package

Final Score: Pirates 3 Brewers 4

Why The Pirates Lost: Quinn Priester pitched 5 strong innings giving up 0 runs, 3 hits, walking 2 and striking out 5. Unfortunately he pitched 6 innings. In the bottom of the 2nd he gave up 4 runs, 6 hits, including a home run and a double. You could say we saw the complete inconsistent Priester all wrapped up in one outing. Same thing could be said about the Pirates’ bats. Six of the nine players did not get a hit or a walk. They scored 3 runs on a double, home run and a home run. That was all the hits they got. They struck out 13 times. It was a tough loss that this team could not afford.

Key Moment Of The Game: The bottom of the 2nd when Priester could not shut it down. He got out of a 1st and 3rd nobody out jam in the bottom of the first and you thought there might be hope. After one out in the bottom of 2nd these hopes were dashed. BOOM, double, home run, single, single, single, and before you could say Rawhide Rowdy Tellez, it was 3-0 Brewers. A pop out and a single later it was 4-0. It only took 16 pitches to do this. At least Priester was efficient while getting blasted.

Next Game: This afternoon, Brewers in Milwaukee. Michael Perez goes for the Pirates today and he as not been that great his last couple of outings. The good news is the Brewers are going with a lefty so Tellez might as well stay in the hotel room. That way Shelton won’t be tempted to use him as a pinch hitter. Can the Pirates win this series, miracles do happen.

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Pirates Morning Report: Surviving A Disastrous 8th inning For Big Win

Final Score: Pirates 8 Brewers 6

Why The Pirates Won: For the second time in the last three games the Pirates bats came alive. Led by Bryan Reynolds’ 5 for 5 night, the Pirates put 8 runs on the board. The long ball accounted for 5 of the 8 runs. Suwinski a 2 run homer, Grandal a 2 run homer and Reynolds hit the big solo shot in the top of the 9th to give the Pirates that 2 run cushion. Keller had an uneven but solid 6 innings of work, shutting out the Brewers, but danced through the raindrops giving up 8 hits, walking no one, while striking out 7. The bullpen, which is becoming a real liability for this team, gave up 6 runs in 2 innings. Bednar who pitched his best 9th inning in a long time and Holderman are the only two that seem to be able to get anybody out. The bad news is that guys that either were up this year or did well last year are struggling at the AAA level. Jose Hernandez ERA 9.00, Ryder Ryan ERA 3.86, which is not too bad, and Carmen Mlodzinski, who pitched well for the Pirates last year out of the bullpen, is having trouble with an ERA of 6.43. Will management do anything in this area to help shore things up? The short answer is no. Let’s enjoy last night’s big win which sent the Pirates to 19-23 and 5.5 games out of first place.

Key Moments Of The Game: The Pirates ability to keep adding on is what won this game. They scored in 5 of the nine innings, including 5 in the last 3 innings. The one big play came in the bottom of the 7th with two out. Josh Fleming, who did not look good for 40 pitches, gave up a 2 out double to Willie Adamas that scored the first two runs of the game for the Brewers. For some strange reason Adamas tried to go to third and Oneil (The One Hop Relay Man) Cruz nailed him at third base and the inning was over. The bonehead play may have cost the Brewers the game.

Next Game: Tonight, Brewers in Milwaukee. Quinn (Who Is Going To Show Up Tonight) Priester is going to start tonight for the Pirates. The best way to sum up Priester’s major league career is to say this year he has become inconsistent, which is quite an improvement. Are we going to see the quality start Priester or will we see the run an inning Priester? This should determine the outcome of tonight’s game.

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Pirates Morning Report: A Game They Should Have Won

Pirates Morning Report: Pirates 4 Cubs 5 in 10 innings

Why The Pirates Lost: The Pirates could not come through when it mattered the most. This was a close, hard fought, well-played game. The Pirates had the game right in their grasp in the bottom of the 9th and failed. There was a lot to like about this game. It was the Pirates best defensive game of the year. They made no errors and made many spectacular plays that kept the Cubs off the board. If this would have been a win, the top of the 7th would have been the key moment of the game. Jack Suwinski and Oneil Cruz made great plays back-to-back to keep the game tied at 2-2. Barry (You Know What You Are Going To Get) Falter pitched his standard 81 pitch 6 innings just giving up a 2-run homer in the 1st inning. Even though his 6th inning looked pretty good, he was taken out again after a low pitch count. It is strange because right now the worst part of this team according to WAR is the bullpen. The Pirate bullpen ranks 26th and the four teams behind them are all in last place in their respective divisions. It is time to set the record straight here. The offense no question is abysmal, but this idea that the pitching is great is false. At the moment this is just an average pitching staff. In the three big categories, run prevention, true outcome results and ERA+, they are just a little above or a little below league average. Certainly, they are doing better than the hitters but this is far from some kind of an elite staff.

Key Moment Of The Game: This is really painful. The Pirates loaded the bases in the bottom of the 9th with 1 out and the score tied 2-2. Shortstop Nico Hoerner made a spectacular play on a ground ball to keep the winning run from scoring from second that saved the game. None the less, eventually, the Pirates loaded the bases with one out. Bryan Reynolds swung at the first pitch that was halfway between his big toe and knee just dribbling it out in front of the plate. They forced out the runner at home and almost threw Reynolds out at first. His mother was seen vomiting in the aisle. Oneil Cruz was able to work the count to 3-1, but then tried to pull a pitch on the outer third of the plate and flew out to right field. The Cubs scored 3 in the top of the 10th and the Pirates countered with a 2-run homer by Connor Joe, but it was not enough as the Pirates fell to 18 and 23.

Next Game: Tonight, Brewers in Milwaukee. This road trip of 7 games, may determine if this team has any hope of having a successful season. I not sure if even 3-4 will be good enough, but anything worse will certainly put the Pirates in a hole they may never get out. In the last 25 games the Pirates have scored over 4 runs just three times. The sad thing is, they lost one of those games, thanks to tonight’s starting pitcher Mitch Keller. He did have one great outing last time and he will probably need to do again if the Pirates are going to have any chance. How much longer are we going to have to watch Rawhide Rowdy Rally Killing Tellez. His last 7 games he is hitting .063. Steve Blass had a lifetime batting average of .177. Get the point.

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Pirates Morning Report: Overcoming Ten Walks

Final Score: Pirates 10 (NOT A MISPRINT) Cubs 9

Why The Pirates Won: The Pirates brought the home run ball out of a long hibernation to hit 5 that accounted for all of the Pirate runs. Connor Joe, 3 run homer, Oneil Cruz, solo homer, Michael Taylor, 2 run homer, Yasmani Grandal, 3 run homer and last but certainly not least Andrew McCutchen solo home run, that was the deciding run in the game. Paul Skenes had a little bit of nerves in his opening major league start and who could blame him, but he showed enough to see that he is the real deal. His next start will most likely be on the road which I think will be a good thing. The Pirate bullpen blew a 6-1 lead by walking in 6 runs in the top of the 5th. All told they hit a batter, threw at one point 16 straight pitches out of the strike zone, walked 6 batters in the inning and all of this happened after there were 2 outs. This turned a 6-1 lead into an 8-6 deficit going into the bottom of the 5th.

Key Moments Of The Game: In the bottom of the 5th there was a runner on 2nd base with two outs and Nick Gonzales came to the plate. He fell behind in the count 1 and 2 then battled to a 3-2 count. On the 7th pitch of the at bat he took a ball that just barely missed outside. In my view the call could have gone either way but this time it went the Pirate’s way. Yasmani Grandal took a 94 MPH fastball on the inner third of the plate belt high and blasted it into the right field stands to quickly give the Pirates lead again 9-8. McCutchen got a solo blast in the 6th and bullpen somehow held on to that lead going into the top of the 9th. David Bednar quickly gave up a double and a single to put runners on 1st and 3rd with no outs. A sacrifice fly, stolen base, and a ground out to the right side of the infield put a runner on 3rd with Cody Bellinger coming to bat. On a pitch that was very close to the same location that he hit the home run off Jared Jones the day before, he just got under it to fly it 337 feet to Jack Suwinski, to let the Pirates escape with a 10-9 much needed victory.

Next Game: This afternoon, Cubs in Pittsburgh. Was this the game that begins the turnaround for this anemic offense. Much maligned hitting coach Andy Haines was happy, but he did say he did not think McCutchen’s process was all that good on his game deciding home run. Can the Pirates win a series against a division contender? Who knows, only The Shelton knows. I can’t wait to see the goofy Sunday lineup. Will Tellez or Alika Williams bat clean up? Enquiring minds want to know. What aging veteran will get rested today, maybe Oneil Cruz, after all a right hander is pitching today. I can hardly wait.

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Pirates Morning Report: No More Bottom Fodder

Final Score: Pirates 2 Cubs 7

Why The Pirates Lost: Admittedly some hard luck on the field but again the bats failed miserably once again. They were able to score 2 runs in the first on one hit thanks to an error and 2 walks. Rally killing Rowdy Tellez was in the middle of 3 potential run scoring innings and did not do well. In the first with runners on first and second and one out he walked. That’s fine. In the third with a runner on second and no outs he flied to left field failing to move the runner over. Bad. In the fifth with runners on 1st and 2nd with one out he popped out, infield fly rule. Worse. That’s right analytics department put a struggling .194 hitter who has had 3 hits in his last 17 at bats, “slugging” .235 and put him batting cleanup. Please show me the numbers that says that is a good move. This guy should not be playing at all let alone batting FOURTH. Jarred Jones did not have his best outing but still managed to have a quality start going 6 innings giving up 2 earned runs, 7 hits, walking 2, while striking out 4, throwing 87 pitches. Hunter Stratton came in the 7th and had one of those innings. There was one hard hit ball but everything else just found the hole, putting the Pirates down 7-2, and this game was over. I have a new game for the fans at the stadium. Guess what inning the Pirates are going to score all of their runs. If you guess right, you get 2 free tickets. I wonder if anybody would play.

Key Moment Of The Game: Going into the top of the 5th the Pirates were still clinging to that 2-1 lead. With one out Nico ( I Spell My Last Name Funny) Hoerner single sharply to left field. The next batter flew out to left field. Cody Bellinger hit a line drive into the right field corner. Reynolds quickly got it out of the corner and threw a strike to Oneil Cruz who ran all the way over to the right field foul line to take the throw. He threw a perfect one hop strike to the plate that beat the runner by at least 10 feet. For whatever reason, Yasmani Grandal decided to sweep his glove across the runner rather than just hold it there or even use a two hand tag. When the glove continued to go across Grandal’s body out came the ball. At that very moment the air simply went out of this ball club. It was the perfect play ruined by a careless tag. That’s the best I can do because I really don’t know what to call it. From that point on it was just the Cubs game. Some spectacular free agent signings there Cherrington. Grandal, Tellez, and Gonzales, who Cherrington feels will definitely pitch again before he turns 40.

Next Game: Tonight, the Cubs, in Pittsburgh. Does anyone know who is starting for the Pirates tonight. I haven’t been able to find anything anywhere. I don’t think it will make a difference anyway. The Pirates won’t score that much. I’m not sure I’m going to watch. Even though Pirate management seems unphased, I just can’t take it anymore.

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Gee, Let Me Think

Daily writing prompt
What public figure do you disagree with the most?
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That is the quote from the movie Ace Ventura Pet Detective, when certain payment options are offered to Ace. The bottom line is I refuse to write anything about you know who. If I was going to answer this prompt honestly then the answer would be I disagree with all public figures equally. Back in the 60’s and 70’s public figures that were running for office created and put forth ideas on how the government should be run for the people. Then they went out and tried to persuade their constituency that their ideas were better for the common good than their opponents. Today what public figures do is to take polls on how their constituency feel on certain issues and then spew that back to them when they are running for office. There is never an original idea. They never really answer any question that is directed toward them (listening Ms. Vice President) for fear of offending someone or causing irreputable damage to their career. It is reported that everyone is afraid of you know who. It would be more accurate to say that people in public office are afraid of everything. You could look at this question from another perspective. I could say that I do not disagree with any public figure, including you know who, because none of them do anything that you can disagree with. They may say some things that you disagree with but the fact that they rarely do anything, makes what they say meaningless. I guess what I disagree with the most is that they are getting paid a lot of money to do nothing. You think they would be happy with a job like that, but they do seem to be a bunch of sour pusses. The question is will we be able to survive with that do nothing attitude. I am feeling a little warm at the moment. Goodbye.

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Pirates Morning Report: One Big Inning Not Enough This Time

Final Score: Pirates 4 Angels 5

Why The Pirates Lost: Even though it was not a grand slam, Oneil Cruz cleared the bases with a two out double and Connor Joe followed with a single to score Cruz, giving the Pirates a 4-run 5th inning. This time it was not enough. The other 8 innings they got 3 hits, no walks, and struck out 13 times. Thirteen out of 24 outs were strikeouts. The right fielder of the Angels was seen nodding off a couple of times. Here are the 12 position players batting averages over the last 15 games. Grandal has only batted 9 times with an .111 average. Get ready to be amazed. From 1st to worst: Cruz .327 Jo .292 Williams .239 Reynolds and Hayes .211 Bart .197 Tellez .189 Triolo .188 McCutchen .180 Suwinski .167 Olivares .143 Taylor .111. Eight of the 13 position players are not hitting over .200 over the last 15 games. It is a wonder that the Pirates have won any games over the last 2 weeks. Perez yesterday was not sharp and was charged with 4 runs on 8 hits in 5+ innings. Luis Ortiz came in and quickly got racked to turn a 4-2 lead into a 5-4 deficit that these anemic bats could not overcome. The Pirates are 17-21 with the Cubs and the Brewers on the horizon.

Key Moment Of The Game: The Pirates had just taken a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the 5th. The Angels had the big break back inning, and it was not cheap. A 90MPH ground ball that just got through the infield started the inning. A 102 MPH liner to left put runners on 1st and 2nd knocking Perez out of the game. Shelton called on Luis Ortiz. In the past, this has been a good move considering the contrast in styles and Ortiz being a right hander. Like most things recently this was not the case this time. Pitch 2 a 107 MPH single to left, score 4-3 Pirates. Pitch 3 a 106 MPH double to left, score tied 4-4. Pitch 8 a 98 MPH 370 feet sacrifice fly, score 5-4 Angels. In the blink of an eye the Angels broke back, and the Pirates never challenged that lead.

Next Game: Tomorrow night, Cubs in Pittsburgh. The Pirates announced yesterday that Paul Skenes is going to pitch Saturday. Big whoop. What’s he going to do, pitch 6 scoreless innings so the game will be 0-0 after 6. Unless the Pirates find a way to start scoring runs they could have 4 Hall of Famers pitching and they would lose. Three players should be off this team come 6:40 Friday night. It won’t happen but the season most likely will be over if management does not get some new blood on this team to get this offense going. What a 38 game disaster so far.

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Pirates Morning Report: Priester And Batters Back To Normal

Final Score: Pirates 0 Angels 9

Why The Pirates Lost: Quinn Priester reverted back to giving up his obligatory 1 run per inning and Pirates got back to not scoring at all. It is hard to say who was worse. At least Quinn Priester is just one person. The Pirates only had 3 hits and a walk. They had 2 at bats with runners in scoring position. You’ve heard of groupthink. This was groupstink. Priester started out fine, pitching the first 3 innings like his previous 2 starts. He gave up one hit no walks, mostly getting soft contact. Then the top of the 4th came.

The Key Moment Of The Game: The 4th inning started off innocently enough. A ground ball that found a hole on the right side of the infield and a weak fly out to right field. In a blink of an eye everything went to hell. There was a stolen base, but the next batter walked on 4 straight pitches. Priester for lack of a better term went into the twilight zone. With runners on 1st and 2nd, up stepped 35 year old, I’ve seen better days, Kevin Pillar. This led to the strangest pitch sequence I saw all year. The first pitch Grandal set up outside but as Priester started his pitch he moved quickly inside and Priester missed inside. OK. The next pitch Grandal set up outside, stayed there, and Priester missed inside again. ? The third pitch Grandal did the same thing, set the target up outside. This time Priester put the pitch on the inner part of the plate about thigh high and it was blasted into the left field seats. Did he even look at the catcher? The next inning his brain fog continued as he butchered a play on a comebacker to the mound where they had a runner dead to rights between 2nd and 3rd. Either that or Rawhide Rowdy had been working with him showing how not to do it.

The Next Game: This afternoon, Angels in Pittsburgh. The Pirates need a win tonight to be able to go 4-2 against the Angels and the Rockies who have won a combined 21 games. I honestly think that with this current group, the bats are never going to come alive. Right now, no one is really hitting. There will be a day off tomorrow and then the Pirates start a 10 game stretch where they play 7 against the Cubs and 3 against the Brewers with 7 of those games on the road. This stretch of games could determine how the rest of season is going to go. It would be the perfect time to turn this thing around. If they don’t and lose 8 out of 10 with the continued non hitting, the season could be over early. Will management make any moves on Thursday or Friday. Only The Shelton knows.

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Pirates Morning Report: KCG+OGS=Win

Final Score: Pirates 4 Angels 1

Why The Pirates Won: No deep analysis here, Mitch Keller pitched a complete game (KCG) and Edward Olivares hit a grand slam (OGS) to send them to their 3rd win in a row. Keller went the distance, giving up 1 run on 5hits, walking 1, while striking out 5. He did have some problems, as we will see when we get to key moments of the game but the good news here is, he seemed to get stronger as the game wore on. He struck out 2 in the 9th and his fastball touched 97 MPH. Without question his best start of the year by a long shot. It was nice to see Olivares come out of his funk with a double and the home run. Bryan Reynolds had a double and a single hitting the ball hard, at least 95MPH, all 4 at bats. Make no mistake though, the Pirates as a whole are still in a hitting funk. After the grand slam, thanks to a caught stealing, the Pirates only sent 3 men to the plate 4 of the last 5 innings and really never threatened to score another run. Maybe today will be the day.

Key Moments Of The Game: No question the grand slam was the big hit of the game. The Pirates had the 4-0 lead going into the top of the 4th and right off the bat Keller gave up a lead off single. Mickey Moniak scorched a drive into right center field and the runner from first tried to score. Oneil Cruz threw a one hop bullet from short right field that nailed the non-sliding runner at the plate by a half of step. This at least kept the Angels from having that break back inning. These were the first two hits that Keller had given up in the game and the score quickly could have become 4-1 with a runner on second with no outs. There was another sharply hit ball but right at Bryan Reynolds for the 2nd out. In the top of the 7th with the score 4-1 the Angels opened the inning with a double. Keller was almost as quick as Jared Jones getting out of a jam, as he induced 3 straight ground ball outs in 7 pitches. From that point on Keller mowed them down to pitch the complete game.

Next Game: Tonight, Angels in Pittsburgh. Quinn Priester takes the hill for the Pirates tonight looking to get his 3rd straight quality start. The Angels are starting Patrick Sandoval who has a career record of 18-42 but with an ERA of 3.98. He has not been quite that good this year but let’s hope his hard luck continues. The good news here is he is left handed so all 270 lbs. of Rawhide Rowdy should be on the bench. The Pirates are .001 ahead of the Reds and moved into 3rd place just 4 games behind the Cubs and Brewers. Can we make it 4 in a row. The Shadow Shelton is looking at that lineup card right now thinking how can I screw this up. Would he dare put Tellez in against a left hander? Only The Shelton knows.

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Be The Czar Of Baseball

Daily writing prompt
What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?
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For one day I would love to be the Czar of baseball. I would have complete autonomy over the game and make the following changes. Add two more teams immediately making a 32 team league, forming four 8 team Divisions. The first year I would do it by geography. There would be no American and National League. The schedule would be entirely within the division. Each team would play each other 22 times going back to a 154 game schedule. With each team playing each other that many times a true division champ should be crowned. The divisions would be named Aaron, Ruth, Robinson and Clemente. At the end of the season the division winners would play each other in an eleven game series. The series would run 3, 3, 2, and 2. If after 10 games the series was tied then the team that scored the most runs in the series would have the home field advantage for game 11. If the runs are tied, then there would be other tiebreakers to determine home field. The World Series would be 11 games with the same format. The next year, the teams that finished 1, 3, 5, and 7 in the Aaron division would move over to the Ruth division. The teams that finished 2, 4, 6, and 8 in the Ruth division would move over to the Aaron Division. You would do the same thing in the Robinson and Clemente division. That would guarantee a new division winner in two of the divisions. The fans in each city would get to see four new teams. The following year the Aaron and the Robinson division would make the switch, along with the Ruth and Clemente. Third year Clemente-Aaron, and Ruth-Robinson would be making the switch. Fans would get to see different teams every year. This would put back more significance to the regular season with only 4 teams advancing to the playoffs. It is abundantly clear that baseball is not really a playoff sport with such a long season. For two straight seasons the National League has sent the 6th seed to the World Series. I can envision those tremendous 11 game series right now and crowning a true and deserving champion.