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Pirates Morning Report: Can’t Overcome Mistakes Every Game

Final Score: Pirates 7 Dodgers 8

Why The Pirates Lost: Simply just too many mistakes. Three errors to begin with one allowing 2 runs to score in the 1st inning on a little bloop double. The Pirate pitchers walked 4 and 3 of those scored. Oviedo went 5.1 innings and seemed to rely too much on his breaking ball but even so did not have any real good luck. Three runs scored on two bloop hits. This time Colin Holderman made it too interesting giving up the big 3 run blast by the .163 hitting Chris Taylor. The Pirate hitters had a big night scoring 7 runs on 12 hits and a walk, but it was not good enough and their record fell to 16-8.

Key Moments Of The Game: In the bottom of the 1st the Pirates had scored 1 run to cut the lead in half and had runners on 1st and 2nd with 2 out. Connor Joe then hit a drive down the line in left, that David Peralta made a great diving catch, preventing the Pirates from scoring 2 more runs. The Pirates had the bases loaded with 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th. They had loaded the bases on a single, walk and a hit batsman. Andrew McCutchen, who hit the big 3 run homer in bottom of the 4th to give the Pirates a 7-2 lead, worked the count out to 3-1. He swung on a high inside pitch that may or may not have been called a strike and popped out to the catcher to end the inning. All in all, it was not the Pirates night. It was one of their few pitching failure losses of the season. Hopefully, it will be a while before the next one.

The Next Game: Tonight, Dodgers in Pittsburgh. It will be up to Roansy Contreras to try and get the Pirates back on track. Tony Gonsolin will be making his first start of the season for the Dodgers. Whether the Pirates win or lose tonight I do not think is critical, but they need to play a much cleaner game. The team does seem to have a certain amount of resiliency, so a bounce back is likely.

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Golf: How To Plan Your Golf Shots

If you are expecting to learn how to plan golf shots, then you will be disappointed, because it is obvious from my play yesterday, that I really don’t know how. However, I have a very good excuse, at least for now, why I am so bad at it. It’s like someone writing a book about how to be able to run a 4 minute mile. The vast majority of people, no matter how much they followed the instructions in the book, would never be able to run a mile in 4 minutes. Time would be the enemy. The same could be said about planning golf shots, especially shots that are approaching the green and around the green. Tee shots on par 4’s and 5’s do not have to be near as precise, but even those shots you have to have some idea of how you want to play the hole. If you watch professional golf on TV one of the complaints recently is slow play. Slow play in professional golf is not from standing over the ball too long or poor shots, but from how long it takes these players to figure out what type of shot they are going to hit and reading putts. If lower handicap players even took half as much time, they would be banned from the course on about the 6th hole. Many times you can hear these discussions on the telecast. They could be anywhere from about 160 yards in from the green and they are talking in single yards. The caddy might say something like hit it 147 yards. The player may come back with what about 149. They check the wind, the lie, and where the pin exactly is. Even with all this time spent and help from the caddy, they still seem to make some kind of miscalculation more often than not. Now, let’s look at my warped thinking from yesterday where I spent a maximum of 30 to 45 seconds trying to figure out what shot to hit in less than ideal conditions.

I am not going to go through all of the shots but what I consider the key ones that affected my thinking. I had just come off making a double bogey on the 1st hole because I hit my second shot about 5 to 10 yards left of where I was supposed to hit it and this resulted in my ball going about 30 yards down a steep embankment. I hit a decent drive on 2 and had about 120 yards to the middle of the green but dead uphill and I was in the rough with only a fair lie. The wind was helping a little but between the cold temperatures and how much uphill it was I decided to hit a 9 iron which I usually hit about 140. I expected not to make great contact. I hit the shot exactly how I thought I would and it looked like it barely got over the hill onto the green. But when I got to the green I was at least 30 to 40 feet over the green. This led me to be short on the next 7 approach shots. The first one was a bit of a mishit but the rest were hit solid but came up short because of wind or elevation or both. By the time I got to the 17th hole a par 3 of about 125 yards I took my 48 degree wedge and crushed it 50 feet past the pin. I hit a good drive on 18 but was on a downhill lie in the rough with a good lie and I was 95 yards to the middle of the green. I took my 58 degree wedge, played it back in my stance and expected it to come out lower than normal with some run on it. I hit it higher than expected and it squirted a little right and I missed the green. If I had made better decisions, I would have easily broken 80 and maybe came close to 75. Would I have done better if I took 4 to 5 minutes like they do on TV to decide what shot I am going to hit? I really don’t know or do I care. If I took that long to decide, I would probably be playing alone all the time. So, what’s a mother to do?

At this point, I really do not know. This was one of my better ball striking rounds of the early year. The score, however, sucked. If I had made the proper decision on 14 out of 18 holes I would have shot in the mid 70’s with no problem. This will be the main focus of my golf game for a while, making a better shot plan. I am not sure how I am going to do it but I know I have to do it in under 60 seconds. We will see how my scores go in the next few weeks.

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Golf Diary

Round Played: Chippewa Score: 85 Greens In Reg: 5 Putts: 34

The Good: Believe it or not the ball striking in general. Even the short game was not horrendous.

The Bad: My club selection. I could not get the right distance. I hit many good shots but they wound up way short or way long. My shots could be classified as 2 long, 7 short, 1 good, and 6 where club selection was not a factor. I picked the right club 3 times. One shot was good and the other 2 were off by about 5 yards left or right but it put me in very bad positions. When I am saying long or short, I am talking about at least 40 ft. and sometimes more. This time my putting could not make this round respectable. I had 3 three putt greens, and never made a putt over 6 feet. I hit many good putts, they just did not find the hole. The weather was cold again.

The Luck Of The Round: I can’t say I had any real bad luck. It was just one of those days where the decision making process was bad and any little mistake seemed to be magnified. Still, I was encouraged by the overall ball striking of the round. See if I can build upon that.

Next Round: Thursday, Riverview. Hope it will be a little warmer.

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Pirates Morning Report: Reds, May You Rest In Peace

Final Score: Pirates 2 Reds 0

Why The Pirates Won: Vince (Will I Be Able To Keep This Up) Velasquez pitched the strongest game of the year, going 7 innings, giving up no runs, just 2 hits, walking 2 in a row and striking out 10. I will gladly be wrong about Velasquez, if he can keep this up for the remainder of the season. The A team of Holderman and Bednar finished up the shutout. Holderman has been extremely effective as the set up man, but he always makes it interesting. The Pirates were only able to muster 2 runs on 6 hits, and 1 walk. Suwinski got a big 2 out double in the bottom of the 8th to drive in a nice insurance run. The bottom of the 8th also featured a stolen base by Carlos Santana that helped make scoring the 2nd run very easy. I wrote the Pirates needed to bury the Reds and they did with great pitching that literally got better as the series went on. The Reds scored 3, 2, 1, and finally 0 runs to end the series. The 4 game sweep enabled the Pirates to improve to 16-7, and don’t look now, but are in first place.

The Key Moment Of The Game: After getting the first 7 batters out, all of a sudden it seemed like Velasquez could not find the plate and he walked 2 batters in a row. There was a conference on the mound, and it seemed to get Velasquez back on track and he never looked back. This was the first time that Velasquez has had back to back quality starts since 2018. It was a beautiful thing.

Next Game: Tomorrow night, Dodgers in Pittsburgh. Johan Oviedo will open against the Dodgers going against Noah Syndergaard. With the sweep of the Reds, the Pirates need to win only 1 of the next 3 to make this a successful home stand. Of course, I will take 2 out of 3 or another Pirate sweep. This should be one great series.

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Golf Diary:

The Round: Played Stoughton Acres in Butler Pa. Score: 80 Greens In Reg: 5 Putts: 30

The Good: Putting kept the round from being embarrassing. I did have one 3 putt but made lots of par saves and a nice 20 foot birdie putt. Drove the ball well but was not consistent for the day.

The Bad: Iron play hitting only 5 greens and the short game was brutal. Poor thinking on some holes cost me strokes also. It was cold as I expected, but still hard on these old bones.

The Luck Of The Round: Made one really long putt of about 40 feet that I thought I pulled. It was on the same hole that my drive just skimmed a tree on the right side but it threw the ball further right behind the tree. The breaks evened up on one hole. Did hit a tree on another hole that kept me from going into the lake and made a nice twenty footer to save par from the fringe. On the whole the good luck was ahead of the bad.

Next Round: Tomorrow, Chippewa, in Bentleyville. Another cold one but maybe a little more sun that might help. I just love spring.

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Pirates Morning Report: The B Squad Comes Through

Final Score: Pirates 2 Reds 1

Why The Pirates Won: Rich Hill pitched 5 dancing through the raindrop’s innings giving up on 1 run on 6 hits and 3 walks. The Reds had 2 runners on base in 4 of the 5 innings. The 4th inning saw only 3 batters but that was because one was picked off 1st base after getting a single. Then the B squad of the bullpen took over the game. Yohan Ramirez pitched the 6th and 7th, giving up 2 hits and a walk, but struck out 4, many of them on balls that almost hit the Red’s right handed batters. Then my old buddy DUJ came in to pitch the 8th and 9th, retiring all 6 batters he faced on just 22 pitches. This was his 10th appearance of the year, and he has had only 2 bad outings. It will be interesting to see who will go when De Jong comes back. The Pirate bats were more or less quiet but got 1 run on an opening triple by Hayes, followed by a sacrifice fly by Reynolds, who had a very nice offensive game getting 2 doubles. In the bottom of the 4th, Carlos Santana and Jack Suwinski had back to back doubles to get the game deciding run.

Key Moments Of The Game: Top of the 1st, 1st and 3rd, 2 outs, no runs scored. Top of the 2nd, 1st and 2nd, 2 outs, no runs scored. Top of the 3rd, 1st and 2nd no outs, no runs scored. Last but not least, top of the 5th, single, strikeout, single and misplayed ball by Bae to score a run and put a runner on 2nd with 1 out, no more runs scored. The Reds were 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position and left 10 runners on base for the game. Simply a game of lost opportunities for the Reds to allow the Pirates to move to 15-7.

Next Game: This afternoon, Reds in Pittsburgh. Another buddy of mine Vince (I Am Going To Prove You Wrong) Velasquez will start, to try and get the Pirates a sweep of the Reds. There is no question the Pirates are on a roll.

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Pirates Morning Report: How Do They Do It?

Final Score: Pirates 4 Reds 2

Why The Pirates Won: Another Pirate win when looking at the box score, you have to wonder how did they win that one? The top 4 hitters in the lineup went 1 for 14 with 2 walks. There were a lot of 0fers, as only 4 Pirates got hits. Connor Joe had 3 hits, as he continues to swing a hot bat. The Pirates made 2 throwing errors, one in the 7th and another in the 8th, but the Reds could not take advantage. Mitch Keller got off to a hot start by retiring the first 9 batters he faced. The next 3 innings he gave up 2 runs, 5 hits, walked 1 and hit a batter. The bullpen was able to survive the 2 throwing errors and Bednar pitched a clean 9th to get the save as the Pittsburgh (We Don’t Have To Play Our Best To Win) Pirates went to 14-7.

Key Moments Of The Game: The Pirates only had 6 hits but 2 of them drove in 3 runs. Mark (Pop Gun Arm) Mathias got a big 1 out single in the second to drive in 2 runs. The Pirate base runners were able to get into scoring position thanks to a balk. The Reds really helped the Pirates get the run that took the lead 3-2. Connor Joe singled with one out in the bottom of the 6th, moved to second on a wild pitch, and went to third on a Suwinski ground out to 2nd. Joe scored when the Reds shortstop could not cleanly field a Mathias grounder. As mentioned previously the top of the order only got 1 hit, but that was a big one by Carlos Santana, a 2 out double that drove Andrew McCutchen home from 1st, after he walked.

Next Game: Tonight, Reds in Pittsburgh. Rich Hill will start for the Pirates tonight and has done well since his first 2 disastrous starts. The Pirates are now 14-7 and I feel the most impressive thing about this team has been their unimpressive wins. At least for now, they seem to be able to overcome their mistakes. The competition has not been that great but anybody can beat you, just ask the Phillies and the Rangers.

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Pirates Morning Report: Winning With 1 Hit Over The Last 8 Innings

Final Score: Pirates 4 Reds 3

Why The Pirates Won: Jet Lag did not set in until about 7:15 PM last night. The Pirates took a big first inning where Connor Jo hit a 3 run homer and Jack Suwinski hit a solo shot to take a 4-0 lead in the 1st inning, and they held on for a 4-3 victory over the Reds to go 13-7 for the season. The rest of the way they managed only 1 hit with a couple of walks, striking out 10 times. Roansy Contreras seemed back to his old form pitching 6 and 2/3rds innings, giving up 1 run, 5 hits, walking 2 and striking out 8. It was his best performance of the year. The bullpen survived the 8th inning and Bednar pitched a clean 9th to pick up the save. It is easy to be critical of this win, but it is a lot better than being shut out by the Rockies, like the Phillies, at home, were last night. Yes, that’s correct, the Rockies.

The Key Moment Of The Game: The top of the 8th the Pirates still held a nice 4-1 lead and Colin Holderman came into pitch. Things began to unravel quickly. Jose Barrero got a swinging bunt single and Holderman threw the ball away allowing him to get to 2nd base. Then a wild pitch moved him to third. Jonathan India singled to right to drive in Barrero to make it 4-2. T. J. Friedl took a 3-2 pitch into right field for another single putting runners at 1st and 2nd. The Reds did a double steal, that the runners got such a big jump, a throw could not be made. Spencer Speer hit a sacrifice fly to score the 3rd run and move the runner to 3rd with only one out. Jake Fraley hit a hard low liner, but right at Ke’Bryan Hayes, who made a nice scoop of the ball, held the runner at 3rd, and threw out Fraley for the big 2nd out. Holderman struck out Tyler Stephenson on 3 pitches to end the inning. Whew!!!

Next Game: Tonight, Red in Pittsburgh. Mitch Keller will start for the Pirates and Graham Ashcraft for the Reds. Ashcraft has gotten off to a great start this season, pitching 6 innings every start and never allowing more than 2 runs. Will the Pirates light up another hot pitcher like they did in Colorado. Let’s hope they get a good night’s sleep. It would have been a heartbreaking loss for the Pirates if the Reds would have come back and won the game. In that first inning, I thought Greg Brown may pass out, he got so excited. I would not be surprised to see him hooked up to some monitors tonight. He said how the Pirates are surprising everybody with their good start. Well, not everybody, oh thy great Pirate shill. The season has a long way to go and there is going to be ups and downs for this team. As the guy who jumped off the Empire State Building said as he went by each floor, so far so good.

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Golf Diary

The Round: Played Riverview Score: 78 Greens In Reg: 8 Putts: 32

The Good: Doing a new swing thing that I even incorporate in the short game and putting. It worked pretty well. Did nothing outstanding but nothing was horrible either. Hit my irons better than the norm but that’s not saying much.

The Bad: With the new swing thing my driving suffered the most especially in the beginning, but I was able to overcome it with some good putting and chipping. The front nine I bogied 1 and 9 but parred all the rest. The back nine was up and down but mostly down for a 41.

The Luck Of The Round: Did not have very much good luck that was for sure. The 10th hole started the back nine and the round decline. I hit a 51 degree wedge form 110 yards to a downhill pin location. I pulled it just a touch and the ball bounced to the left and into the trap. I skulled the sand shot over the green and made double bogey. I had another ball take a big bounce left and get close enough to a tree that it affected my swing, and this led to another bogey.

Next Round: Stoughton Acres, in Butler Pa. on Sunday. It will be cold.

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Pirates Morning Report: Another Blow Out Win

Final Score: Pirates 14 Rockies 3

Why The Pirates Won: This one is easy. Fourteen runs, 18 hits, 5 walks. All the starters got into the act with exception of Bryan Reynolds, who got tossed out of the game for arguing a called strike. Seven of the other 8 starters got at least 2 hits and Jack Suwinski walked twice and drove in a run on a sacrifice fly. It has been an amazing hitting series for the Pirates. The Pirates are 12-7 as they head home for a 7 game homestand. Johan Oviedo pitched a solid 6 innings and sometimes that is a hard thing to do when you have a big lead, but he did it with ease. He did walk 3 batters, which is a more than you would want but he gave up only 1 run and threw only 84 pitches.

Key Moment Of The Game: The fact that the Pirates scored 5 in the 1st and 4 in the 2nd and never let the Rockies even remotely get into the game says it all. They stepped on the the Rockies throat and never let up. I believe this shows a lot about this team. Now for the homestand.

Next Game: Tonight, the Reds in Pittsburgh. Roansy Contreras will start for the Pirates and now that they are at home, they need to keep up the momentum. They will play 4 against the Reds and 3 against the Dodgers. They need to bury the Reds and take two from the Dodgers. They should go 5-2 over these next 7 games if they want to consider themselves a contending team. At the very least they need to go 4-3. Again, it is way too early in the season to look at any set of games as the key to the season, but they need to keep the vibe going. Speaking of vibes, I was right about the “minor” injury to Ji Man Choi when I said he wouldn’t return until July 4th. Now, that seems optimistic. Fortunately, they have plenty of talent to replace him and seem to be doing ok without Cruz. Let’s go Bucs.