Tag: Giving games away

Final Score: Pirates 3 Cubs 4

Why the Pirates Lost: In a game that the Pirates desperately needed to win, they put Oneil Cruz at the top of the order. He has not performed well in that role. They batted Konnor Griffin 4th for the first time in his career. It was not surprising that they went a combined 0 for 9 with 2 strikeouts. Nick Gonzales and Rafael Flores were on the bench while Henry Davis and Jacob Gonzalez played. It only got worse when it came to handling the pitching. Paul Skenes gave up 2 runs in 7 innings of pitching, throwing only 82 pitches. Skenes did not come out to pitch the 8th inning. In his last 3 innings, he faced just 9 batters thanks to a double play ball. Eight times this year, Skenes has thrown between 92 and 109 pitches, struggling through anywhere from 4 to 6 innings. What a philosophy. When a pitcher is struggling, let him throw a lot of pitches. When he is mowing them down, stop him at 82. Then the Pirates bring in Gregory Soto to pitch the 8th. Don Kelly just sits there, and watches Soto walk 2 batters and hit 2 batters to blow a 3-2 lead. All of this happened after 2 were out. The Pirates’ broadcast booth said that Luke Weaver and Mason Montgomery were not available; why, I do not know, as they did not pitch on Friday. Montgomery was warming up in the bullpen in the 9th in case the Pirates rallied, so I guess he was available. Available for nothing. Meanwhile, everyone got to see what a real manager does, as Craig Counsell made strategic move after strategic move. No move was better than taking out the left-hander in the 9th and bringing in a right-handed pitcher to face Bryan Reynolds. This mystified the Pirates’ booth. Reynolds’s OPS is 42 points lower when batting left-handed. I bet Counsell was the only one in the stadium who knew that. Reynolds struck out to end the game. The game that put the Pirates 7 games back of the last wild card spot in the loss column was a synopsis of the entire season: a poorly constructed starting lineup, not taking a pitcher out when he is struggling because no one is warming up in the bullpen, and taking out the starting pitcher when he is doing well, even though his pitch count is low. The sad thing is we are probably going to have to watch the same thing next year.

Key Moments of the Game: In a nutshell, handing in the lineup card, taking Skenes out after 7 innings, and sitting on your hands while watching a pitcher blow the game. Soto threw 31 pitches in the inning, finding the strike zone just 10 times. Kelly stood in the dugout and watched all of this. He did not get Ramirez warming up until after Soto hit a batter, making the score 4-3 Cubs. The Pirates have had some key injuries; make no mistake about it. Poor lineup construction and poor in-game management are the reasons this team is not going to make the playoffs. What the Pirates do makes no sense at all.

Next game: This afternoon, Cubs in Chicago. The Cubs will be going for the sweep. I am sure that Henry Davis and his .167 batting average will make his third consecutive start, since lefty Matthew Boyd is pitching for the Cubs. Davis hits .127 against lefties, but he does bat right-handed. I expect that Luke Weaver and Mason Montgomery will be able to pitch today but who knows? Stay tuned.

Final Score: Pirates 5 Braves 10

Why The Pirates Lost: Bad decisions by the management team or who ever makes these asinine decisions. You have to go back to Tuesday for the first dumb decision. Bringing Carmen Mlodzinski into a game that you are ahead 10-2. Even with that dumb decision, he only threw 24 pitches, but they still did not use him yesterday when he was really needed. Starting Tyler Callihan yesterday with an OPS in the last 15 games of .618 over Marcel Ozuna with an OPS of .716 over his last 15 games. Taking Mitch Keller out after throwing 72 pitches in 3 innings. Have you seen the way this bullpen of schmucks performs. Then bringing in Cam Sanders. Oh my God he gave up 3 runs in 2/3 innings of work. What a surprise. Then after the position players battled back to make the score 6-5 you top it off by bringing in Dennis Santana who failed miserably the night before. Mason Montgomery could have pitched. Santana and Montgomery had thrown the exact same number of pitches, 16, the night before. Four of the next 6 batters were left handed. At the very least you should have left Gregory Soto pitch to the first two. He had thrown only 11 pitches the inning before. Here is what Santana did against the left-handed batters. Walk, single, intentional walk, grand slam home run, 10-5 game essentially over. Great job Donnie Kelly. Donnie Osmond could have done a better job.

Key Moments Of The Game: The second inning the Pirates had 2nd and 3rd and no outs and could not score. After all the bad decisions there was still room to make a great one. Bring in Mason Montgomery to face Mike Yastremski with the bases loaded. I am sure that Don Kelly was not aware that this year against left hand pitching Yastremski is hitting .200 and has not hit a home run all season off a lefty. For his career he is hitting .210 with 20 of his 128 homers coming against lefties. Why would Don Kelly know such a thing. It is only his job. What a terrible management team and coaching staff.

Next Game: Tonight, Brewers in Pittsburgh. The Pirates are back to .500, what else. One thing is for sure though they are not going into the All Star break at .500. It will be either be 3 games above or below or 1 game above or below. The Pirates lucked out and did not have to face Chris Sale in the Atlanta series. It did them no good they still lost the series. They won’t be so lucky with Brewers as Jacob Misiorowski is going on Sunday. Paul Skenes will pitch for the Pirates. Don Kelly has announced that Dennis Santana will be the closer for the rest of the season. (Not Really) He might as well be. This team has not a chance for the playoffs. The trade deadline will come and go with Pirates doing what they do best, nothing.

Final Score: Pirates 2 Brewers 5

Why The Pirates Lost: Even though the this was a team effort the offense outdid themselves in this game. After the Bryan Reynolds home run to give the Pirates a 2-0 lead in the 3rd inning, the next 12 batters went down in order. Jason Delay, our “offensive” catcher had a particular “good” day. His first at bat he came up with the bases loaded with 2 outs and did not swing at 6 pitches to be called out on strikes. The Daniel Vogelbach philosophy of hitting emerges once again. The next time up he stuck out on 3 pitches but at least he fouled one off and swung at the last one, but of course, it was out of the strike zone. The Pirates got their last 2 hits of the game in the 7th inning and Delay came up with 1st and 2nd and 1 out. He did not waste any time, swung at the first pitch out of the strike zone and grounded into a double play. If they did such things in baseball, the Brewers would have given him the game ball. On the pitching side of the ledger Luis Ortiz pitch an ok 4 and 2/3 innings before being removed in the 5th, for another right handed pitcher, after he had just recorded an out. He had only thrown 84 pitches and with the bullpen struggles you would have thought they would have given him a little more, leeway before taking him out. The bullpen went out and handed the game to the Brewers but at least they pitched ok for 2+ innings.

The Key Moment Of The Game: The bottom of the 8th is just too depressing to go into detail, but the bullpen was instrumental in helping the Brewers win the game. Thanks to 3 walks, the Brewers scored 4 runs on just 2 hits and both were singles. The Pirate staff gave up 6 for the game, but those 3 won the game for the Brewers.

Next Game: Tonight, the Cubs in Pittsburgh. After losing 6 in a row the Pirates find themselves in 3rd place 2.5 games behind the Brewers. They are 2 games below .500. Henry Davis is being bought up. They will need more help than that, but it can’t hurt. Will they snap out of it tonight?