Lineup: Josh Harrison 2B,Starling Marte LF, Cutch CF, Josh Bell 1B, David Freese 3B, Elias Diaz C, Jordan Luplow RF, Jordy Mercer SS & Jameson Taillon P. Starling's OBP at leadoff is .337; J-Hay's is .294. In the second spot, Marte's at .294 and Josh at .364. So guess who's batting first and who's hitting second... Stew sits after four straight starts and Luplow gets some pasture work.
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| Jamo looking for the magic to reappear (photo Pittsburgh Pirates) |
Pitchers: Jameson Taillon (7-5, 4.75) v Tyler Mahle (0-1, 5.40). On Sunday, Taillon needed 108 pitches to get through four innings against these Reds. Over his past nine starts, Jamo's slash is 2-3/7.68 ERA w/1.87 WHIP and he can't find the strike zone. With September upon us, might be time to give JT a blow for both physical and mental health purposes.This is Mahle's second big-league start. In his first on Sunday against the Pirates, he gave up three earned runs w/four hits & four walks over five innings in a 5-2 loss.
Notes:
- Adam Frazier is the Pirates’ recipient of the 2017 "Heart & Hustle" award and he'll be recognized in a pregame ceremony tonight.
- Don't get too bent out of shape about the lack of call ups; remember that Jose Osuna, Elias Diaz, Max Moroff, Jordan Luplow, Dovydas Neverauskas, Steven Brault and Angel Sanchez are already rostered.
- Not a lot of home cookin' for Pittsburgh in the past couple of campaigns. The Bucs have gone 34-32 at PNC Park this season after going 38-42 in 2016.
Please everyone, stop going to the games. Ron c'mon - enough is enough. W.J.P. comments are dead on. I replied back and I'm sure I speak the minds of all most all past and current bucco fans. It's truly a disgrace to all of us loyal fans and it's a disgrace to this city and entire fan base with what a joke if moves and non moves N.H. has and or hasn't made. This latest fiasco with J.N. is just simply the topping on the cake of disaster's
ReplyDeleteTime to definitely get "bent out of shape" Ron. We are all tired and quite frankly extremely irritated to keep it nice here on the net, enough is enough. No more stew, no more thug jaso🤔 c'mon Ron enough is enough. One bad decision after another. This team was only 2 games out, 1 & 1/2 I believe actually and they knew Polanco was going to miss significant time now twice this year they had time and resources to address a very obvious weakness. Neal, Frank and nut job all are a disgrace, enough is enough
ReplyDeleteI agree Mike that the frustration is pretty well founded. They've needed an extra OF'er, 3B'man and bullpen help since camp w/o making a move, and then got caught pants down in July when they couldn't decide to buy or sell so stayed on the pot which is what triggered the Nicasio snafu. I can't buy the budget bit; Kontos and S-Rod couldn't have eaten up what they saved w/o Marte & Kang. But yah, if u can figure out a future direction, let us know, lol. I don't see any rhyme or reason to the current roster construction. Clint hasn't helped; he's done some really odd lineup and bullpen management this year. This will be a good season to put in the rear view mirror.
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing, Michael. As a good conservative - libertarian - free market guy, I can't (and won't) begrudge Bob Nutting's Businessman's Model for running the franchise---AS LONG AS the goal is "winning within a budget" as opposed to "staying within our budget regardless of whether we win or not".
ReplyDeleteThe question for me, assuming for a moment that they really ARE trying to "win within a budget", is: okay then, what exactly is our goal, and what are we doing, specifically, to reach that goal? Are we 1) just trying to keep the current pretty-good-on-paper-but-not-great collection of talent together for one more year to see if we catch lightning in a bottle? Are we 2) actively trying to add talent to the current core---particularly starting pitching---to really go for it? Or are we 3) just floundering around because we can't figure out what to do?
I don't blame you for thinking that maybe it's #3, or even that Nutting and Co aren't really trying to win. I am willing to give them one more year simply because of the Kang and Marte fiasco---who could have predicted either of both of those?---and also because of the recent, nice-little-3-year-run. But add in Hurdle's recent run of strange decisions in on-field management to the weird inertia in the front office, and it won't be long before I'm joining the mob with pitchforks and torches.