Official Game Thread - 7/7 - Bucs vs Mets

[Bobster]

Bob Nutting just gleefully ordered his baseball operations people to prepare to be sellers over the next few weeks.

"And don't accept any good hitters with high salaries in return. Ask for 19-year-olds in Rookie Leagues. It'll be years before I have to pay them the MLB minimum."

[Doc]

Sometimes when we have a 95-100 loss season it doesn't bother me to much but with the starters we have, this season will bother me. Bucs have something to build on for next season but they won't.

I guess we see it differently. The catcher’s position is completely unsettled. Tellez won’t be back and Joe is adequate, at best, at first base. Cruz at short is still a mystery. Hayes at third is unreliable in that he misses too many games and he doesn’t hit well enough. Two of the outfield positions are held by three guys who can’t hit. So we’re good at second and left field. We need more. A lot more.

By build on I mean like 82 wins. A few decent hitters should get us there.

But 82 wins should never be the goal. If the team gets there, it’s failure because they won’t reach the postseason. If that’s all the Pirates want to be, an 82-80 team, there’s no point.

Decent hitters are expensive so, if they don’t come through the system, we won’t be getting any of those. And from what I’ve read, there aren’t any in the system. We’re in a bad way here.

[Doc]

Bob Nutting just gleefully ordered his baseball operations people to prepare to be sellers over the next few weeks.

"And don't accept any good hitters with high salaries in return. Ask for 19-year-olds in Rookie Leagues. It'll be years before I have to pay them the MLB minimum."

So you must’ve sat in some management meetings down there a PNC Park over the past 24 years then.

[Wildwoodcoach]

Gonzales is probably my favorite player, but he exasperates me so much. Right now, though, I want to kiss him on the mouth.

Now that's disgusting!!

[Wildwoodcoach]

I waited to post so I could gather my thoughts.
Kudos to Ortiz- he did a hell of a job
Brownie keeps talking about the playoffs- Guess that's part of his job. When the bucs
do get eliminated, this is one of those games which we can point too.
Joey Bart has to catch if only for his arm.
Chapman threw 40 pitches in the 9th. This is where the loss of Bednar really hurts.
Chapman was a closer. Not any more
The bucs had to win at least 3 of 4 before going to Brew Town.
Hopefully a certain someone who lives one street over from me will give up on
his quest for .500
The thing that really pissed me off was listening to Brownie talking about the Battle of the
Cuban Defectors between Chapman and Iglesias . I'll bet half if not more of the listeners didn't
know what the hell he was talking about

[Surgnbuck]

Pirates fans: "Champman sux! He's washed up! Want him gone! Waste of money!"

Also Pirates fans: "They won't get anything good in return like always."

With everything that's already talked about, and I missed the post game show with Hawthorn so don't know if it was brought up there either. Chapman was at a pitch count he hadn't been at since he was with the Cubs.

Why then, wasn't Nicolas brought in to face Lindor? Lindor is a switch hitter, I get that. But it was the pitch count.

FWIW ( and I will mention this with a caveat about The Wizard mentioning how you can't blame the officials), if Chapman had been given the same strike zone Manaea was getting, the Pirates win this game.

[Surgnbuck]

Pirates leading the majors in being shutout through 7 innings....or was it being in 0-0 games through 7 innings?

[Bobster]

I waited to post so I could gather my thoughts.
Kudos to Ortiz- he did a hell of a job
Brownie keeps talking about the playoffs- Guess that's part of his job. When the bucs
do get eliminated, this is one of those games which we can point too.
Joey Bart has to catch if only for his arm.
Chapman threw 40 pitches in the 9th. This is where the loss of Bednar really hurts.
Chapman was a closer. Not any more
The bucs had to win at least 3 of 4 before going to Brew Town.
Hopefully a certain someone who lives one street over from me will give up on
his quest for .500
The thing that really pissed me off was listening to Brownie talking about the Battle of the
Cuban Defectors between Chapman and Iglesias . I'll bet half if not more of the listeners didn't
know what the hell he was talking about

Agree about Chapman. He's done very little closing since his control went haywire in 2021. And he wasn't signed to be a closer here either, but BC probably thought he could handle it if needed. I was concerned about his control problems when they signed him but nobody expected it to be this bad.

Agree about Ortiz. Great job!

Bart's been making some good throws but one of those outs was due to the comically bad slide by the runner. As Kevin Young said, "You don't usually see a runner get tagged on the back when he slides feet-first."

I can't stand Greg Brown (he said to no one's surprise). But he's better than Joe Block. There's a big difference between our guys and the announcers I see for other teams. We are treated to constant interplay between the 2 announcers in the booth with frequent camera shots of them as they seem more focused on each other than on the game. Brown is an unabashed shill/apologist for the team. He always tries to be funny and he tries to have a theme or a running gag throughout the broadcast. He tries to be entertaining with catch phrases and nicknames and puns. He fake-laughs in just about every inning. I think of him as the Michael Scott of baseball broadcasting. On "The Office" Michael Scott had a background as an outstanding salesman but always thought his job was to be entertaining but he was really annoying to his employees. I think Greg Brown is an outstanding PBP announcer once the ball is put in play. Unfortunately, he spends the rest of the time trying to be the entertainment.

[Surgnbuck]

For the seat watchers: 96,193 this weekend.

Because there are two distinct groups of seat watchers among the yinzers:
1. Those who complain that the stands aren't full enough, and we have terrible fans who won't go
2. Those who complain anyone goes to games to enrich Bob, and we have terrible fans who do go

[Wildwoodcoach]

For the seat watchers: 96,193 this weekend.

Because there are two distinct groups of seat watchers among the yinzers:
1. Those who complain that the stands aren't full enough, and we have terrible fans who won't go
2. Those who complain anyone goes to games to enrich Bob, and we have terrible fans who do go

I was hoping for 100,000 but 93,000 for 3 games is very good