4E69787C79645B6F787979641D0 wrote: Two more games recently even that stick out are the first game of the Cards series last week where they were up 4-0 and 6-4 and lost and the middle game of the Braves series where Archer pitches and they were up 3-1 and Kela I believe blew that game. Add two more wins there and the Pirates are 79-72 and probably 3 games back of a wildcard spot now with 12 games left to play which is plenty of time to make up such a deficit.
I don't think it's fair to say if this, that, or the other had happened our record would be better and we would be X fewer games back. Because in such a parallel universe, other teams could also change unfavorable outcomes to favorable if this that or the other had happened. So I don't like to look at what the record could have been. I prefer to look at the effort. It's disturbing how many times the Pirates/Hurdle/NH didn't put forth their best effort to win. And maybe if Holmes doesn't pitch that game to destroy momentum, Williams starts and they lose anyway. We can't predict alternative outcomes. Especially when we apply that concept to one team and one team alone. But we have a right to expect the team to prioritize winning. Freese and Harrison noted that lack of effort in ST. And we saw far too many games this season where that same thing played out. I mentioned a while back that all teams lose a lot of games that they are trying their best to win. So you can't punt on other games. But the Pirates do that far too often. And here we are in September regretting losses that didn't involve the maximum effort to win. TBMTIB seem to think they are smarter than everyone else even while punting on some games. But I suspect the organizations that try to win all their games are smarter.
Bucs vs Royals - 9/18 . . .
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