OnlyBucs

66585D55465E5E557550475403310 wrote: Watching the game on MLB. Always have Pirate announcers Brown, Block, Walk etc. Tonight it was the MLB guys, John Smottz and Joe Davis. What a refreshing change!!. They are excellent
I'm not a serious Joe Buck hater, but FOX is much better without him calling baseball. When he's there, it's kind of like, "I'm the star" which I guess is understandable for a network. I sometimes wonder if Greg Brown patterns himself after him. Smoltz is so awesome.

406D60717667703033020 wrote: I think they need to move on from Gamel. He's another guy that's just taking away AB's right now. He's a FA after the season, he'll be turning 31, and there really seems to be no need to continue further employment with him. He's not a difference maker. He's given the Bucs some fine moments, and we probably got the best out of his short career in MLB. But time to move on. He's not JVM, but at the same time, he's just as pointless having on the roster if they don't have any intention of trying to get him to sign a deal.
I like Gamel but I agree with your assessment. Still, I'd like to see him come back as a 4th OFer/veteran presence.


Ditto. Seems like a good guy. He can also serve as a sometime-DH since the Pirates will never go get a real one.

Couldn't MLB have scheduled "Roberto Clemente Day" on a day when the Pirates were playing at home?

517C71606776612122130 wrote: Couldn't MLB have scheduled "Roberto Clemente Day" on a day when the Pirates were playing at home?
I honestly don't know how the schedule looked like originally, but remember they had to readjust this year after the lock out?



I see that brought up everywhere on the internet. I'm sure MLB is taking notice, but scheduling is a funny thing to work around the needs of teams. No team want a lot of April and May home games. It's why when people say, "why don't they play all those April games in the domes and warm weather cities?" Because they don't want front loaded, poorly attended April and may games either. The Pirates always seem to get a good dose of home games in the summer, and that might be a concession to small market teams, IDK that to be a fact though.



I think going forward, I think MLB would like that to happen. There were people complaining that not every team in the league played last night. It just can't always happen, especially as they use September 15th, which is always a moving target as to which day of the week it will fall on. Mondays and Thursdays are usually the off days during the week for teams and the two days a lot of teams aren't playing. It was like this year on July 4th, where 4 teams (including the Pirates) weren't playing. It was just the vagary of it being on a Monday.

FWIW, the Pirates had 37 home dates in June, July, and August, 25 in April and May, 19 in September and October.

With all the home dates in September, I guess someone speculated that the Bucs would be in play-off contention this year.