Official Game Lineup - 4/26 - Bucs @ Dodgers

[Surgnbuck]

yeah, I didn't go to bed right away, I had to stay and punish myself and watch the rest of the disaster.

I wonder who's in the OF Sunday? Glasnow pitching for the Dodgers. Will Gorski get a chance? I'm guessing he will be in RF, with Reynolds taking over DH duties for Cutch. Probably see Pham in LF too, but wouldn't surprise me in the least if we see Canario out there.

I really wish Triolo could hit. He's clearly shown he can play first base at a high level. We also have an elite defender at third. However, we have no punch from any infielder. Valdez .690 OPS is the best of the bunch of him, Frazier, Triolo, IKF, and Hayes.

I'm trying to find something to make me feel better. Watching the post game show, I see Eugenio Suarez became only the 19th player in Major League history to hit 4 home runs in a game, but the Diamondbacks still lost the game.

Nope. didn't make me feel better.

[Bobster]

The hallmark of the Cherington regime is that player performance means nothing. He's had some success bringing in veteran pitchers but otherwise, he acquires aging and/or declining position players with predictable results. But Cherington seems firmly married to his theories and analytics that tell him he's smarter than everyone else. So when his always struggling players always struggle, he just says they have to play better. Because Cherington's process assures him they could play better regardless of what their history shows.

Similarly Nicolas, always plagued by control problems even in the minors, was recalled from Indy where he was performing poorly. He had even walked 3 in 4 innings there. But Cherington knew better. Cherington's analysis was the Nicolas was ready. Unfortunately he struggled in 2 of his first 3 appearances since his recall. Holderman's ineffectiveness got him optioned back to Indy. He appeared in 2 games there, the second of which was very poor. But Cherington was too smart to be fooled by an ineffective pitcher being ineffective. The GM's superior wisdom disregarded Holderman's struggles and recalled him. Holderman was immediately ineffective. Who could have guessed?

The Pirates desperately need hitting, especially HR power. Gorski was hitting well at Indy and finally got recalled. He homered in his first AB. Since that game, he's been glued to the bench. We can blame Shelton but I'm sure Cherington has a lot of (if not the most) influence on who plays. It took a month for Suwinski to finally be optioned instead of being an automatic out. But they still have the automatic out of Canario while Solak hits .385 at Indy. Canario's struggles don't matter. Neither does Solak's success. Cherington always knows better than to be influenced by performance.

Cherington/Shelton don't like consistent lineups. When a player does well, they believe it's because they put him in the right situation. So he's just as likely to take a seat on the bench the next day. When a player does poorly, they see it as an outlier to their perfect analytical data that shows the player underperformed. So the solution is to just "play better." This is now the 6th year that Cherington's approach to constructing a team has been a dismal failure. But when he doesn't let performance--good or bad--influence his decisions, there's no other option but to fail.

[Doc]

I hate Pages!!!

He's the kind of player who, if the Pirates acquired him, partly because of how he performs against us, would come here, hit .198, and be gone six months later, his career in ruin.

[Doc]

Want to know what the definition of "rallys come here to die" is?

Reynolds-McCutchen-Valdez-Bart our 2-5 hitters went 0-16 with two walks and produced one ground out RBI, but cancel out that RBI and a walk by Bart getting thrown out at home on a play he had no business running on. They had 9 LOB combined.

Reynolds strikes out looking top of the ninth, and walks off complaining about the calls, and he's going to feel like a dope when he sees just how much of the plate the called strikes actually had.

Your leadoff hitter goes 2-4 and adds a walk to the mix. Your 6-9 hitters go 6-14 and a walk, but with all that damage no runs batted in, but they scored 3 of the 4 runs, Cruz scoring the other on a leadoff home run.

Keller with a quality start, though he gave up a run he shouldn't have, the Pirates had a bases loaded, no outs situation and scored only one run, they gave up an unearned run from a pure lazy throw.

But Shelton had to top them all, by bringing in Holderman.

What a freaking shame, first pitch of the game the Pirates have the lead, yet somehow with all the good things that happened with Cruz, the bottom 4 of the lineup, Keller righting the ship, they still somehow managed to get their teeth kicked in.

Bad fielding, terrible situational hitting, poor base running, poor bullpen usage. Tell me if this sounds familiar.

Teaching, and working on, fielding and base running costs no money. The "small market" excuse doesn't apply. These things the Pirates should work on to the point that no one is better. It's how close games can be won. There's not one excuse that's acceptable for why the players in this organization are so bad at both.

[Doc]

The hallmark of the Cherington regime is that player performance means nothing. He's had some success bringing in veteran pitchers but otherwise, he acquires aging and/or declining position players with predictable results. But Cherington seems firmly married to his theories and analytics that tell him he's smarter than everyone else. So when his always struggling players always struggle, he just says they have to play better. Because Cherington's process assures him they could play better regardless of what their history shows.

Similarly Nicolas, always plagued by control problems even in the minors, was recalled from Indy where he was performing poorly. He had even walked 3 in 4 innings there. But Cherington knew better. Cherington's analysis was the Nicolas was ready. Unfortunately he struggled in 2 of his first 3 appearances since his recall. Holderman's ineffectiveness got him optioned back to Indy. He appeared in 2 games there, the second of which was very poor. But Cherington was too smart to be fooled by an ineffective pitcher being ineffective. The GM's superior wisdom disregarded Holderman's struggles and recalled him. Holderman was immediately ineffective. Who could have guessed?

The Pirates desperately need hitting, especially HR power. Gorski was hitting well at Indy and finally got recalled. He homered in his first AB. Since that game, he's been glued to the bench. We can blame Shelton but I'm sure Cherington has a lot of (if not the most) influence on who plays. It took a month for Suwinski to finally be optioned instead of being an automatic out. But they still have the automatic out of Canario while Solak hits .385 at Indy. Canario's struggles don't matter. Neither does Solak's success. Cherington always knows better than to be influenced by performance.

Cherington/Shelton don't like consistent lineups. When a player does well, they believe it's because they put him in the right situation. So he's just as likely to take a seat on the bench the next day. When a player does poorly, they see it as an outlier to their perfect analytical data that shows the player underperformed. So the solution is to just "play better." This is now the 6th year that Cherington's approach to constructing a team has been a dismal failure. But when he doesn't let performance--good or bad--influence his decisions, there's no other option but to fail.

Bobster, you just wrote a graduate-level thesis, the title of which could be, "How To Assure Failure in Seven Easy Steps". Looks like A+ work.

[Wildwoodcoach]

I didn't even know he was activated until just now, Burrows was sent back down. Shelton just couldn't resist showing faith in him, could he?

WTF are you putting him in a high leverage situation first time out?Why not Santana? Why not Bednar? Why not Nicolas?

And Edman doubles to center as Cruz bobbles it, but he's probably in there anyhow.

I hate Shelton, I mean I really, really, really hate that stupid booger smearing idiot

Booger smearing idiot. Now that's a good one

[JollyRoger8]

Sadly, this could easily have been a 5-0 road trip so far. Instead it likely will be 3-3 and still looking up at all the teams in the Central.
This was not a case of the 2 LA teams outperforming the Pirates.
It was self inflicted losses. Instead of feeling joyous that our season may be turning around, we feel dejected on what could have been.

[bucs607179]

The hallmark of the Cherington regime is that player performance means nothing. He's had some success bringing in veteran pitchers but otherwise, he acquires aging and/or declining position players with predictable results. But Cherington seems firmly married to his theories and analytics that tell him he's smarter than everyone else. So when his always struggling players always struggle, he just says they have to play better. Because Cherington's process assures him they could play better regardless of what their history shows.

Similarly Nicolas, always plagued by control problems even in the minors, was recalled from Indy where he was performing poorly. He had even walked 3 in 4 innings there. But Cherington knew better. Cherington's analysis was the Nicolas was ready. Unfortunately he struggled in 2 of his first 3 appearances since his recall. Holderman's ineffectiveness got him optioned back to Indy. He appeared in 2 games there, the second of which was very poor. But Cherington was too smart to be fooled by an ineffective pitcher being ineffective. The GM's superior wisdom disregarded Holderman's struggles and recalled him. Holderman was immediately ineffective. Who could have guessed?

The Pirates desperately need hitting, especially HR power. Gorski was hitting well at Indy and finally got recalled. He homered in his first AB. Since that game, he's been glued to the bench. We can blame Shelton but I'm sure Cherington has a lot of (if not the most) influence on who plays. It took a month for Suwinski to finally be optioned instead of being an automatic out. But they still have the automatic out of Canario while Solak hits .385 at Indy. Canario's struggles don't matter. Neither does Solak's success. Cherington always knows better than to be influenced by performance.

Cherington/Shelton don't like consistent lineups. When a player does well, they believe it's because they put him in the right situation. So he's just as likely to take a seat on the bench the next day. When a player does poorly, they see it as an outlier to their perfect analytical data that shows the player underperformed. So the solution is to just "play better." This is now the 6th year that Cherington's approach to constructing a team has been a dismal failure. But when he doesn't let performance--good or bad--influence his decisions, there's no other option but to fail.

Very good post!