The Pirates got thrashed yet again, this time by the Jays, 7-1. They’re now 4-12-3 on the spring, baseball’s worst record.
The hitters, as they so often are, were helpless, whiffing 15 times while managing just five hits and three walks. Connor Joe had three of the hits, including two doubles. Travis Swaggerty singled to drive in the only run in his lone at-bat, although he also got picked off base. He’s batting .400 and doesn’t have any real competition for an outfield spot, assuming merit is actually a criterion. Chris Owings had the remaining hit, a double.
The remainder of the job competitions continued to be more of a race to the bottom. Canaan Smith-Njigba and Rodolfo Castro each went 0-for-3. A few guys got in late and went 0-for-1. Jack Suwinski walked twice and, of course, struck out. He’s now fanned an alarming 13 times in 22 at-bats.
The pitching wasn’t very good, either. The emerging theme is that the Pirates have a lot of bullpen candidates with some talent, but nobody is standing out, so every day there’ll be a couple guys pitch well and a couple guys pitch poorly. A few days later it’ll be the same guys with opposite results.
J.T. Brubaker had another one of those starts that explains why his xFIPs have always been better than his ERA. In four and a third innings, he gave up four hits and a walk, which is pretty good, but it still led to four runs. He fanned five.
Carmen Mlodzinski relieved Brubaker and faced four hitters, retiring two. Angel Perdomo came in with a runner on and fanned the next three hitters, so it was his turn to look good today.
Yerry De Los Santos gave up two runs in his inning, on a hit, a walk and a hit batsman. His velocity was 92-94 mph, which is a bit better than earlier this spring but still below what it’s been in the past. He may be pitching his way back to AAA.
John O’Reilly came over from minor league camp and gave up a solo home run.
Having followed the Pirates fanatically since 1965, Wilbur Miller is one of the fast-dwindling number of fans who’ve actually seen good Pirate teams. He’s even seen Hall-of-Fame Pirates who didn’t get traded mid-career, if you can imagine such a thing. His first in-person game was a 5-4, 11-inning win at Forbes Field over Milwaukee (no, not that one). He’s been writing about the Pirates at various locations online for over 20 years. It has its frustrations, but it’s certainly more cathartic than writing legal stuff. Wilbur is retired and now lives in Bradenton with his wife and three temperamental cats.
Downside: Looks like it’ll be another long season.
Upside: With FSN going BK, you won’t have torture yourself watching it.
From Statcast
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?gamePk=719109
It’s all Greek to me.
I have so many negative things to say, that is useless to express them, so I will focus on other things rather than the Pirates. I think that this season I will view my large dvd collection and be much happier at the end of the day than watching this garbage.
Hey man it’s not all bad, Chris Owings is smoking the ball! *ducks*
Or read a book, Mike!
Don’t have the eyes anymore.
It’s funny but one of the reasons my wife was attracted to me was because she was never around a guy who read a lot of books and thought I must be highly intelligent. Boy, was she wrong! After all the great sex we had I gave up reading.
Can’t argue with that reasoning!
Can’t Haines tell the hitters to stop striking out, or maybe the 34 million dollars worth of mentors should say something like “listen here young player stop striking out.”
Saw earlier today that the Yankees and Reds are penny pinchers too! I see that they are the only 2 teams that do not pay for WiFi for their teams on the team flights. Gotta love it.
I am groot!
Is that you, Dick?
Lee, I know, that I’m obtuse, but what does he mean by Groot?
There is a character in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. He is a living kind of tree, named Groot. He has lots of lines in the movie, voiced wonderfully by Vin Diesel. But all of his lines are “I am groot” with some inflection or another. Of course, every line is understood by Rocket, his side-kick. So “I am Groot” can almost mean anything.
In this case. It means, I was the first poster!
But it can mean, “You’re full of it.” Or “I have the loot.” or what have you.
AHHH….OK.
The last “new” movie I saw was Jaws. I still haven’t taken a bath.
Man am I groot.
Now you’re gettin’ it.
When your grandkids are doing something wrong, you look at ’em in a cross way and say… I am Groot!
Someone cuts you off in traffic…
You’re tryin’ to get with your lady-friend…
Statement of existential calm… or panic…