OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: New season of plundering begins

[NewAgeOutlaw]

Only 2 players on the team with an ops+ above average and only 1 player with a slugging percentage over .400.

Disgusting.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Maybe Skenes' last Indy start today?

I think it likely will be, because otherwise if he is going to debut at home, then he probably would start twice more in Indy so that it would line up, which seems like a lot, even for the Pirates. I was skeptical that it would come this early, but he basically doesn't have a mark against him at all in AAA. I guess a guy hit a double off him once.

 

[metalan2]

3-0 deficit in 2nd inning. Game over. Pirates are unequivocally the worst team in major league baseball.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Back to reality.

Why can't these hitters hit the ball in the air?

 

[sovietsanta87]

Hayes ignoring the third base coach to prevent from getting thrown out by a mile is peak pirates coaching lmao

But it doesn’t affect anything so don’t worry about it. Glad Hayes made the right move

 

[DJ Spinoza]

One of the main reasons I am still tuning in regularly is in order to hope I hear Greg Brown choke to death live on TV. What an utter piece of shit he is.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Hayes ignoring the third base coach to prevent from getting thrown out by a mile is peak pirates coaching lmao

But it doesn’t affect anything so don’t worry about it. Glad Hayes made the right move

I mean not really, why did he wait at 2nd when the ball was clearly going to be off the wall?
Then Cruz probably goes to 3rd and it's 3-2 right now.

 

[sovietsanta87]

absolutely mashed

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Really nice work from Ortiz there to slam the door after the momentum-building inning. No funny business from the backend of the pen and we can take 2/3 like we should -- low bar, but it's something in the right direction at least.

 

[Ulf5]

One of the main reasons I am still tuning in regularly is in order to hope I hear Greg Brown choke to death live on TV. What an utter piece of shit he is.

Whoa. What did I miss?

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Whoa. What did I miss?

I just find him so annoying with the way that he openly hates certain players and continuously whines about them to the point of not even calling the game. Cruz had a double where he thought it was gone and didn't bust ass out of the batter's box, so Brown immediately jumped all over him for it and then wouldn't shut up about it for 3 half innings.

I can't stand him. I know people find Block boring, but at least he actually calls the game.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Love when Cruz starts running into them.

I dunno. Suwinski going the other way was also encouraging. Reynolds may be finding life.
Hating Hayes offensively again, and I maintain we need at least Gonzales + Lamb for Triolo/Williams + Tellez.

 

[BusinessGoose]

START STREAKING!!!!

RAISE IT!

Block actually isn't THAT boring. He calls the damn game. And his slight increase in energy when something happens let's you know A MAJOR thing is happening lol lol

I for one don't need my play by play guy screaming over every "routine" double play or sac fly....he also won't drone on and on about mistakes and shit, just "yup that was a close call" or "they have a lot of two strike watching at bats"

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I think we do need to pull the trigger on Gonzales. I'd like to see Triolo go get everyday ABs in AAA and what he does with them. Gonzales has to have made some kind of adjustment and we are desperate for offense. No reason not to give it a shot.

I'm somewhat curious what we do with the pitching. The cleanest move would be swapping Falter for Skenes, but Falter is out of options. Falter has been worse lately even if he kind of had a decent start today. With tougher opponents coming up, I think that's the best move, but maybe we can go to some kind of 6-man rotation which would preserve Skenes and Jones' innings. Or some kind of hybrid-type thing where Falter becomes a long man with Ortiz, we say goodbye to Roansy, and occasionally we look for a bullpen game to give everyone a break.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I would be very not in favor of pushing Falter out of the rotation for Skenes. If you're calling up Skenes, either run with a 6 man rotation or send Priester back to AAA. Priester's ERA is decent, but his FIP is heinously bad due to him giving up a ton of HRs. His underlying numbers aren't terrible (4.78 xERA, 25th percentile) but he could still use more seasoning in AAA.

Their rotation should be Jones, Skenes, Keller, Perez and Falter once Skenes gets called up.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Slipped my mind entirely that Priester was also with the team, so that makes sense as how it will likely go down. Priester is scheduled for Tuesday, and I think it makes sense to try and give him one more look against a weak offense.

Then you can probably reorder the rotation as needed. If Skenes were to debut on Friday, then hypothetically you could have him on a 5-day schedule and he'd face the Cubs then Brewers rather than the Cubs twice. I don't think that kind of thing is all that important, as we should basically just focus on getting him onto a good schedule and make use of off days and the like to monitor the workload of Jones and Skenes as much as possible, though it's not like we're banging down the door of a playoff position anyways.

I do think there's a nonzero chance that Skenes won't be called up, just because it's the Pirates, but there's at least some early frontrunners for ROY, which I think is the major worry they might have with a "too early" promotion. It would take some real doublespeak to try and justify keeping him down for 2 more weeks.

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

There was some frustrating play even in a win. Hayes not scoring from first on a fly ball off the top of the Clemente wall is inexcusable. Both Cruz and Rowdy didn't run on balls off the wall.

You can't do things like this when you aren't playing the Rockies.

 

[ImporterExporter]

There was some frustrating play even in a win. Hayes not scoring from first on a fly ball off the top of the Clemente wall is inexcusable. Both Cruz and Rowdy didn't run on balls off the wall.

You can't do things like this when you aren't playing the Rockies.

Coaching

But what do I know?

 

[JakeNBake59]

skenes gave up 2 runs... needs to stay in triple a

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

skenes gave up 2 runs... needs to stay in triple a

Bust!

 

[sovietsanta87]

I just find him so annoying with the way that he openly hates certain players and continuously whines about them to the point of not even calling the game. Cruz had a double where he thought it was gone and didn't bust ass out of the batter's box, so Brown immediately jumped all over him for it and then wouldn't shut up about it for 3 half innings.

I can't stand him. I know people find Block boring, but at least he actually calls the game.

Yeah. To each their own. I think Brownie is just fed up with losing. If he’s picking on certain players, that’s garbage. At the same time, this team is too lackadaisical. It’s a culture that lacks intensity. Especially since they’re under .500. Then again if they fall out of contention they could get moved elsewhere.

 

[WheresRamziAbid]

Coaching

But what do I know?

Really coaching?

You can dislike the staff for a variety of real reasons but not for major league baseball players having poor instincts. This inst little league anything that can be coahed into them has alreday. The only thing a coach can do at this level are mechanical changes to swing/throwing motions etc, and vibes.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Yeah. To each their own. I think Brownie is just fed up with losing. If he’s picking on certain players, that’s garbage. At the same time, this team is too lackadaisical. It’s a culture that lacks intensity. Especially since they’re under .500. Then again if they fall out of contention they could get moved elsewhere.

I've hated him for a long time. He openly detests certain players and picks and chooses who he whines about, and it's never just a quick negative comment, but instead something that he drones on and on about to the detriment of the viewing experience. Some of his calls fall under the "homer hyped about his team doing well" category which is kind of dying out across the league, but other ones are just weird and bizarre.

The other thing he does which I can't stand is pick fights with the color commentators, to the point where you can tell they have words for each other in the inning breaks when the camera isn't running. I dunno, I get that some people are attached to him, but he's so unprofessional that I root for him to be fired every offseason.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

We're going to need a better Keller than we've gotten for much of the season tomorrow in order to set the tone for this series. The pitching matchups don't look wonderful for us. Anderson vs Keller will be tough, and then we have Priester going in game 2 and hopefully Perez as a fallback to get the third game of the series.

It's a really pivotal series, and it's still hard to have any confidence. 2-1 holds serve, 3-0 gets you back to .500 and maybe some momentum with a Skenes callup before a massively important stretch vs the Cubs and Brewers which is basically going to determine whether we are going to hang around into June or not.

We have a .457 winning record and the Cubs and Brewers are over .600. The total games in the season still haven't made that an insurmountable lead, because it's 5 games and we're barely into May. But adding another 15 games or so will introduce some real trouble if the lead grows to 8+ games. Then the tone of June and July will be about what you expect -- hopefully some encouraging baseball, keep Skenes and Jones healthy, and consider what kind of deadline sales will make sense.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Skenes’ girlfriend posted a picture of a Pirates Skenes jersey a bit ago, adds fuel to the fire that he’s coming up later this week.