HOKA HEY -- It's a good day to die!!! The 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates

never forget

pirates' combined record after august 1 over the last two seasons: 38-77 (.330, or 108.5 losses over a full season). and they won't have the astros to beat up on this year, after winning 12 of 17 against them in 2012.

clint barmes (66 OPS+ in 2012, 76 for career) is still the starting shortstop. should be better at catcher, if only because rod barajas put up -1 war last year. liriano, jmcdonald, who knows.

go bucs

now with more russ martin

I wonder how he will fare outside of yankee stadium. when he left the dodgers he looked like he was done-zo.

if he is merely competent, he'll be a significant upgrade (if perhaps not worth $8.5m).

in the pirates' recent history with canadians, let's hope he's more like jason bay than erik bedard

was Chief Dan George a Pirates fan?

“I can tell they’re in the transitioning stages right now,” Inge said.

aren't we all

after the two epic late-season collapses mentioned above, pirates to extend clint hurdle through '14 with a '15 option. i guess jim riggleman is the curt flood of managers?

For his managerial career, Hurdle owns a 685–798 record, good for a .462 winning percentage.

Russell Martin ... shortstop?

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/pittsburgh-pirates-catcher-russell-martin-shortstop-canada-world-baseball-classic-021813

awesome

http://cdn3.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/8324293/gyi0063608694.0_standard_352.0.jpg

i always worry about clint hurdle's health

kind of unbelievable that he's only 55 years old.

he has one winning season in ten as a manager

probably just as well that he hasn't been in any actual pressure situations

After the season-opening series against the Cubs, Pirates have 29 straight games vs. teams that contended last year.

BP annual's comment on McCutchen invokes Audrey Hepburn on Cary Grant: "You Know what's wrong with you? Nothing!"

brandon inge, who will be 36 in may, has a career obp of .303, and hit 162/.205/.162 in spring training, has made the club.

what a joke team

Inge was a monster for the A's last year. That was a crazy month.

1st half Tigers all star.

repeat fluke?

uh he hit .226/.286/.389 with 85 strikeouts in 74 games for the a's last year. and the pirates already have clint barmes.

52 rbi tho -- must be clutch

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18jb80qmgw7qggif/ku-xlarge.gif

this is my favorite ilbb thread title

uh he hit .226/.286/.389 with 85 strikeouts in 74 games for the a's last year.

Yeah but we'll always have May and early June when he had all those random 4 RBI games.

gif as omen

hahaha, is that rosin gif from today?

raise the jolly roger

not sure how i feel about 36-year-old closer jason grilli wearing dave parker's #39 tho

That's foul.

after three games, the pirates are hitting .150/.227/.200

nice outings from wandy and j mcdonald tho

pirates' next 29 games: dodgers/d-backs/reds/cardinals/braves/phillies/cardinals/brewers/nationals

miss u astros

after six games, the pirates have 8 runs on 21 hits

as a team, they are batting .119

and as much as i lol at francisco cervelli, russell martin is thus far 0-for-pittsburgh

maybe we can get rid of clint hurdle, at least, although i shudder to think who he'd be replaced with

pirate fans have taken over the pool in arizona

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BHikdR_CIAAW0gM.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5_WcvwFPUg

26yo phil irwin is making his big league debut for the bucs today

it is not going well; his era was briefly infinite

well, still a happy ending.

that was p. stunning tbh

you can't really run out phil irwin, james mcdonald and jonathan fucking sanchez on consecutive days and expect to win

when is the arb clock deadline? bring up cole, i don't care if he only went two innings in his last start with indy. taillon looked good in the wbc. if miami is willing to bring up fernandez for a team that is (even more certainly) going nowhere, then wtf

btw russell martin and pedro alvarez are hitting .086/.200/.143 and .073/.174/.073 respectively. they're making clint barmes (.121/.171/.182) look like el oso blanco

geez I did not know Garrett Jones hit 27 HR last year

o shit pedro got a hit

with two hits today (and two rbis! including the game-winner!) clint barmes has reached the magical 801-hit plateau in his 948th major league game.

at his current career pace (.247/.296/.386), if he plays every game for the next 25.2 seasons, he'll catch pete rose

Jonathan Sanchez pitching for Pittsburgh
M Carpenter homered to center.
C Beltran homered to left.
M Holliday singled to center.
A Craig hit by pitch, M Holliday to second.
Pittsburgh's J Sanchez ejected by T Timmons in the 1st.
Pittsburgh's Manager C Hurdle ejected by T Timmons in the 1st.

poor man's aaron laffey

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-j3BDaJQHj2w/UXsg19lweBI/AAAAAAAAAsc/NwJhNjm1jZ4/s500/sanchez.gif

embarrassing

Pittsburgh - Top of 7th
Joe Kelly pitching for St. Louis
J Kelly relieved J Westbrook.

P Alvarez singled to center.
R Martin homered to right, P Alvarez scored. PIT 2, STL 2
C Barmes singled to right center.
J McDonald hit for A Burnett.
J McDonald struck out bunting foul.

jesus christ clint hurdle

@JonHeymanCBS 4h
steve grilli @GrillCheese49 very symmetrical start. 10 for 10 in saves, 0.82 WHIP, 0.82 ERA. #bucs

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/pics/steve_grilli_autograph.jpg

sanchez dfa'd, thank god

liriano had a solid outing in triple-a today, might be up in 10 days

so russell martin's kinda streaky

nevertheless, fuckin ppl are gonna make me update the pirates' ridiculous litany of failure vs. the brewers going back an unreasonable number of years

http://dealbreaker.com/uploads/2013/03/drudge-siren.gif clint barmes has homered off stephen strasburg http://dealbreaker.com/uploads/2013/03/drudge-siren.gif

now with Jose Contreras

clint barmes?!

Clutchen

RJ Bell ‏@RJinVegas 3h

#Pirates -210 over #Astros at MGM. Pittsburgh has not been a bigger favorite since 2004.

pedro hit one 462 feet, almost made the allegheny on the fly

one inning later the astros lost in the most astros way possible. welcome back, if only for one series

gotta hand it to the pirates, you guys have been relentless this year!

it's all fun and games until august 1

http://i.imgur.com/UhJi6HH.jpg

i guess it's cute that the pirates matter enough to have their own, but this gesture-to-the-dugout thing is getting out of hand

quick someone put "thanks obama" over it

mccutchen's first-inning homer was his third in three consecutive plate appearances against mike fiers

last pirate to do that was barry bonds against . . . jamie moyer 1988-91

Grilli wtf

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/5/25/4363216/jason-grilli-career-turnaround-pirates-closer

WTF indeed. He just K'd Hunter, Cabrera, and Fielder like it was nothing.

more wtf is jeanmar gomez, the beneficiary of a .203 babip over 43 innings this year

dave cameron sees good things for the pirates!

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/its-time-to-take-the-pirates-seriously/

Here, you can see the expected coming regression. The Pirates offense is likely to perform a little bit better, jumping from 3.92 runs per game up to 4.18 runs per game, but the run prevention gets a lot worse, rising from 3.40 runs per game to 4.08 runs per game. Overall, those forecasts see the Pirates going just 56-53 the rest of the way, if they don’t make any changes to their roster.

But, here’s the thing; because the Pirates are already 33-20, going 56-53 the rest of the way would cause them to finish with 89 wins, and the full season forecast on the standings page has them ending the year with the sixth best record in all of baseball, and their final record would be good enough to earn them a spot in the Wild Card play-in game against the Reds. And these records don’t take into account the future upgrades that contending teams will make this summer, so you can probably add some additional wins to the teams at the top of the pile. If I had to guess a final record with the expectation that the Pirates will be buyers this summer, I’d probably pick them to finish with somewhere in the 90-92 win range.

In other words, we can regress the Pirates early season performance heavily, note that they’re playing well over their heads, and that their pitching can’t keep up their current levels while still also acknowledging that they’ve put themselves in pretty good playoff position. Right now, the Pirates should probably be favored to join the Reds as the NL Wild Card teams.

Better get my hopes up then; it's not like the Pirates would completely tank the second half of the season.

liriano w/ 7ks thru 3 ip

Pittsburgh and Its Ballpark: An Appreciation, by Charles P. Pierce

gerrit cole up on tuesday vs. timmy

^must-see TV

GAS

from a friend of mine in sf:

supposedly Gerrit Cole's sister (who also went to UCLA and played softball) is engaged to Brandon Crawford (who apparently also went to UCLA). If he drills Crawford in his first AB I will buy a Cole jersey tonight.

I think the Pirates look better on paper this year than the past two years.

It seems like last year their lineup was held together with tape and when Neil Walker went down it just fell apart. The pitching fell in about the same time too.

well, they're getting lucky tbh. 37-26 with a +14 run differential, running out jeanmar gomez and jeff locke on a regular basis. and they're no better than 25th in the majors in runs/batting/obp/slugging . . .

the pitching has been way over expectations for several years -- i guess ray searage is a genius?

sure she's not engaged to Blanco?

Scoring Summary
Bot 2nd: Pittsburgh
- G. Cole singled to right center, R. Martin and P. Alvarez scored, N. Walker to third

maybe he can play corner infield too?

also dude you don't have to throw *all* strikes

pedro alvarez just hit his fourth double of the season

lol charlie morton

loller mike zagurski

brandon cumpton just struck out the side in the first inning of his major league debut; it's all downhill from here

fanned 17 times tonight, won 4-0

grilli blew a save u_u

pedro: three homers, 11 rbi in his last six+ games. obp almost at .300 even!

last night in los angeles of anaheim in the ninth inning, mccutchen paused between batters, ran over to right-center, and retrieved/threw back some fan's hat that had fallen over the railing (it was a decent toss to get it back up to the seats, too). <3 him

The BP Playoff Odds say that the Pirates have increased their postseason chances by 20.8% in the last week. (They're projecting all 3 of the Central contenders for 90+ wins.)

are the pirates gonna fuck with us and crater into the cellar in the second half again this year

yes

when were they last over .600 this late?

pirates wait until august 1 to crater, read yr blogs

weird game sunday -- three runs in the ninth to tie it, four in the tenth to win (by one). first ever road interleague sweep, lol angels

go bucs

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/6/26/4464404/gerrit-cole-pirates-demotion-charlie-morton

otm. if he starts getting shelled with his non-strikeouts, it might become another story tho

the pirates are 18 games over .500 for the first time since 1992, their last winning season

tied with the cards for best record in baseball! congrats pirates! :)

so pretty

a pretty good article on the pirates' options - as well as the rest of the nl central - as we come closer to the trading deadline:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9416447/jonah-keri-ranks-mlb-teams

love the random shane spencer zing

it is so weird to be in a buying situation that i am scared. suddenly the decisions the pirates' historically awful management makes might have ramifications beyond onion joeks

hold me

it's going to be ok

let's just hate the reds together

<3

except for joey votto, i could never hate him

haha, yeah votto's a good guy, i agree. honestly, despite the sometimes violent rivalry between the cardinals and reds i don't mind the reds at all. if brandon phillips was on the cards i'd be a big fan tbh

but really, Beltran an all-Star starter, gtfo

FIRST TO 50

http://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1ex1102Sj1rpguofo1_500.jpg

51

dave cameron on the pirate's prospects for the rest of the season: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-dominating-pirates-and-whether-it-can-last/

he focuses in on the pitchers' outstanding performance in high leverage situations, and compares the pirates to the rest of MLB. that got me curious about hitting performance in high leverage situations, and it turns out the pirates have also been outstanding at THAT!

this shows each team's batting in high leverage situations, sorted by wOBA: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2013&month=26&season1=2013&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=15,d

i expected to see the cardinals further up the list, since so many of our players have absurd batting averages with runners in scoring position, but the cardinals are only 10th.

of course, the thing about both pitching and hitting performance in "clutch" situations is that it's highly volatile.

Neyer is bullish on the depth, bearish on the pitching vulnerability:

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/7/1/4481448/pittsburgh-pirates-winning-streak-best-mlb-record

yesterday was pretty emblematic of the season thus far:

- the bullpen allowed two hits over 12 scoreless innings, highlighted by vin mazzaro -- who may have had the worst single pitching appearance in history just two years ago -- throwing five no-hit innings

- starling marte leadoff double in the 13th was parlayed into bases-loaded, one out; pedro alvarez, who normally either homers or strikes out, hit into a double play (props to the brewers for bringing gomez in and playing five infielders; that was awesome)

- *gaby sanchez* leads off the 14th with an *infield single*. then he *steals second*. gaby sanchez is 29 years old, listed at 230 pounds, and had previously stolen nine bases in 512 career games. he then scores from second on a single up the middle

yeah, they are playing (particularly pitching) way over their heads. clint hurdle isn't any help, apart from apparently not being a complete bobby valentine asshole (which tbh goes a long way) but pitching coach ray searage is seemingly some kind of minor deity. i think they can hit a little better, and there are enough options for the pitching staff that one can hope a few continue to pan out.

would i give up taillon and polanco for giancarlo? i would be sad, but totally.

anyway i don't even srsly care about making the playoffs, although i suppose they should. it would take a second half like the marlins'/astros' first halves to get below .500. what i like is the air of possibility -- if you grew up a yankees fan it's cool that your team can spend whatever it wants to win, but the whole 'any season without a world series title is a failed season' is so joyless and oppressive. it is so fun watching a team that has no particular pressure on it but is realizing that it can be just as good as anyone else.

and also the '71 throwbacks they wear on sundays are awesome:

http://cdn3.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/15700817/172011743.0_standard_709.0.jpg

this chart is both amazing and chilling tho

http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/PiratesHighLev.png

consensus seems to be that the pirates are in a reaaaaaaaaally good position to make the playoffs. unfortunately, all of those exciting tight games and heroic performances and dreamz will most likely result in...a one game playoff with the reds. (that's with my incredibly biased assumption that the cards will end up winning the division)

good luck!

z s have u moved to chicago yet?

no....that fell through. :(

there might still be a chance, but my fate now depends on where my gf gets accepted for her phd stuff - could be chicago, but could also be NYC, austin, a few other places.

All of those sound great.

marte!

Yikes!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BO2Isf1CcAANI1B.jpg:large

yeah, there's already been some flooding, but i'm sure the a's don't want to have to come back sometime later

Still think PNC Park is the best by far

the pointy building in dead center has a colored light at the top that flashes after pirates homers/penguins goals

on other occasions it displays colors related to the weather that no one really understands

950 start time! there goes that espn national exposure

The A's announcers are totally mystified about why the Pittsburgh fans are going "Wooooo!"

ayo

http://i.imgur.com/FX7W6zc.jpg

jinx has begun

now their bullpen won't be sharknado in the second half!

'playoff-bound'

'sharknado'

gonna blame u when they trade for alex rios

alex sharkrios

cutchitude

grilled cheese fail

i believe that is vin mazzaro's first career save

never saw a pitch behind the batter caught on the fly before (w/ a runner on third, too)

ok, groveling and apologies to mookie for forgetting he's a Bucs stan

the pirates' last sac fly to an outfielder was on may 27

their last sac fly period was june 14

wooo

You must be either floating up in the ether, Mookieproof, or hiding in a corner somewhere, waiting for it all to come crashing down.

both, somehow

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-pittsburgh-pirates-arent-regressing

http://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/c5f873d302a14740dddc6fcf24385fb6/tumblr_mqvcpsYM1U1qzniimo1_500.jpg

five was too much to hope for : /

Brewers fan here. Gonna try to become a Pirates fan for the rest of the season, partially because I like the team and I like the fans, but mostly because I want you guys to experience the excitement we felt in 2008 and 2011. You guys deserve October baseball more than anybody.

this is why I halfheartedly root for the Royals btw

Teams have blown 10 game leads two month stretches before, but it’s not easy

i'm guessing this is not comforting at all to Pittsburgh fans

no it is not.

i should be rooting for the royals too, but somehow i feel like it would be wrong for dayton moore's terribleness to be rewarded. i am sorry kc fans

j hay

five straight multi-hit games for mccutchen

28th comeback win

26 games over .500

fourth walk-off hit for russell martin

excitable boy, they all said

Gonna try to become a Pirates fan for the rest of the season

I'm rooting for an A's/Pirates world series.

pirates have 70 wins on august 8

they did not win 70 games total in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 or 2010

since 1992, they have finished better than 13 games back in their division just once: five games in '97

gettin' all Mook OK itt <3

If any team's fans deserve a break from soul-stomping, I'd say the Pirates. (I still want a Braves pennant though.)

we still love sid bream, too -- he lives outside of pittsburgh

it's hard tho

Really don't mean to put the curse on them, but surely they're in the clear at this point for a wild-card spot at least. They're 11.5 up on Arizona, 48 left to play. The 10 biggest collapses, according to somebody:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/biggest-regular-season-collapses-baseball-history-185200236--mlb.html

I was going to check each team to see where they stood with 48 to play, but it's too complicated with the wild-card. Many of them involve falling apart in the last week or two. Of the prolonged collapses on the list, the '69 Cubs never had a bigger lead than 9.0 games (the article says 9.5, but not if you check their game log); the '78 Red Sox got it up to 10.0 games, but that was July 8; the '93 Braves (not listed, for some reason) were up 10.0 at one point, but also still early (July 22); and the '51 Dodgers were up 13.0, but that was only August 11--

Wait a minute, never mind.

(Just kidding. The Pirates will be fine.)

I meant the '93 Giants, of course. And I can see why they weren't listed: they were 29-21 in their last 50 games, and the Braves still caught them.

Pittsburgh - Top of 1st SCORE
Jorge De La Rosa pitching for Colorado PIT COL
S Marte singled to left.
S Marte caught stealing second, pitcher to first to shortstop.
J Mercer singled to left.
A McCutchen singled to left, J Mercer to second.
R Martin singled to left, J Mercer to third, A McCutchen to second.
P Alvarez struck out swinging.
G Sanchez grounded out to second.

tip of the iceburgh really

francisco liriano in july: 35 IP, 8 R, 19 H, 14 BB, 31 K

francisco liriano tonight: 2.1 IP, 10 R, 12 H, 2 BB, 1 K

oh Martepaws

fortunately i'm only listening to the radio feed

ugh

that double play!!!

:(

that's a bad loss

that's a good win

tru

DJ Gallo @DJGalloESPN
With his 11th career Pirate HR, Clint Barmes has moved past -- among others -- Jermaine Allensworth, Charlie Hayes and Matt Lawton to 186th place.

A.J. Burnett pitching for Pittsburgh PIT STL
M Adams singled to left. 4 0
D Freese doubled to deep right, M Adams to third. 4 0
D Descalso singled to center, M Adams and D Freese scored. 4 2
L Lynn bunt popped out to first. 4 2
M Carpenter tripled to deep right, D Descalso scored. 4 3
J Jay singled to right, M Carpenter scored. 4 4
M Holliday doubled to center, J Jay scored. 4 5

having bryan morris take the loss when mark melancon is still in the bullpen is suboptimal

lot of good bullpen work from both teams (morris aside) in this series tho

jeff locke's mirrors are no longer working

lost seven of nine; espn box used the adjective 'reeling'

today marks 110 years that the pirates have been above .500 as a franchise

good thing they had a nice pad by 1993

Sam Miller, BP:

"The most wins a team with John Buck on it has had is 85 wins with Toronto in 2010. Every other team: 75 or worse."

fortunately he doesn't have to win that many games as a pirate -- 18 or 20 would do very nicely

http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/pirates1.png

welcome marlon

^^^^

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BTCYpDvCYAAwTN2.jpg

79

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGstRPzqy2c

Now I just keep imagining McCutchen in the dugout, driving his teammates crazy talking about Dragon Ball Z all the time, explaining the action in his sketches.

81 This is all making me wish I hadn't quit drinking. Well, everything does that, but the Pirates are a constant source of anxiety.

C'mon, Sports Illustrated, give them (and him) a break--down to the wire here.

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/andrew_zps8ea07e49.jpg

damn, Andrew not lookin' like Andruw there

Well it's 4AM, I'm going to sleep.

seems fair

Feeling optimistic about tonight. Don't know why. Maybe the winning season and McCutchen's 3rd straigh 20-20. Yup, feel it in my water.

not really feeling it with jeff locke on the mound

Yeah, that's why I'm surprised I'm feeling good. I'm generally a pessimist, maybe he's been working on something special...

Well, not the most inspiring start from Locke, but got through it. Was it just me or did Wainwright look a bit nervous? Didn't show in his pitching anyway...

locke with 39 pitches (18 strikes) through two innings

Cards not taking advantage. Dunno how long Locke is going to stay in though.

it's cool -- jeanmar gomez threw a perfect game in the eastern league in 2009

McCutchen wasn't too far off the home run he needed earlier...

Oh, a friend of mine just gave me 'The Best Game Ever' by Jim Reisler. Have you heard of it? Any good? Guess I must have been talking about baseball too much - she's a strict Scottish football fan.

Oh Gomez. :(

Oh well, so much for my prognostications.

I came across this piece and all I got to say is, make it so. This would be a totally insane way for the NL Central Race in 2013 to end.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/stark_jayson/id/9633811/a-look-2013-mlb-postseason-schedule

Suppose the Pirates, Reds and Cardinals finish in a three-way tie? Then we get this crazy schedule:

• The Pirates and Reds still finish the season against each other, Sept. 27-29.

• The next day, two of those three NL Central teams would hold a tiebreaker game. (At this point, that would most likely be a Reds-Cardinals game in St. Louis, but that could change.) The loser would still be a wild-card team. But the winner …

• Would go on to play the third team on Tuesday, Oct. 1, to decide the division. But since that was supposed to be the day of the NL wild-card game, the AL wild-card game would be moved to Tuesday night, while that NL Central tiebreaker game would be played that afternoon.

• The loser of that NL Central derby then would have to play the other NL wild-card team the next day (Wednesday, Oct. 2) -- again, almost certainly, in the afternoon. And the winner of the wild-card game would have to jet off to start the NLDS the next day (Thursday, Oct. 3) -- possibly as far away as Los Angeles.

• But there is still the potential for the winner of that game to play the NL Central champ, based on the yet-to-be-determined final seeding. So …

It's not out of the question that a team like the Reds could play the Pirates on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Cincinnati, face the Cardinals on Monday in St. Louis (tiebreaker), play the Pirates again on Tuesday in Cincinnati (tiebreaker), play the Cardinals on Wednesday somewhere or other (wild-card game), then visit the Pirates on Thursday and Friday in Pittsburgh.

Phew. Got all that? I'll concede that isn't likely. But it ain't impossible, either.

bad weekend

Watching your club lose isn't ever good, but losing to the Cardinals is still worse.

Not sure I can take commentators tonight.

cole looks good

Yeah. Darvish too, unfortunately, but Cole stronger.

82

Okay, that's better.

Every Shitty Thing That Happened To The Pittsburgh Pirates, 1992-2013

"After he was ejected, [manager Lloyd] McClendon picked up first base and defiantly took it back to the dugout" (2002)

Got to love the Sugarbear. I saw him play quite a few games for the Indianapolis Indians, where he was a bit of a fan favorite. I got to think if McClendon would have been a decent defensive catcher, he would have gotten to the bigs before he did at age 28, as he could hit a bit.

he's with the tigers now, as are a great many former pirate managers

i can understand wanting to give mccutchen a rest -- it's hot, it's a day game after a night game at the end of a long road trip -- but couldn't he have been the DH?

My stream is frustrating. Oh well.

aj-on-aj crime

Eep.

I dunno whether to be annoyed or relieved that I'm watching this in blurry five-second bursts.

professor farnsworth!

jeff locke . . . lives

three straight homers

first time since 2003

first time at home since 1955

pirates have lost 11 straight games on friday the 13th

These face have BLOWN MY MIND! Sorry I haven't been reading much this week.

face = facts, sorry

Grilli!

yay grilli finished an inning, only two hits

You a Newradio fan? "His names Grilli?"

sure, let's let clint barmes bat

Hey, what can you do against a performance like Cashner put up tonight? You think the Cards would have won that?

no, but clint barmes should not bat in the bottom of the ninth with one out and down two and expanded rosters

i mean you need a baserunner and he has a .261 obp. yeah it probably doesn't matter but still wtf

I've made the best bet of my life, btw. Pirates with the world series, I get a bucs tattoo. If the don't then I don't have to go through life with Pirates tattoo, which is pretty good too. win/win.

skip the tattoo, get cutch dreads instead

Good idea - unfortunately I got my hair cut for the first time in my adult life a couple of years ago, and I have an appointment for another on Wednesday! Oh fate, why must you mock me?

http://triblive.com/sports/pirates/4689239-74/pirates-defensive-season#axzz2ez5bIaeF

cool article on bucs management/players etc buying into defensive shifts and changing the culture

yeah, it made neyer apologize!

fuckin andrew cashner (and childhood pirate fan jedd gyorko)

cutch can only do so much, ppl

fuuuuuuuck

Was just about to check the scores but...

Got diagnosed with an ulcer, and I'll be damned if this division isn't the cause (yes, I know ulcers are not caused by stress, but it doesn't help)

one of the more important series in two decades of pirate baseball

good francisco/bad francisco

Not a bad start so far. Hope the series keeps on like this.

This game got weird.

enlighten us

jesus christ melancon

Damn

I second that damn. I'm tired!

ffffffffs

Thanks, Choo.

sid bream is crawling around in my head

This game has been pretty great

hate u

omg Farnsworth

can't even watch tbh

Don't look.

Joey V-oppo

at least i didn't pick the wrong day to stop drinking

I tuned away to Tampa... Votto is back to swingin' eh?

i was gonna make a stan belinda reference, but he has ms

the nats are gonna win out now, right

kent tekulve suggesting that dusty is calling for cutch-plunking

I'd say this was one of the better and crazier games I have seen all year, any club.

That play Tony Watson made on Choo was pretty amazing in the smoke of all that went down tonight.

This is going to be an intense 10 days or so for Pirates and Reds fans, as we are going to play this series in Pittsburgh, then play next weekend in Cincy and then most likely play that one game playoff.

Thought I had dreamt this when I woke up. :(

relax, unless you were planning on catching the Cards

I'm not sure what that means, Doc. We're tied with the cards after losing that game, I think.

2 behind, tied w/ Cincy. After 20 years, I think a play-in game is nothing to sneeze at.

Ah, I get you, sorry. For some reason I read your 'Cards' as 'Reds'.

http://imgur.com/7DJY9bQ

Watching the game on an old laptop with my dog. I think that, like snoopy, he's more a fan of the participatory sport.

http://imgur.com/7DJY9bQ

http://i.imgur.com/7DJY9bQ.jpg

How many games are left after tonight, anyway? (I tried to work it out but my brain sucks)

seven

Thanks!

jeez what happened here

jeff locke

then Arroyo throws 33 clueless pitches and they don't score

After 5 runs scored in the first inning I just decided to give in and get some sleep (not much, as it turns out, but still).

@Sawchik_Trib
And, yes, that's a .303 OPS for Liriano vs. left-handed hitters. A MLB single-season best, according to research by @jonahkeri

Dayum

90

wild finish, some nice glove work by morneau in the ninth

#Buctober

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-the-pirates-built-a-playoff-team

Congrats from Milwaukee. We're all sincerely (if somewhat passively) rooting for you guys

for giving you a step up toward WC homefield, the Mets say you're welcome.

thank u mets

Any thoughts before the long weekend?

It's my bday so I have a whole mess of stuff on, but gonna find a way to fit staying up til 4 in the morning every night into my plans. Maybe try to make my bro (who is visiting) stay up and watch Saturday night's game - not sure if I can persuade his wife.

if that was aj's last start as a pirate it was a good one

need one of two for home field on tuesday

If Bucs win the next 2 to finish 4 ahead of the Reds, it's gonna feel awfully contrived for them to have to beat em again to gain entry.

homerfest

My awesome brother got me a Pirates shirt for my birthday! So they better win the playoff...

It's beyond strange that a game that means everything between the two teams will be preceded by a game that means absolutely nothing.

pirates' 2013 payroll was $67m and they have $32m committed for 2014

it's going to be frustrating when they refuse to spend anything

Congrats McCutchen!

congrutchen

yay?

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2014-zips-projections-pittsburgh-pirates

I was thinking of visiting Pittsburgh in May and catch a Giants game or two, if money allows it.

Robocop Larish!

Outbluffed by AJ Burnett: The 2014 Pittsburgh Pirates