2014 Pittsburgh Pirates thread: Will it be two in a row?

• Heretic

  

  Opening day is today. Against the Cubs.
  
  It'll be interesting since management completely dropped the ball on the whole "if we win games and get fan support, we'll be competitive spending money" thing and didn't attempt to pay market value to keep Burnett. And are replacing him with Edinson Volquez, which should be an epic step backwards.
  
  And while waiting for Polanco to be ready, the RF platoon is still Snider and Tabata. And the 1st platoon is G. Sanchez and Travis Ishikawa.
  
  But they have the MVP on their roster, some decent talent around him and are loaded with minor league talent for the future, so this will be an interesting season at all levels for the organization.
  
  Liriano against Samargjadgoifsdhf today.
• Gblock

  while i agree in principle with your statements, i think 16.1 mill is too much for a 37 year old burnett.
• Heretic

  

  Gblock;1599110 wrote:while i agree in principle with your statements, i think 16.1 mill is too much for a 37 year old burnett.

  In general, true, but when your back-up plans are:
  
  1. Volquez
  2. Vance Worley will regain his "decent mid/back rotation guy" form he had with Philly.
  3. Taillon might be ready this year
  
  Sometimes you have to suck it up and overpay a bit, especially when you're down there in the 4-5 lowest payrolls in the major leagues. And talking about a guy who's been very good for you over the past two years. That is just a significant loss with no truly viable back-up plan.
• thavoice

  I think that the Bucs will fall back this year to closer to .500.
• Gblock

  Heretic;1599113 wrote:In general, true, but when your back-up plans are:
  
  1. Volquez
  2. Vance Worley will regain his "decent mid/back rotation guy" form he had with Philly.
  3. Taillon might be ready this year
  
  Sometimes you have to suck it up and overpay a bit, especially when you're down there in the 4-5 lowest payrolls in the major leagues. And talking about a guy who's been very good for you over the past two years. That is just a significant loss with no truly viable back-up plan.

  agreed.
• Heretic

  

  So, another all-pitching/little-to-no offense kind of start where every game is a heart attack ready to happen?
  
  Looks like we might have all gotten signed up for one, whether we wanted it or not, since it's going to the bottom of the 9th and still scoreless. Both teams have had (a couple) opportunities, with the best being runner on second, no one out; but nothing has happened.
• Heretic

  

  And the Pirates win 1-0 on a walkoff homer by Walker in the 10th. 1-0 start and on the way to 162-0 (to recycle the same tired joke everyone uses when their team wins their first game).
• Heretic

  

  Might be the ugliest 2-0 start ever. Win 1-0 in 10 innings in game 1 and then have your set-up man and closer both give up runs to tie the game in game 2 and have to play 16 innings to win.
  
  Wouldn't complain about a rainout today just to rest the pen. But a good sign, as this was the team's thing last year: play a ton of close, usually extra-inning games and win enough of them to be classified as "lucky as fuck". Another year of that won't bother me at all.
• Heretic

  

  So far, Wandy is looking like a guy who hasn't pitched much over the past year or so due to injury. Nothing offensively bad, but two runs in two innings. With the way the team's offense is looking currently, that might be insurmountable! And he needs to pitch 7 or so innings due to no bullpen guys particularly rested. Guess they could get 2 or so out of Morris.
  
  Main thing I find interesting is that Travis Snider has started all three games of this series, while Jose Tabata has just been used yesterday as a pinch-hitter who stayed in for the late innings.
• Automatik

  

  Just scored a pair of free tickets to the Buccos / Yankees game on May 17. $110 face value. Not bad!: thumbup:
• Gblock

  AWESOME ^^^^^
• Heretic

  

  Automatik;1600837 wrote:Just scored a pair of free tickets to the Buccos / Yankees game on May 17. $110 face value. Not bad!: thumbup:

  Sweet-ass deal!
• Heretic

  

  Damn, they smashed the Cards last night. Lot of bats finally woke up. Pedro with two blasts, Marte with a three-hit game and Snider, Cutch and Martin all had two hits. And Cole was strong. Four games, four quality starts, three wins. Can't complain about that!
• Heretic

  

  Won't be getting any hope from Taillon this year. Getting tommy john surgery and won't be seen again until sometime next year, I'd guess.
• Heretic

  

  With the match-up today being Volquez vs. Wainwright, I definitely wasn't expecting a win, so FUCK YEAH! Got great pitching overall and did just enough on offense. Timely hit by Sanchez to take the lead in the seventh for good.
• Heretic

  

  Turn on computer to see they're already up 4-0 on the Cubs in the first inning. Nice to see that Edwin Jackson still hasn't learned the art of putting two good starts together.
• Heretic

  

  It was 4-0 Cubs yesterday when I stopped paying attention because I had to do away-from-computer work. When I got home, I saw the Pirates won 5-4 with by Snider and Pedro hitting dingers in a 5-run 7th inning.
  
  In other words, LOLCUBS!
• Heretic

  

  After their 1-5 road trip, the Pirates smashed Brewers relief to win 11-2 last night. Gallardo left after 6 with the score tied at 2-2. Things got fun after that.
  
  As a side note, who'd have thought Volquez would be the team's best starter after three or so weeks? Dude's been great in his first three starts.
• Heretic

  

  Losing last night in what seemed to be an ugly game (errors for them and not taking advantage of opportunities for us) stunk, but getting Ike Davis is nice, as long as the PTBNL isn't a particularly good prospect. Gaby's only good against leftys and Ishikawa just isn't good, making first base a weakness.
  
  Now just have to wait until June for them to bring up Polanco to replace the unimposing RF platoon of Snider (okay) and Tabata (losing interest in hoping he develops, but he has the bigger, longer-term contract) and the offense might even be tolerably okay.
• Heretic

  

  Losing two straight that they should have won against the Brewers sucks. Makes it worse when the key player in beating them is a fucking cheater.
  
  Need to rebound big-time against the Reds.
• Heretic

  

  The only way the offense could be worse right now would be if I was on it, drunk and doped up on multiple narcotics.
  
  Completely shut down in three straight games by relative nobodies in a journeyman who'd been in relief the past few years, a young guy who averages 30 pitches an inning or so and another young guy whom they'd previously owned.
• Heretic

  

  This team is a joke right now with their utter lack of clutch anything.
  
  Both Morton and Cumpton imploded after starting strong, team left a lot of runners on base in key times and they just fucking suck at the time.
• Heretic

  

  Blew an 8-2 lead to the Giants last night to lose 11-10 in extras. I am disappoint.
• Heretic

  

  Picked up 2/3 over the very hot Giants, which is nice, although they have a long ways to go to get back to .500, let alone contention.
  
  Cole had a couple rough patches, but an overall strong start, giving them two good starting pitching performances in a row. Which is great, being how the bullpen has been about 1/15 as good as it was last year.
• Heretic

  

  As I continue the most quiet and subtle Darby string of posts in site history, Wandy Rodriguez is back today.
  
  Which fucking sucks since I think he's pretty much shot. He was effective as a 200 IP stalwart for the Astros for some time, but has been injury prone and of limited effectiveness since the trade. And just flat out sucks now. This game is going to be ugly today. He had a 10+ ERA in two rehab starts in AA Altoona and that was apparently enough to convince the club he's ready for the Brew Crew.