OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Apollo, you wanna to ring the Bell?

[Winger for Hire]

Click to read more...

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Just for the vibes.

 

[Winger for Hire]

I love the mini Sosa hop

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I'm really high on him. It is basically the only thing to be happy about recently, because Polanco's arm is clearly not going to make up for his defensive shortcomings any time soon. But I think Tucker has real plus upside as the everyday SS, which is a huge boost to the overall makeup of the team. I won't be shocked to see some service time manipulation, and he may struggle enough to give them cover for it, although I also suspect it will have to do with how the team is playing.

But in terms of the longer season view, and looking at the core/next year, Tucker having plus defense and a real bat is just massive. Add in Hayes' stock rising, and there's good reason to be optimistic. I can't say I'm confident that we're going to turn things around quickly, but hopefully they can right the ship enough while we wait for Marte and Dickerson. If we can at least take a game this weekend and keep above .500, then hopefully the pitching (it will be Lyles and Taillon) can shut down Texas. A 3-2 road trip seems feasible, but it's an uphill battle. Losing a game just 3-1 or something would feel like an improvement.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Safe to say, regardless of how much more embarrassing this run is going to get, we don't have to worry about Hearn dominating us next week.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

First triple post of the new thread.



I think we've got about 12 hours max left to "being above .500", at least for a little while.

 

[cheesedanish87]

IIRR it seems like a lot of these games at LA have been blowouts as well.

I'd be happy winning 1 game this weekend.

Its probably unrealistic to expect the Pirates to win a road series against a team that might be the best team in the NL.

Sunday's game with Williams against Hill seems like the most winnable game of the series to me.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Everything was going good for about 5 minutes: we got a cheap early run, and Archer was on track for an inning with single digit pitching. Then Archer served up an easy pitch to Turner and hung a change up, and now we're going to lose again.

 

[td_ice]

Tucker K's, but can't complain, that was a hell of a pitch. Nasty.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Yeah, this is Hurdle's lineup construction coming back to bite us. It's definitely playing things up to say that the #8 spot is really difficult, but it is in those kinds of circumstances. I'm not really sure why we don't want to leave him at the top and take advantage of his speed.

Hard not to feel like this is fated. Already three guys left on base, chances for big scores in both innings and we came away with one run on a double play. Can Archer put up a bunch of 0s the rest of the way? Everything feels impossible and hopeless for this team right now.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Maybe the Dodgers will get a HR in every single inning tonight.

 

[td_ice]

Bells goes deep!

 

[DJ Spinoza]

It's really nice to see Bell able to crush a pitch like that on the day after he had some bad and awkward looking swings, from the other side of the plate no less. I think he's really emerging on another level.

Ryu has pitched Tucker well tonight. That was a nasty pitch to get him looking. We're going to need another long ball or two to win this, I think. And I'm not feeling amazing about Archer. He's making some pitches, but the offspeed stuff isn't as sharp as it could be tonight, and every single player on the Dodgers is going up there to try and HR.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Someone wake me up when Archer is a good pitcher.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

You are going to be sleeping for a while. He just hasn't been able to find that level of a shut down option. Part of this is overdoing it I think, and part is just the kind of pitcher he is now. He's trying to be perfect because we need a zero in this inning, and it's probably going to result in the knockout 3-4+ run inning.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Polanco needs to sit or go back to a rehab stint if this is the new norm for his defense. I've been a longtime firm backer, but this is putrid.

This team can't even have something sort of go ok for longer than 5 or 10 minutes right now. Just a mess. Winning a game in this series will take a miracle.

 

[td_ice]

Yeah, and they just showed him, he's still breathing deeply, and he really didn't run all that far or long.

 

[ChaosAgent]

You are going to be sleeping for a while. He just hasn't been able to find that level of a shut down option. Part of this is overdoing it I think, and part is just the kind of pitcher he is now. He's trying to be perfect because we need a zero in this inning, and it's probably going to result in the knockout 3-4+ run inning.

Man, this season turned ugly really quickly. Part of the rationale for this year being better was "well they won't have a 10-30 stretch" (or whatever that thing last year was) but it looks imminent right about now.

Cervelli is a terrible defensive catcher right now.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Does Archer ever strike a guy out in an AB without taking 7 pitches to do it?

 

[td_ice]

Shaping up to be another blowout.

Mop up Kingham warming up.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I still don't really think we'll go into the 10-20 slide, but I can't say that with absolute confidence. Hopefully the Rangers and As will have mediocre pitching enough to let us get back into the win column a little bit, but both of those teams have more than capable offenses as well.

I was starting to think that at least we might hang around and lose this game in a disappointing 4-2 or 5-3 manner or something. Probably the worst thing that could happen is what's happening – another embarrassing, lopsided loss, because now that cloud just hangs over the road trip.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Polanco needs to sit or go back to a rehab stint if this is the new norm for his defense. I've been a longtime firm backer, but this is putrid.

This team can't even have something sort of go ok for longer than 5 or 10 minutes right now. Just a mess. Winning a game in this series will take a miracle.

Polanco's D was also bad last year. His body type has totally changed. If we can bring back Dickerson for something like 2yrs/$20M, my preference is to do that and trade Polanco.

Reynolds has clearly shown has an MLB outfielder. Maybe not a great one, but then again neither is Polanco.

 

[td_ice]

Polanco looking more like a NFL TE.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

The impressive thing about how bad the Pirates offense is is that even on a night where we score a couple of runs and even stack up a couple of hits, the other pitcher is still mostly dominating. Ryu is going to cruise through 7 innings easily tonight.

I'm sure there must be stats kept on this, but I'd put money on us seeing among the fewest pitches per at bat in the league. 3-4 average.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

It's almost like the Pirates are in a "let's alienate our fans" contest with... themselves.