Pirates Swept By Dodgers 9-0, Brubaker & Homeruns is a Thing

8-19-21 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

The thing with JT Brubaker is, I get the impression most people want to give him benefit of doubt here. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Bob from Bloomfield always knew he stunk I’m sure.

Most people tend to give him credit for throwing a ton more innings than he has since 2018. Even those folks have to be alarmed by the homerun figures.

28 homeruns given up in 116.1 innings isn’t just a little bad, it’s disqualifying of everything else he’s done and here’s the thing, it’s a problem he’s literally not had before. His worst total was 15 back in 2016 in 129.2 innings split between Low and High A.

I guess we can say some of it is attributed to being tired, but it’s hard to put all of the blame there, after all you don’t give up that many bombs and have just started a few starts back.

Now, what should they do?

They want to stretch him out, but they can do that without trotting him out once a week to add to his record. And where is Oscar Marin? At some point someone who makes way more money than me, and, um, actually works for the team is going to have to start asking questions like that.

Hell, toss Eckstein in there too, 3 hits last night. And it’s not like they faced Kershaw.

News & Notes

• Colin Moran has a knack for being the only one to get hits during these contests where they’re kept off the board.
• Luis Oviedo has now had 3 straight scoreless outings. This would hardly be news for most relievers but this is still good to see.
• Sam Howard will be back very soon. That’s good news.
• Blake Cederlind only 5 months removed from TJ surgery has resumed playing catch.
• Chad Kuhl threw a live BP yesterday signaling his imminent return.
• Bryse Wilson threw a side yesterday and should also be eligible soon.
• Anthony Alford has resumed baseball activities and will join the team in St. Louis.
• Yesterday MLB leaked a proposed lower luxury tax and salary floor. This is a joke for a ton of reasons, not least of which being it won’t happen. I’ll get much more into detail here soon.