Pirates Lose in Familiar Fashion 8-6 in Philly

9-25-21 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

The Pirates at this point in the season have the worst bullpen in baseball. I’m not going to bother looking up the stats, let’s just go with the knowledges that we have no idea who is going to do what nightly.

There are at this point, roughly 83 innings left to cover and the way we’re going, there might be 18 pitchers to get it done. It’s hard to even pretend this is about evaluation as much as its about finishing the season not requiring anyone to have their arm amputated.

So when the Pirates chose to use Sam Howard as an opener instead of the logical choice of the recently pulled up Miguel Yajure, you know, a starter, well, it got me thinking.

I think we can stop right now worrying about when any pitcher pitches. The rest of this season is about nothing more than spending the last few innings in their budget and I honestly don’t think they care where or when or who does it.

Howard managed to open the game scoreless and hand it to Yajure who didn’t look great.

Miguel gave up 3 earned, 4 in all. Shelby Miller gave up a couple in .2 innings. Chasen Shreve gave up 3 more.

Sprinkle in the good performances and there we are.

The team continues to hit, in fact they’ve overcome this pitching staff more than a few times in this last month of baseball.

I will say this, I question the wisdom of purposefully going with a bullpen game two days in a row when you know how bad that aspect of the team is, but again, it’s just innings at this point, and they’ve made it very clear we should see it that way. In fact If they could replace their jersey numbers with countdown clocks for how many innings they have left in the budget for each one it might actually help us understand what’s happening.

Phillies defeat the Pirates 8-6 and again, somehow the Pirates had a lead as late as the 7th.

News & Notes

• Before the game Dillon Peters was placed on the IL and no, I don’t know if it’s real or rest. Miguel Yajure was called up to replace him on the roster.
• Wilmer Difo is arguably the best pinch hitter in the game this year, and tonight he popped another dinger off the bench to give the team the lead in the 7th.
• Miguel Yajure didn’t look his best, but health is more important for him. Making sure he has a normal offseason and Spring is super important.
• It’s a lot to ask but Reynolds is really close to some nice round numbers with 9 games left. .295, 88 RBI, 24 dingers. Sure would be nice to round all those up.