10-3-21 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter
What can you say really?
You want me to paint manure with pastels and tell you it’s flowers?
162 games is a baseball season under normal circumstances and I’ll be blunt if last year hadn’t been shortened to such a small number of ballgames we might just be talking about back to back seasons like this. Based on winning percentage that almost has to be your assumption anyway.
Some of you understand why, some of you think they could have done this differently, but I assume most of you that have read along all season with me know this is the result of a host of mistakes and sometimes the only way to correct a mistake is to deal with the consequences, head on.
For starters, Mitch Keller took the ball on short rest and went 3 innings allowing one run. I can honestly say, he wasn’t the issue today. Cody Ponce on the other hand, yeah, he got punched in the mouth for 4 earned. Anthony Banda gave up another.
Before you knew it the score was 6-1 and if you watched last night, you might have actually felt ok.
In the bottom of the 9th down 6-1 Ben Gamel singled and Oneil Cruz blasted a homerun to make it 6-3.
6-3 Reds defeat the Pirates.
Offseason is officially here. Buckle up.
News & Notes
- Bryan Reynolds played in 159 of the 162 games this year, started in the All Star Game as the Starting Center Fielder. Finished over .300 with 24 homeruns and 90 RBI. Should be at least in the running for comeback player of the year, gold glove and might even get some MVP votes. This isn’t just a good player, this is a star. Extend him, to the end of the decade. I want him on every iteration of this club at least that long. He pinch hit in the bottom of the 9th and appropriately made the last out on the year.
- The Pirates used 61 players to complete this season, including 34 pitchers.
- Craig and I will be all over the off season, and it’s full of questions both internally and for the league itself. In other words, we won’t be taking much of a break.
- Next on the agenda is figuring out the 40-man, I’m going to take my time and do this right. Crucial decisions are coming and I don’t want to just make assumptions so I’ll be working with Craig to develop what we think will happen here, rest assured, someone we want protected from Rule 5, won’t be.
- That’s 101 losses on the season and the Pirates officially finish the year without a sweep. That’s the 9th time this franchise has lost 100 games, but I should note even though most of you know this, baseball hasn’t always had 162 games.
- Oneil Cruz hit his first homerun in the bottom of the 9th, a 2 run shot.
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