Rough five days for Pittsburgh sports.

Pitt got embarrassed at home by Akron, Our beloved Steelers got embarrassed at home by the worse team in the NFL, and last but not least the Pirates get embarrassed at home by the Giants. Please join me in hoping the next five days are better than the last five.

 

Sunday was a baaaaaaad day. The Steelers get embarrassed and Tomlin makes some of the most perplexing comments I've ever heard coming from a "player's coach".

 

Quite a few perplexing comments here on Sunday also!

 

Perplexing comments on this board are not reserved for Sundays.

 

You got that right !

 

To be fair The Bucs were facing one of the top if not the best pitcher in baseball and he was on fire last night. Not sure they could have done much more than they did. It was not as embarrassing as the 91 and 92 NLCS where they supposed power hitters Bonds and Bonilla were pretty much no shows the whole series.

 

Giving up a Grand Slam in the fourth with no outs is pretty embarrassing. Loading the bases again with no outs is pretty bad as well. In hindsight, knowing you had to play this game or a game on Monday anyway, I'd have sat my 2 best starters on Sat/Sun.....

 

In that situation I think the responsibility falls on Hurdle. No one wants to pull their starting pitcher in the fourth but he was struggling and I'm all for letting a guy work himself out of it but you have two on, no outs and the count is 3 and two with a heavy hitter on deck, I think you have to consider giving him the hook. The minute he loaded the bases I knew a grand slam was coming and the way Baumgartner was pitching I knew they weren't going to be able to claw their way back into it. Beauty if baseball sometimes it all comes down to what the ump is calling a ball or a strike. I just hope the Bucs reload and instead of starting slow they start steady next season and finish as strong as this year and don't worry about the wildcard win the division and let the cards fall where they may.

 

Vikings are worst team in football.
Nobody should lose to them.

 

Nope.. Vikings beat Rams 34-6 That distinction belongs to the 0-4 Jaguars or the 0-4 Raiders.

 

did you do that intentionally?

Pens won against the Wings Wednesday night and Sid played.

 

Bonilla wasn't on the 92 team, fwiw.

 

Yes, he was on fire. But our batting order didn't help by swinging on the first pitch. With a pitcher on fire, we should have drawn higher pitch counts on early at-bats, in order to wear him down after 5 or 6 innings, with a chance to take on their bullpen. Instead, he stepped into the mound during the 8th inning with less than 95 pitches.

Volquez is Hurdle's to-go guy. When Volquez had men on 1st and 2nd with no outs, it was probably where Watson's number should have been called, or even Gomez / Huges. Instead: high pitch, Grand Slam, game over.

Martin needs to be re-signed. If Harrison is the starting 3rd baseman, then either Alvarez starts at 1st base and we get rid of Sanchez / Davis, or Alvarez is dealt (while still has value).
Side note: Mercer is no 2nd bat at all... Marte should have been there, or Walker (who was 6th).

And Hurdle needs to define our starting rotation (it's actually too crowded, with Volquez, Liriano, Cole, Locke, Worley, Morton and Cumpton).

Enjoyed pretty much Pirate's season, but we dropped a chance on the pennant race last weekend (if we have won, we would have been Division champs). Core players are signed for a couple more years and we have promising prospects, which could lead to having competitive seasons on years to come.


... and yes, hope for a better stretch on Pitt's sports, starting Sunday with the Steelers!