killer_ewok;1446329 wrote:Snider with a PH Grand Slam to lead the Pirates to a 5-4 victory over the Cubs.

Funny game following on Yahoo. Garza was about untouchable, but got taken out after five despite only throwing 82, because it was his first start back and they didn't want to wear him out because apparently Matt Garza is a pretty damn big deal.

So they brought in the pen and one half-inning later, the Pirates went from being down 3-0 to being ahead 5-3.

Liriano gave 7 great innings in a 1-0 win over the Cubs. 3 hits, 2 walks and 9 Ks, I think.

Man, if he can pitch like this and remind people of the time he was this super-hot ace-caliber prospect (or even be a solid 2-3 starter), that's just a huge damn boost. Right now, the team's getting as good of starting pitching as anyone in baseball. When your worst guy currently going out there has a 3.40 ERA (Wandy) that's only that high because of one really bad appearance, you're getting shit done. And add in the generally good-to-excellent relief and it's hard for teams to score runs consistently against them.

But they gotta get better offensively. Seems like the last two years, a big part of the collapsing was because the pitching just broke down in August. Need to start showing more consistently that the offense can win games without needing a shutout or one-run performance by the pitchers.

Three game sweep of the Cubs completed. Currently in MLB, St. Louis and Texas are the only teams with better records than Pittsburgh. Crazy even by the recent "start fast and crash hard" standard they've set the past two years. They haven't started this fast before.

Buccos kept battling today but ultimately fell to Verlander and the Tigers 6-5. Josh Harrison got picked off at second with 1 out in top of 8th. SMH

killer_ewok;1448961 wrote:Buccos kept battling today but ultimately fell to Verlander and the Tigers 6-5. Josh Harrison got picked off at second with 1 out in top of 8th. SMH

I don't think Contreras should be in the majors any more. Especially since Morris was sent down to make room for the fat guy (Zagurski, I think?). I'd rather have Morris than an old can of gas whose inability to get outs made that Harrison fuck-up wind up being as bad as it was.

It sure didn't help that the guy in blue behind the plate today had a Tigers cap on :rolleyes:

Raise it. Pirates will at least get a split out of this 4 game series with the Tigers.

33-20....love it.

Great comeback tonight. Anibal was pretty much killing it until that one inning. Went from dominant to getting killed in a hurry.

At worst, 2/4 with Detroit. With the hope of 3/4. Which needs to happen because fucking St. Louis is refusing to lose. Fuckers came back from 3-1 down in the bottom of the eighth with four runs. Cocksuckers.

Raise it!!! Buccos win it in the bottom of the 11th 1-0. Took 3/4 from Detroit. Fuck yes.

Two 11-inning 1-0 wins in a four-game series. And held a supposedly good offense to 3 runs over the last 31 innings in beating them three times after dropping the first game.

I'll take that.

Buccos absolutely shut down by Cueto. Reds win 6-0.

RAISE IT. Travis Snider drives in Russell Martin in the bottom of the 11th to complete the comeback in a 5-4 win over the Reds. Pittsburgh bullpen pitched 10 shutout innings after a 4-run 1st inning by Cincy.

Buccos avoid the sweep and move to 4-2 vs. the Reds this season. Love it. What a game.

Could "RAISE IT" be the lamest sports motto? I think so.

Hopefully the Pirates don't fade against Atlanta this week. I hate the Braves, but I can see the situation where the Braves smash the Pirates 3 straight, starting the Buccos downfall.

Azubuike24;1451628 wrote:Hopefully the Pirates don't fade against Atlanta this week. I hate the Braves, but I can see the situation where the Braves smash the Pirates 3 straight, starting the Buccos downfall.

It's a little early for their downfall. It aint August yet.

SportsAndLady;1451632 wrote:It's a little early for their downfall. It aint August yet.

Maybe not a freefall, but do you really think the Pirates can play .600 ball the rest of the way? The Reds and Cards can, IMO...

That may have been the best win of the year thus far by the Buccos. Down 4-0 after 1 and your starting pitcher has to leave the game and you still find a way to come back and win in extra innings.

Pirates and Reds tied for 2nd in the Central at 35-22. Hopefully the Buccos can maintain the head-to-head edge against Cincy as the season wears on.

SportsAndLady;1451632 wrote:It's a little early for their downfall. It aint August yet.

True. Time will tell. But life is pretty good right now for Pirate fans. I'm enjoying it.

At least they got one today. Somehow. Wish they could have gotten 2/3, but last night apparently wasn't in the cards since they simply couldn't string hits together even though they were getting them in almost every inning.

Hope they can do a bit better with the bats against Atlanta. They are kinda slumping as a team. Two 1-0 wins, two shutout losses and two games where they weren't really good offensively but either had one big inning or just got a couple big hits when needed in their last six outings. I'd like at least one solid 5-6 run win at some point instead of all this!

At least it was fun seeing, two days after that fat fuck Pittsburgh called up got shelled, that Cincinnati's fat fuck also did. I think, ever since B-dubs had that commerical in their "extending sports events so people can just hang out here" series that was baseball-related where to get a game into extra innings, they hit a button to cause the manager to put some fat fuck in to give up a homer...I get a lot of pleasure in watching fat people fail at baseball. Well, I wasn't enjoying watching Zagurski fuck up, but I did come up with some creative insults about him that had my friends laughing. So that was fun.

killer_ewok;1451635 wrote:That may have been the best win of the year thus far by the Buccos. Down 4-0 after 1 and your starting pitcher has to leave the game and you still find a way to come back and win in extra innings.

Pirates and Reds tied for 2nd in the Central at 35-22. Hopefully the Buccos can maintain the head-to-head edge against Cincy as the season wears on.

I hope the Pirates can keep it up. Would be fun to have the NL Central a three dog race throughout the whole season.

I think what may be tough for the Pirates is the fact that the Reds only come to PNC for one more series. The Pirates have to travel to Cincy 3 times. I think the Reds will be able to make up ground in the head-to-head matchup at home.

But it should be fun to watch.

sherm03;1451717 wrote:I hope the Pirates can keep it up. Would be fun to have the NL Central a three dog race throughout the whole season.

I think what may be tough for the Pirates is the fact that the Reds only come to PNC for one more series. The Pirates have to travel to Cincy 3 times. I think the Reds will be able to make up ground in the head-to-head matchup at home.

But it should be fun to watch.

Agree, Sherm. Good post.

Apparently Wandy hurt his elbow in the first inning of today's early game. Which mean the bullpen's gonna get killed again for the second game in four days. Where in the other two games, AJ Burnett only lasted five innings and Jeff Locke only went 5.2 in a 10-inning game.

This sucks.

Heretic;1452909 wrote:Apparently Wandy hurt his elbow in the first inning of today's early game. Which mean the bullpen's gonna get killed again for the second game in four days. Where in the other two games, AJ Burnett only lasted five innings and Jeff Locke only went 5.2 in a 10-inning game.

This sucks.

Yeah, not good at all. With Gomez on the DL and Wandy's health in doubt....not sure what the best move is to weather this storm.

Apparently, the best move is to start Gerrit Cole's major league career on Tuesday. Looking forward to seeing how he does, as he's been great in AAA in his past few starts. 19 straight scoreless innings, I think.

Right now, I'm just happy they're playing the Cubs. 7 scoreless innings for Liriano and today, 8 (assuming he doesn't go out for the 9th -- 101 pitches now) from Burnett. After all the bullpen-killing the rotation's been doing, it's nice to see two starters combine for at least 15 innings over a pair of starts.

Can't wait to see how Cole does tonight.