*depressed sigh* Pittsburgh Pirates 2022 stuff until I lose interest in everything

Huh, they won today. Might as well enjoy the moment, since 1-2 might wind up being the high point for the season, as far as being close to .500.

5-4 after taking 3/4 from Washington. Wouldn't have guessed they'd be above .500 this late into the year, so that's a positive!

Better than the Reds

58 wins will get you 4th place in NL Central

Yoooo…

Hey, uh, they got two of three in the series! Sure, that one does take a bit of luster off that feat, but yeah... I got nothing.

Three out of four, my bad!

posted by justincredible

Yoooo…

Thought it was the Bears over the Steelers for a minute ....

Team is actually playing well right now. Sweeping the Dodgers on the road and taking 2/3 from the D'backs at home. Only four under .500, which is about 6-8 games better than I'd have given as an optimistic opinion.

Seems a lot of that has coincided with guys who were lousy getting hurt or cut (sorry, Cole Tucker, but you still have Vanessa!) and being replaced by young guys who are actually *gasp* contributing. Like, today, of the established guys, they got an RBI single from Hayes, but nothing else. But the bottom of the order kicked ass with people like Cal Mitchell and Jack Suwinski (young) and Heineman (older) doing well. And while he didn't do anything today, Marcano was huge in that Dodgers' series with homers in back-to-back games.

And the pitching has improved. Bednar is as good as any closer in the game, while a couple of their young starters have been really impressive at times.

Against my will, I'm actually getting a bit impressed with what I'm seeing. Maybe not every night (thanks, Brubaker and your elite-tier home-run-surrendering skills), but more and more frequently as the year goes on. Sure, now that I said it, they'll go in a 6-34 tailspin, but it's been fun for a week or more.

And now they've lost 4 in a row. Seems to happen every damn time I say something complementary about how they're performing. I have to learn from this sometime, don't I? Just never say anything good about them no matter what. They win 15 in a row, I need to sit here and type on this site like I'm shelbucks and completely miserable in life because that damn team is thisclose to ripping out my heart. And then, maybe they'll not fuck it all up.

Why is Oneil Cruz not up yet?

posted by birddog23

Why is Oneil Cruz not up yet?

Maximizing contract leverage and service time, so "he needs more seasoning in the minors".

posted by Heretic

Maximizing contract leverage and service time, so "he needs more seasoning in the minors".

That's just frustrating when there is young stars around the league getting their chance and making things happen....Bobby Witt Jr, Julio Rodriguez, Wander Franco, Spencer Torkelson, Adley Rutschman, etc.

I fucking swear, if they keep giving worthless Yu Chang regular playing time, I will snap. Dude can't hit, strikes out constantly (ie: not bad luck metrics, he just can't handle MLB pitching) and sucks at everything except helping a team tank.

Wow, I looked up Chang’s stats and if you add in his 10 at bats with no hits with Cleveland, he is batting .097.  I didn’t even realize that the Pirates bought him. 

I found this on my Facebook newsfeed:

I like the young stars. This team isn’t a bad watch.

posted by Ironman92

I like the young stars. This team isn’t a bad watch.

Cruz throw from ss was red

At the least, this has been an interesting year. They've had periods where they look like utter shit (either getting wrecked for 15+ in a game or going a week averaging 1.3 runs per game) and while they've had at least tolerably decent power, due to sucking at things like batting average, it seems an inordinate amount of their homers have been solo shots, so they have multiple guys with lines like 15 homers and 32 RBIs (which is Bryan Reynolds exact line, but he's not an outlier). But they've managed to at least not be horrible and a lot of potentially promising young guys are getting playing time, so you can see a nucleus starting to form and there is promise for improvement down the road.

This Pirates fan took a picture with Pirates owner Bob Nutting wearing a ‘Sell the Team’ shirt. WHAT AN ABSOLUTE SAVAGE 🤣🤣🤣pic.twitter.com/B2nlvtjiQk

— Baseball King (@BasebaIlKing) August 4, 2022

Heh, the Brewers might be regretting trading Hader if that's how Williams is going to lock down the 9th.