Our 3 Takeaways From Pirates’ Comedy of Errors Loss to the Tigers

all right what's going on beautiful people this is the north shore nine podcast presented by FanDuel and you are listening to the ns nine post game show powered by Primanti Brothers i'm tyler with me is neil pirates lose this one eight two seven

they fall short of a comeback neil how are we doing tonight because i'm a little bit annoyed i don't know about yourself but i'm a

But why did this game have to go so long?

Like the Tigers delay this game by twenty five minutes because they're honoring Justin Verlander.

And then.

This game wouldn't end.

It just would not come to a close.

Justin Verlander is an absolute legend for sure.

He deserves all the flowers that he gets here.

Can we give him his flowers at like six, ten when the first pitch is supposed to be six, forty?

Yeah.

What are we doing here?

Six, forty start time means six, forty start time.

Old man yelling a cloud here.

But my God, start the game at six, forty when you start the game at six, forty.

like if the I can't believe I'm complimented the pirates here on this, but like the pirates can have like full on Hall of Fame pregame ceremonies and still start the game closer on time

than what the tigers did tonight like which is crazy because that's honoring more than one person it's i don't know like in this game and then on top of that like everyone kept

scoring people couldn't play defense pitchers were bad like it was an actually entertaining game it was just it was a little late on a friday night for me to be like yes keep this going

It was some absolutely terrible baseball play today.

Pirates did a whole lot of it.

Today we saw, well, first let me start here.

Whoever the scorekeeper is in Detroit is maybe the most generous human being I've ever seen in my life because somehow the Pirates get out of this one with one error.

I count at least three legitimate errors today.

What do they attribute as the one error?

I guess that's my question.

I'm pretty sure the one error was the one that, yeah, it was the one Konnor Griffin just had go through his legs.

.

Okay.

Yeah.

Which, yes, the ball just went through his legs, which was somehow not even the most egregious play tonight.

No, there were, it was very difficult to watch this defense and the defense has been better lately.

Neil, like they've gotten, they haven't had the major blowups and, mainly Nick Gonzales hasn't been a nightmare at third base every day or maybe it's just not been as noticeable but we

haven't seen like this type of game in a while this was one of those games my god they could not field a baseball today it was bad I don't know if you saw pregame where like one of the keys to the game

on the sports network was hit someone and clear the benches.

Hit the first batter.

I thought that was funny.

Hit the first batter.

Clear the benches.

And that was from Doc Emrick who was in the booth for the first like five innings tonight.

Yeah.

Hockey announcer.

Awesome, dude.

Love Doc Emrick.

That was probably the best part of today.

Yeah.

Great piece of the game there.

That's my bread and butter.

My point, yeah, I agree.

Great announcer.

I really enjoyed him in the booth tonight.

The Pirates could have used that.

Someone, maybe one of the Tigers, maybe Verlander needed to throw in a Pirates hitter to get them locked in because they were not locked in until they were down six runs.

They needed a wake-up call for sure.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, maybe you're right there, Neil.

Maybe that's what, maybe they did need to hit the first batter of the game.

Get something going here.

This is why you don't do fun.

This is my old man.

Yell at cloud moment.

You are eliminated from the playoffs.

Team season has been a failure.

I don't want to see a bunch of guys dressed up like Michael Jackson having fun.

I don't want to see that garbage.

They're too busy worrying, playing about playing Halloween dress up than they are about winning baseball games.

Like get it together, guys.

I would tend to agree with you.

Well, I guess let's talk about this game that transpired today.

Bubba Chandler got to start on the mound, and what is his last start of the season?

He only goes two and two-thirds, walks four, strikes out two, gives up four hits, ends up giving up six runs.

Two of the runs that he gave up were on a strikeout.

Yes, if you did not watch the game, I said that correctly.

Bubba Chandler gave up two runs on a strike three.

rafael flores just boots a ball gets away it was three two with two outs tigers are running on the pitch and two guys scored that is the type of game that we watched today when

you put it like that yeah what a way to spend a friday night but what do you think about it today pretty terrible the biggest

thing i come back to is the i feel like i think last time i was on i was above a start and we were just talking about how great it was to see his development in terms of limiting walks and even though the results

weren't necessarily there like you could see improvement and then tonight was just fifteen steps backward in that regard four walks only two strikeouts doesn't even get to a third it's still

that issue of not being efficient struggling to consistently throw strikes and I know he's a young rookie but you can't help but feel disappointed that he's ended this year at

the four six two era That's it's been a disappointing season from Bubba.

Yeah.

When you look at the totality of the season and you see the final results here with Bubba, the four sixty two era is not what you pictured, I think this year.

But in terms of today.

I'll be honest, I don't know if I would have let Bubba Chandler start.

And the reason I say that the velocity was amazing.

Absolutely not there today.

His first pitch of the game was ninety four.

That's one of those you see ninety four from Bubba Chandler and your eyes get real big.

Oh, what's wrong?

Did he did it register a change up accidentally or do you throw a change up first pitch of the game and it registered wrong?

Like what happened here?

And then it just stayed ninety four, ninety five.

We saw him creepy like ninety six personally.

And I understand they know Bubba Chandler a lot better than me.

They know his health.

That being said, if he was that down in the bullpen, I might have scratched him.

It's just not worth doing this.

Not worth the risk.

Even best case scenario here with Bubba, I think he was probably just not able to get loose.

It was a chilly night.

Just one of those days.

You don't have it.

I'm not really willing to risk Bubba Chandler in a day he doesn't have it in the hundred and sixtieth game of the year.

when you're out of the playoffs.

Maybe I'm a little bit overly cautious there, and I probably am.

it probably isn't worth it because I'm not sure he was worth this caution, but I think the like the Oviedo situation has like permanently scarred us in that regard.

For sure.

Like the twenty three where he was just used like a pack mule.

I think that always resides in our mind.

I just I think and I think when Norman in the comments is saying it's like I don't even know if they I think they probably even if you see that you might have to say you might not have it.

Don't push it.

Just go out there and throw because they needed people to get through this game.

They need to get there.

They're throwing bullpen games two out of every five starts at this rate.

You need someone to go out there and throw the baseball.

And so, You do.

I'm assuming that might be part of why they're like, what?

Just don't go get hurt.

Yeah.

And at the very least, and I think they did probably at least close to the right thing here.

Like I already said, I probably wouldn't have.

One, I...

I probably don't let him back out there in the second inning after I see him in the first.

That's just my thought process there.

I know we can probably loosen up, but I'm not risking it here.

Not right now.

With that being said, they only let him go two and two-thirds.

Don Kelly had a pretty quick hook on him.

He didn't let him stay out there and get beat around and throw a hundred pitches the night.

So I'm not up in arms about it.

I just probably would prefer to be a touch more cautious there in that situation.

But I like people are saying yes, you do have to be able to get through a game.

You got to get through nine innings here.

And somewhat in his defense, he should have gotten out of those first two innings without giving up a run.

He got the third out of that second inning and Jake Mangum had other ideas.

Yeah, so he gave up his first two runs of the game on a Spencer.

It was a Spencer Torkelson triple, correct?

Well, it was rolled a triple, which, yeah, they're going to give him a hit on that.

But it's a play that Jake Mangum one hundred percent needs to make.

Plain and simple, Jake Mangum has to make that play.

Yeah, and we're probably talking about a different game.

Yeah, you take that away, the Pirates win.

obviously, butterfly effect and all the rest.

But yeah, that's just, it was a hard hit baseball.

But if you're a glove, if defense is your calling card, you're supposed to be a defensive guy, make that play.

And if you can't, Just let the ball fall and give up the single.

Like that's just an absurd.

He did everything wrong.

Yeah, it's just an absurd play to give up.

Genuinely absurd to let that happen.

And again, like it doesn't really matter.

The Pirates are eliminated.

We've already secured our participation trophy by hitting eighty one wins.

But like, what are we doing?

Yeah, so Mangum comes in on that.

The ball's tailing away from him.

He takes a terrible angle at it.

Dives for it, which I'm fine with two outs, to be honest with you, if you dive for it.

Go for the catch.

You have to knock it down still.

But because he took such a putrid route to it, the ball gets by him.

Because he just doesn't notice that it's tailing away.

He's just got to make that play.

Like you said, you're a glove-first outfielder.

It's what we've been saying all year.

He's got to get better at making those plays.

He has to make those plays.

That's where his value is.

It can't happen.

If you're going to be hustle defense speed, man, you have to make those plays.

I'm sorry.

There's just not enough bat talent there to justify this.

This isn't even the first time it happened.

It happens more often to him than it does to the crews at this rate.

who also had a fun play in the outfield as well tonight.

He did, yeah.

However, Mangum did have two.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The ball was coming in on.

He just stopped.

It's his ball.

Go get it.

Yeah.

Do you think there was even like a pregame speech given to this team or like, do you think Don Kelly just said, go have fun guys.

Like it bordered on like a softball league where people are drinking throughout the game.

It looked like a team that had some fun on the town of Detroit.

Right.

They looked like they enjoyed, they might've got in early yesterday or something and they enjoyed their night.

That's what they looked like.

Mm.

Which I can respect, but also I can't do it.

I have to I have to watch him like, right?

I don't know.

Do us a favor here, guys.

Yeah.

If I if I have to show up and do my job well after a night of drinking, so do these guys.

Exactly.

That those two runs there on that Torkelson triple tied the game at two and then Coming back out in the third inning already mentioned the wild pitch runs.

I don't even know what to call it.

That occurs there in the third inning.

The Tigers end up scoring four in that inning.

It fell apart.

You should never see two runners score via strikeout in a play.

That's insane.

It's honestly to the point where it's hard to be mad about because it's just so absurd.

Yeah, it was already four to two, and that play happened.

The Tigers were able to get two runs on a Dylan Dingler, Ohio guy, by the way.

Single that scored two runs.

That pretty much closed the book there on Bubba, which, again, he should have been fine.

He should have been able to get through three there.

He struck the guy out.

Yeah.

Flores, who has gotten better behind the plate, I will say.

Just, he was lazy there.

He got lazy.

Mm-.

I think we saw a lot of guys get lazy from time to time tonight.

I don't see a future with Flores as a catcher, to be honest.

I don't see it.

it's possible that he could put in a Henry Davis level offseason where he comes back from being genuinely unplayable to good at this, but he can't throw runners out.

His framing's whatever.

His... that's just my eye test, so he could be a lead at it.

I haven't looked at the Savant page.

And... Yeah, I feel like he's prone to those type of plays.

There's a place for him.

It probably has to be catcher because of how many DHs and first basemen we have on this team.

But it's going to be rough.

I'll say if...

henry davis could turn into what he did behind the plate i'm not gonna i'm not gonna write off flores either because i if anything the pirates i think have shown that they can at least coach the defensive

part of catching that's fair i think they've done a really good job with that so this is one spot where i'll defer to the pirates i

I at least want to see a full offseason with Flores here behind the plate with what potentially could be him being the guy going into next year.

And let's see what happens with that.

Yeah.

I think Davis is somewhat of an anomaly.

Like he's throwing out half his base runners, which is just an insane statistic.

Like genuinely insane.

He's at a almost a fifty percent clip in that regard.

But no, you're right.

They've developed well.

I think Andy's taking strides there.

Davis is taking strides there.

That was Joey Barton.

Yeah, Joey Bart was a little irritated.

I was afraid that Flores might be in that somewhat irredeemable category just because it was a constant problem in the minors for him.

But we'll talk about the home run that bad is the bat just looks so good that you have to play him.

The bat looks incredible.

For sure.

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Should have grabbed him downstairs.

Dang it.

The Pirates got their first two runs on the board.

Started with a Ryan O'Hearn single.

He scored Oneil Cruz, who advanced the second on a stolen base, his thirtieth of the year.

And then Spencer Horwitz doubled in O'Hearn, gave the Pirates a two-nothing lead there in the second inning.

Ryan O'Hearn is good.

It's fun to watch Oneil Cruz run.

It's nice to see Spencer Horwitz start to put it together here in the end of this year.

he's had a rough stretch since coming off the IL.

That's about everything I got on the offense there at that point.

Yeah.

It's funny because this was somewhat of a career year for O'Hearn at the plate, and yet I'm curious to see just how much better he can be next

year and how much healthier he can be next year when he's not funneled into right field.

Right, yeah.

I am very curious to see what happens.

I feel like he should have the inside track to DH, and then they try to fill in right.

Maybe they think Mangum's the opening day right fielder.

I don't know.

But they try to fill in right field instead of trying to fill in another DH because we don't want another – I'm not going to talk about him, but we don't want a situation of that absolute loser we used to have on the team who DH and forced him in the

right field.

Still have Esmerlyn Valdez.

That's true.

Valdez would be better than who we had.

Yeah, I don't know.

I just really like watching O'Hearn play.

Yeah, he's a pro.

He deserves...

He deserves October baseball.

I don't know.

Is it weird?

I can almost feel like he's a leader.

I haven't really heard too much about him this season, but he just gives off that leadership type feel in the clubhouse.

he's just a pro's pro.

I think him and Brandon Lowe both, you just have professional ballplayers with him.

You can see the way they carry themselves.

When they're not here or if they're down, it hurts.

This is still a pretty young team.

It's legitimately a bunch of guys who have never played in the postseason or never played big-time Major League Baseball up and down this lineup, except for those two.

And you can tell when they're not there.

yeah that period of time when like we didn't have cruzo or o'hearn in the lineup like that was that was a real that was a real dark period yeah that was not enjoyable happy for him

i'm really happy he's i'm really happy that he's here next year i'm so happy it wasn't just a one-year deal yeah Keep it up.

Keep doing that.

Just sign good baseball players.

It's that simple.

It's not that hard.

Just get good baseball players.

The Tigers were able to add on a handful more runs there.

Spencer Torkelson, who fell a single short of the cycle, homered.

The Tigers scored on the error by Konnor Griffin as well.

because once again, this team just decided not to play defense today.

And at this point, Neil, I'm clawing at the TV, like, let's go just end this stupid thing already.

Pirates had other ideas.

Boy, did they ever.

They scrapped their way back into this.

Nick Gonzales drives in the first run, cutting it to eight to three.

Ryan O'Hearn then singles eight to four.

And then the guy we talked about earlier, Rafael Flores, comes up, runners on first and third.

Yeah, first and third.

And he hits his eleventh of the year to make it an eight to seven ball game.

You talked about it earlier.

I was cackling.

you talked about it earlier, like the bats, why you got to find out if he can catch.

Yeah.

like he's even cut down on that strikeout rate.

Like that's what I've been looking at.

Like the, and obviously like he's still like with quite a bit, but like, I think when he first came up, he was really struggling to make contacts.

And I don't think those struggles are really much there anymore.

And yeah, was an awesome home run and i love that he's able to seemingly hit and leverage situations it feels like he's able to come into games late in games

specifically and do damage he did that against the royals he did it before the royals i couldn't exactly remember what series he did it in but like he's showing up in clutch moments he is and

i think like the other part is didn't think he was going to hit because he didn't hit in triple a this year felt like it was going to be an anomaly he had a stretch and then he goes basically comes over here and

he just turns into a pumpkin and let's be honest he was a pumpkin in triple a he did not earn an opportunity to be up here sooner like he didn't deserve to be up here enough injuries happened that they had to

bring him up here and Yeah, I didn't think he had this in him, to be honest with you.

I didn't think he did major league pitching like this.

And I do think some of it still remains to be seen.

But you can, at the position he plays, if we can figure out the defense just a touch here, he doesn't have to be this.

But you're talking about a probably twenty to twenty five home run guy.

If he gets consistent at bats, I think that's pretty obvious.

That'd be nice to get out of the catcher position.

Yeah, like I think we've already gotten like top ten offensive production from catchers this year, which is crazy to think about coming into this year when we thought about the position and how much Henry Davis has

played.

But yeah, no, I want to agree like he has the inside track to the starting catcher job next year.

And he can't stay healthy.

Davis is a good defensive guy, but you don't want him starting every day.

No, Flores has been very impressive, and it's crazy because he mentioned he wasn't performing.

I don't think I heard a single Pirates fan, even the most positive of positive, even the prospect people.

None of the prospect guys on Pirates Twitter who love every prospect were itching to call up Rafael Flores.

No one wanted him up.

He's proven us all wrong.

Yeah, he was down there in the pecking order.

And what the other nice part is?

He hits lefties.

This team desperately needs somebody to hit lefties and he can do it.

Yeah.

That should have been Davis's calling card being a righty who can hit for power, but no, I'm Flores seems to be the answer to those prayers.

Yeah.

So, good stuff from him to this point, he cut it to an eight, seven deficit, but not enough.

Too little, too late.

Too many mistakes defensively.

Too many walks.

The Pirates end up blocking seven, only striking out five today.

Like I mentioned, the one error.

There was the Konnor Griffin error.

There was the Rafael Flores.

I'm calling it a pass ball.

They called it a wild pitch.

Jake Mangum's two plays.

Oneil Cruz's play.

I got five right there.

And I know those aren't textbook errors.

Those are plays that need to be made.

One hundred percent.

It's like if you those plays you win this game if you make arguably if you make one of those plays like specifically on the floor as your main gun side yeah you

just win the game and yeah just weird lose games like that this was a very this is it was a winnable game

However, with that being said, Neil, I predicted eighty three wins on our preseason show here.

If Pirates win the next two, that's eighty three wins.

I think I get bonus points.

I think that means I should win.

just say so too bad dinardo also picked that and no he said he's out he can't win okay he's out i picked i wasn't on a show so i don't get any brownie points but i also predicted and so that'd be cool

to be night that'd be correct if i can't win if my team can't win at least i can be correct about things yeah i'd rather not be correct about this one however

I guess I just know ball, guys.

I guess I just know ball.

It's a curse.

It really is.

And with it being towards the end of the year and we have no idea, I don't – well, actually, I think someone here in the comments said Kirby Yates is going to be the opener tomorrow in the bullpen game.

Justin Verlander versus Kirby Yates.

Oh, man.

Let's do it.

The unction is going.

I haven't had a chance to look.

The unction is happening.

I'm trying to verify that right now.

Jim says so.

Our target audience might be a little too young, a little too old for me to be saying the unction.

They may not know what that means.

But no, MLB.com has Kirby Yates versus Justin Verlander.

Kirby on the bump.

First career start.

Yeah, so with all that being said,

Vandal does not have odds for tomorrow's game because how do you put odds on a Kirby Yates start?

So how about we just take the Ohio State Buckeyes tomorrow since it's a college football Saturday.

Ohio State Buckeyes minus twenty seven and a half.

I'm taking it tomorrow.

We're going to throw a football pick in here.

Forget the baseball.

The real the real question is.

Over under.

Fifteen tweets from popular Ohio State accounts.

About how terrible the team is.

And then they end up winning by fifty points.

Over.

Yeah.

Every single Saturday.

Oh my gosh.

That'll be done by ten o'clock in the morning.

You guys are insufferable.

I'm not the one doing it.

It's not my fault.

Well.

Luckily you're not paying.

Luckily you guys aren't playing Texas tomorrow.

So.

Well.

OH, baby.

Unfortunately, you still have to do what Julian's saying, and I apologize in advance.

Well, what?

We're just going to kick back and watch some foosball tomorrow, since this is my last post-game show of twenty six.

The Pirates saved the best for last for me.

They decided to put on this performance on my last outing.

So hopefully yours goes better tomorrow, Neil.

It'll be interesting.

hopefully that creates his opening, but also like Justin Verlander literally can't get people out anymore.

So it'll be a fascinating experience to watch.

Let's just hope that they start on time tomorrow, Neil.

Yeah, it will be quad box with tech.

Unfortunately, that's just that's just how it goes.

But you got to do what you got to do.

All right.

Appreciate all of you guys for hanging out all year.

You guys rock.

If you haven't, like, subscribe, do all that fun stuff.

Download the app.

We'll be with you all offseason as well.

Lots of content coming your way, so stay tuned on all that.

We are just closing the chapter of the twenty six.

Buccos, at least postgame show wise.

So long for farewell.

I've got one more in me.

One more.

I'm out.

Peace out, guys.

Appreciate y'all.

Be back with you tomorrow.

All right, that wraps up this episode of North Shore Nine.

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