◆NEWSPirates Notes: Keller, Pitching Pursuits, Lineup◆ROSTERSigned free agent RHP Enmanuel Nunez to a minor league contract◆STATPaul Skenes ranks 4th in the NL in strikeouts (200)◆STATNick Gonzales ranks 4th in the NL in batting average (.303)
◆NEWSPirates Notes: Keller, Pitching Pursuits, Lineup◆ROSTERSigned free agent RHP Enmanuel Nunez to a minor league contract◆STATPaul Skenes ranks 4th in the NL in strikeouts (200)◆STATNick Gonzales ranks 4th in the NL in batting average (.303)
The Pirates had a chance to sweep the Padres today, and gain serious momentum towards saving this train wreck season. Bubba Chandler delivered a solid outing, and the offense had ample opportunity to knock in runners in scoring position. Instead, the offense fell flat on its face and the Bucs whimper out of San Diego with only 2/3 taken. In a vacuum, not a bad result by any means but the sweep was in their grasps and they couldn’t take advantage. Much like the Dodgers series, this west coast trip will be seen as nothing more than wasted opportunities. Watch Jim and Doug break the game down in detail here:
Here’s my 3 takeaways from this series finale loss…
The Offense is Now Pathetic
As weird as it sounds, the Pirates offense has become the main culprit in sinking the team’s season. For all the greatness we saw in the first half of the season, the offense has shriveled into a dry husk of itself post All-Star Break. The bullpen got fixed, and in turn the lineup got transformed into Tommy Pham and Rowdy Tellez clones overnight. The pitching wasn’t elite but kept the Pirates within striking distance all game. The offense proceeded to take this gift and only mustered a single hit with RISP, despite having 13 chances and not being able to plate a run. They left double-digit runners on base again, and it simply isn’t good enough. The team has stopped hitting for power, and we are learning why singles and walks simply are not enough to win baseball games. The offense has to be good in order to compete for the wild card, and right now they are actively preventing the Bucs from sniffing .500.
Sometimes Good Isn’t Good Enough
The Pirates have never been able to have all 3 phases of the team click at the same time. There has not been a cohesive unit at any point, which explains their lack of hot streak all year. I say all this because Bubba Chandler was not bad today by any stretch of the imagination. He put together a solid performance against a good team. However, the Pirates cannot settle for “good enough” from Chandler when their backs are against the wall. Chandler needed to give up 1 or 0 runs today, and instead he gave up 2 and had to be pulled before finishing 6 innings. This isn’t anti-Chandler; this is the realization that the Pirates must be elite everywhere if they want to go on a run. They have burned through all their chances to be good enough and have to go win 20 games before the end of the season.
What a Frustrating Road Trip
The Pirates end up going 2-4 on their California trip, and if they were outclassed, it would be easy to swallow. However, the Pirates were in pole position to win at least 3 of these games (including today) and simply couldn’t execute. 2 walk-offs allowed to the Dodgers, getting shut out on the final day in San Diego, and being unable to get runners across the plate the entire time made for a must-shut-off television. This team sank its season in the most agonizing way possible by coming so close and not being able to land the plane. This is going to define the entire 2026 season for the Pirates. The inability to finish off games with all the promising talent surrounding the squad. I will have 1-13 with RISP on August 26th burned into my brain for a good while, because I will feel pain about how special the team could have been.
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The Debate
Bases loaded in the 7th against a lefty: should Don Kelly have pinch-hit for Spencer Horwitz or Brandon Lowe?
No comments yet — be the first to weigh in.
With Jim Rosati and Doug Ford.
Chapters
Key takeaways
1
Since the All-Star break Bryan Reynolds has a .593 OPS. The hosts argue that hitters like him going cold, more than the injuries, are what derailed this team.
2
Pinch-hitting for Spencer Horwitz or Brandon Lowe against the lefty with the bases loaded would have been wrong, because Henry Davis and Nick Yorke aren't the answer. The real mistake was stacking left-handed hitters back-to-back in the lineup.
3
Bubba Chandler has a 4.26 ERA over 130 innings and has pitched like a No. 3 starter in his first full MLB season. That's 'every year of Mitch Keller,' which is the kind of pitcher teams pay $15–20 million a year, and Chandler still has room to grow.
4
Don Kelly and pitching coach Bill Murphy are too slow to pull struggling relievers. Kirby Yates threw 35 pitches with an 89–90 mph fastball in a winnable game before an off day.
5
Velocity drops, like the 23-year-old Chandler's fastball being down 2 mph, keep happening on this staff. The hosts question the organization's recovery, training and pitch-mix approach.
What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the North Shore Nine podcast presented by FanDuel. This is the NS9 postgame show powered by Primanti Brothers. I'm Jim. With me today is Tyler. Tyler, that was a frustrating 3-0 loss to the San Diego Padres. But how are you doing this afternoon?
I'm thankful that this game was at 4 o'clock rather than 9.40 because if I would have stayed up until 1 in the morning watching that, this might be a different show. I might be throwing stuff.
Yeah, I was actually getting a little excited because it was moving really quick. I was like, this game's going to be over relatively quickly. And then once the teams got into the bullpens, the game just got really slow. it ended up being, almost a three-hour long game.
But I was thinking this thing was going to take two hours with the way these two starting pitchers were going at it. But it didn't end up being like that. The Pirates had plenty of chances, but they're shut out. They lose three to nothing. They dropped to 65 and 70 on the year.
Yeah, we talked about leading into this where you had to win the Dodgers series and then you had to sweep the Padres.
You got swept by the Dodgers. You take two out of three to the Padres. So they just they fell short of what they needed to do these first two series on the road.
Yeah, it's just, Jim, it's not a very good baseball team. Plain and simple. Their record is what they are. They're an average to below average baseball team, at least it's currently constructed in what they have.
And I think they show that, which is why it's so frustrating because they're just like, you see the talent, but it's just, there's enough issues and warts with this team that they're just not good enough.
Well, today the wart was hitting with runners in scoring position, and that's been a wart pretty much all road trip, all season, really, I guess if you want to even go a little bit farther.
But, just today, they're one for 13 with runners in scoring position.
I want to say they've only had two hits with runners in scoring position this entire series.
And the one hit they got today, Tyler, was an infield single with a runner on second.
So it didn't even score a run.
And it was just so frustrating because it was just inning after inning after inning.
It wasn't like they just had one chance or two chances.
It was just, it was on repeat the whole game.
And it started in the fourth.
So the Padres had a one-nothing lead going into the fourth inning.
I'm not saying you have to take a pitch there, but there are six straight balls.
I probably want you to take a pitch.
With the Mount visit, okay.
If you want to be gung-ho, sit fastball and try to drive something, I'm okay with it.
The pitch that Bryan Reynolds swung at is a sinker on the edge of the plate that you can do absolutely nothing with.
Now, he just fouled it off.
Didn't do any hurt, but you're letting the pitcher settle in there.
Next pitch is a hanging breaking ball that he should have annihilated, and he pops up to the shortstop.
It was right down the middle.
It was a change up right down the middle.
Yeah, it is.
Dead red in the middle.
He should have done damage with it.
Didn't.
Approach-wise, I'm not going to scream and yell about that one.
He got a pitch to hit.
He just didn't do anything with it.
But Vasquez is struggling so badly at that point.
And Valdez comes up.
And he puts together, and I love the guy, one of the worst at-bats I think I've seen in that situation.
He is just hacking at pitches off the plate.
There is zero reason for him to swing at the pitches he swung at in that at-bat.
It's a bad approach.
I don't know how you're not in his ear.
How make him take a pitch at that point.
I don't care.
And he's generally pretty good with discipline, but it looks like he's trying to hit an eight-run home run.
When they talk about the fundamentals and things that are wrong with this team, and you can complain about every team.
They all have.
Like, if you watch 162 games, they're all going to do things stupid.
This day was full of stupid.
Just bad baseball.
Bad approaches.
Bad at-bats.
Awful.
Yeah.
And it was just repeated over and over and over again.
The broadcast was pretty sick of it.
And because it's been this way for a while now, and then this series, this road trip in particular, they just haven't gotten the job done when they needed to.
And, yeah, it's frustrating.
Like, people were getting on base.
Like, they stranded 10 batters today.
They had 13 at-bats.
They had 13 chances today with runners in scoring position, and they didn't score a run.
So, that was the first chance there.
Shout out.
Thank you, Michael B.
He says, every season, Reynolds stinks for four of six months.
This team now has a 1% chance to make the playoffs.
Year 7, they'll finish in last again.
They effing suck.
Thank you again, Michael B.
Yeah, Bryan Reynolds, since the all-star break, Tyler, an OPS of 593.
The big moment came, and he has not come through.
We talked on Monday about how, like, it's not necessarily the injuries that derailed this team.
One of the reasons that this team got derailed is that players like Bryan Reynolds just stopped hitting.
Yeah.
They just stopped when you needed them.
Yeah.
So, that was the Pirates' first opportunity, though.
Was right there in the fourth.
I don't know how we're going to get through all of them.
And also, if you can somehow get back in this thing, I don't want Nick Yorke or Henry Davis having to take late game at-bats.
Yeah.
If you recall, there was a moment early in the year where a similar situation.
Brandon Lowe was up, big spot, lefty reliever came in, and they did go to York.
And I don't think it worked.
Nope.
A lot of people got mad at Don Kelly for saying, hey, what are you pinch hitting for Brandon Lowe for?
He's the guy you acquired to come up big in these situations.
I don't care if it's a lefty-lefty matchup or not.
I'm with you there.
This is why you have these guys on your team.
This is why Brandon Lowe's on your team is to come up big, even against a left-handed pitcher in the seventh inning of a two-run game with two outs and runners in scoring position.
Bases loaded in this instance.
He's got to do something.
One of those two guys needs to put the ball in play, and both of them failed.
At some point, I think you've got to blame the players here.
How comfortable would you have really been going to Nick Yorke or Henry Davis in that situation?
And like you said, once they're in, they're in.
They're probably going to get another big at-bat later in the game.
I think a more valid argument there is, if you want to argue, why is Spencer Horwitz and Brandon Lowe heading back-to-back when you're going to run into this situation?
I think you can make that argument more than the pinch-hit argument.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Because I feel like historically throughout this season, one thing that Kelly has done is breaking up the lefties and the righties.
They go lefty-righty, lefty-righty.
And in tonight's instance, he went that lefty-lefty, and really it was lefty-lefty-lefty, if you count Gonzalez there at the bottom of the order as well.
And even like lefty-lefty-lefty-lefty with Reynolds.
Yeah, that's a good point.
And you're going to turn him around.
Yep.
So, that was the seventh inning.
Pirates are now 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position at this point.
what I'll say is that I was I was impressed with what he did with what he had.
Because I don't think, I don't know if you agree, I don't think Bubba had nearly what Bubba's used to having.
I agree.
Yeah.
Also, that's another story for another time because I question why so many of these guys don't have it just randomly and their VLO drops two miles an hour just randomly.
That's a question for another day, I guess.
But with what he had, I thought he put together a really good start.
I feel like this was a start where, yeah, because I agree with you, like he just didn't have his stuff today.
Fastball was two miles an hour under his season average.
His sinker was, over a tick down.
His changeup was three ticks down.
He wasn't missing a ton of bats.
He had six swings and misses today, a 15% whiff rate.
He wasn't necessarily hit hard today.
Average exit velocity was 88.
So, it was like average contact against him.
But he did a good job of throwing strikes.
He walked two batters.
He gave up four hits.
Only, let's see, he gave up two extra base hits, both to Jackson Merrill.
But, yeah, I thought he did a good job working with what he had today.
I'm not alarmed that the stuff was down.
Maybe it was just one of those days for him.
But it is something to monitor.
He is at the point in the season where he's approaching, that area where you, where it's like, okay, he hasn't really thrown this many pitches this deep into a season before.
last year, he was at 130 innings.
This year, he's at 131 innings.
So, like, he's right where he was last year, and we still have over a month to go.
So, it's something to monitor.
But, no, I'm with you.
overall, his stat line tonight was five and two-thirds, four hits, two runs, one earned, two walks, three strikeouts.
He just grinded through the outing, and the stuff was good enough that he was able to put together a quality outing.
It wasn't technically a quality start.
He fell one out short.
But a quality outing, and he gave the team a chance to win.
Absolutely.
He kept them in the game, and to be honest, I thought it was going to be an ugly game just based on his first inning.
He got hit relatively hard early.
I think Tatis hit the first at-bat of the game, hit one over 100 miles an hour.
Then he walks Cronenworth.
At that point, you might be thinking you're going to run into one of them Bubba starts.
But I think what you said is absolutely correct.
He grinded this thing out.
I think he, quote-unquote, pitched well, even if he didn't have his best stuff.
But, yeah, the fastball just didn't have the life that you're used to seeing from Bubba.
It didn't jump out the hand, obviously, when you're two miles an hour down.
He still ramped up the slider a little bit.
Like, I think we saw it around 94.
So, I don't even, I guess if we're talking about, like, fatigue and things like that, he still flashed that he had it, which I guess is encouraging.
Just more than it might be a, I don't know, body didn't feel great, maybe mechanics.
I don't know what it was, but just wasn't, didn't have his A game.
No, he didn't.
And the fastball did run up there.
He got it up to 99.4, at one point.
But, yeah, not the electric fastball you're used to seeing from him.
It didn't generate a lot of swings and misses today.
So, there was something off with him.
But, yeah, I thought he did a good job.
This is our first time seeing Bubba Chandler pitch a full season in the major leagues.
his numbers are now pretty damn respectable.
he's got a 4.26 earned run average in 130 innings.
Like, he's had a pretty, he's pitched like a number three starter for the most part, you know?
So, he's shown a lot of growth throughout the year.
Again, not like his best outing, but an overall, like, you'll take this.
You'll take this from Bubba.
If you get some more innings out of him, this is like every year of Mitch Keller ever.
Yeah.
Which is fine.
it's just, again, you go back to see the stuff.
Yeah, that's a pitcher teams are willing to pay 15 to 20 million dollars a year for.
Yeah.
And with Bubba, there's a lot more room for improvement as well, which is the encouraging thing.
Cause you see how good he can be.
Yeah, I agree.
pirates bullpen continued to look pretty solid.
Lake Bachar with a inning and a third scoreless cleaning up, from Bubba in the sixth there.
And then pitching the seventh Kirby Yates labored quite a bit in the, in the seventh.
actually that was the eighth inning.
Let me ask you this because this has been an issue that I've had.
If there's one issue that I have with Don Kelly right now and Bill Murphy, let's throw both of them in here.
It's that it seems like they are extremely slow to react to a pitcher who just doesn't seem to have it.
Like Kirby Yates through 35 pitches today.
Now, 11 of those were in that final at bat, but Kirby Yates, even before that at bat, he had given up three hits and a walk.
Like, I know it's a three, nothing game.
You're, you don't want to chase a win every single game, but you've got an off day tomorrow.
Like you, this is a game that you should be chasing, right?
Like once you find out, okay, Kirby Yates doesn't look great.
His fastball is like 89, 90 miles an hour tonight and he's throwing it all over the place.
Yeah.
Let's go some, let's try something else.
And they just didn't do it.
so Yates gives up a run.
They go to Murdock.
He pitches five pitches, five strikes, gets the last out of the inning.
But Bill Murphy, I feel like it's taken one mound visit in the last month.
I don't know where he's at.
I don't know if he's been banished to the underworld or something.
Because like, I don't know.
Like he doesn't have mound visits anymore.
He had one yesterday.
and that was the first time I've seen Bill Murphy walk out to the mound in, I swear, at least a week or two.
but I don't know, Kirby Yates is what, 40 years old, 35 pitches, like at some point, just give the dude a break.
Like the mound visit, you don't even have to talk to him.
Just be like, Hey, just take a breather old man.
and then they don't even do that.
They just leave him out to dry.
And this is, this is one of multiple occasions we've seen Don Kelly.
I feel like just leave relief pitchers in too long.
so 35 pitches today from Kirby Yates before they make the change.
it didn't matter at this point, the offense wasn't going to do anything, but yeah, I would have liked to have been a little bit more aggressive there with the bullpen.
Yeah.
Off day tomorrow.
You, I think you definitely want to not chase the wind, like you said, but at least try to put your best foot forward.
And it was pretty apparent immediately that Kirby Yates did not have it today.
Like you said, he's old.
Sometimes he doesn't have it.
And something happened with Bill Murphy where Malvis is just non-existent now.
They are.
And it's bad whenever I'm like begging for his slow walk to the mound, which I absolutely hate.
But at this point, you're begging for, are you guys sleeping in the dugout?
What are we doing here?
Yeah, it's, I don't know.
There's a lot to question about this coaching staff.
And I think that one's definitely going to be up there.
the way they've handled pitching in general this year is quite questionable, I'd say.
Yeah, it's unfortunate.
the pitching staff, again, today, the pitch pitching wasn't the issue.
They only gave up three runs, but they definitely took a step backwards this year.
Just about everybody.
And yeah, at some point you've got to, at some point you've got to blame somebody.
Right.
Right.
And I know it's a, like, it's a conversation for another day, but I even look at, looking at Bobby's 23 years old and his fastballs down two miles an hour.
Like, it's not the first occasion we've seen these pitchers come out with velocity issues this year.
It's been a reoccurring theme.
What are you guys doing?
Where is the problem?
Like, is recovery a problem?
Is the way we're training a problem?
Is the pitch mix a problem?
What is the issue?
Because there is an issue here.
This has happened way too often.
Like, I know Kirby Yates is old, but his velocity's down.
There's a lot of instances.
And it's just weird, inconsistent philosophy, right?
Yeah.
Who was it right here?
Heather.
He, starters get yanked really early and bullpen arms are just left in there way too long.
It seems like, can we have a relief pitcher just throw like one inning every now and then?
Is that possible?
Is that legal?
Like, no, does every relief pitcher have to throw three innings?
Like, why do we, why do we need to do this all the time?
It's, wow, it's frustrating.
also want to give a shout out to Silas TV.
Thanks for the $5 super chat.
He says we should be five and one on this road trip and said we're two and four.
I agree with you a hundred percent.
Like those are three winnable games that they've dropped.
this team just does not know how to win winnable games.
More people left on base today than I can count.
Yeah.
if you were, if you weren't, if you don't have all 10 fingers on your hands, Tyler, you would not have been able to count all the, all the left on base today.
Yeah.
If there was a fireworks accident at some point in your past, you'd have to start going.
If I was Jason Pierre, Paul, I would not be able to count it.
Nope.
Nope.
Yeah.
Yeah.
it's a team that doesn't know how to win.
on FanDuel, you actually can no longer even bet the pirates to not make the playoffs that the odds are so low that they don't, they won't even let you do it.
it, the pirates are now plus 7,000 to make the playoffs, Tyler plus 7,000.
Yeah, I would say that means it's over.
Yeah.
So you place a $1 bet though, and it, and a miracle happens.
You get 700 bucks.
That would take quite the miracle, Jim.
It would take quite the miracle.
Fan graphs has the pirates right now at a 1% playoff odds, which, like to just show you how important each of these games are.
Like that's, they just won two games, but losing today puts them at their lowest playoff chance, of the season.
This is the new low, even though they won the series, this is the new low right now.
this sucks when we were talking about 50% chances, not long ago at all.
a month ago, July 26, that's one month ago, 48%.
Yeah.
In one month, it was, it went from 50-50 to not happening.
It sucks.
It sucks.
It just sucks.
It's, I don't know, just not good enough.
It's just not good enough.
It's not.
Yeah.
Anything else to add?
No, I'm just disgusted.
They take two or three and I'm still disgusted.
It wasn't enough.
It, like they had to sweep this series.
They had to sweep this series.
And especially after getting swept by the Dodgers, you had to sweep this series.
Oh, and then also, yeah, we just found out Endy Rodríguez, labrum surgery.
He's out for the year and he's going to miss seven to nine months.
So that'll be something we talk about tomorrow at NS9 Live.
I'm sure we'll discuss that a little bit, but yeah, I don't have much else to add.
Sad day, bad day.
Bad day, bad day.
pirates travel to St. Louis.
They are off tomorrow.
So again, we'll have an episode of Offbeat for you tomorrow morning.
and then we'll have NS9 Live for you tomorrow night.
but yeah, appreciate everybody.
Watching, listening.
you guys rock.
Like the video.
Subscribe to the page if you haven't.
We're going to be here.
We're going to be here every day.
so hopefully you hang around with us the rest of this year.
Yeah, you're stuck with us.
You are.
Love you guys.
All right, guys.
We'll see you tomorrow.
Let's Go Bucs.
Peace out.
Peace out, our Scouts.
All right.
That wraps up this episode of North Shore Nine.
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Bases loaded in the 7th against a lefty: should Don Kelly have pinch-hit for Spencer Horwitz or Brandon Lowe?
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