Our 3 Takeaways from the Pirates Shutout Loss to be Swept and Falling 6 Games Under

Hello, and welcome to the North Shore Nine podcast presented by FanDuel.

This is the NS9 Post Game Show powered by Permini Brothers.

I'm Cody.

That's Doug.

Was there a baseball game today that was supposed to happen, right?

Well, I showed up for one.

You showed up for one.

Yeah.

The Dodgers.

The Dodgers showed up.

Kristen Curtis showed up, but nobody else showed up.

Yeah.

I had it on in the background.

I'm, trying to get on my meal prep game, like, trying to take care of myself.

I have it on in the background.

I'm like, I'm going to have to, like, how am I going to do this?

I'm going to have to be engaged with the game, cooking chicken, and I didn't have to be engaged with this game.

Did you miss two hits, the Pirates guy?

Doug, I saw them.

I saw them.

Those were the only two times I looked away from my chicken.

But yeah, the Pirates, as the title underneath here says, simply uncompetitive.

They lose four to nothing.

Only two hits.

And Doug, I'm just going to let you, I bet you got, we didn't have a lot of prep here.

We didn't talk a lot before this, but I'm sure you have a monologue.

Because I got nothing.

I got nothing.

They, well, you just, you just called my bluff.

I barely have one prepared.

They've beaten me down.

This team has given away this season time and time again.

Right.

it started early with bad bullpen.

go take the floor.

I got nothing.

They're junk.

And I got.

Yeah.

this was, I put out the post on Instagram before this series started.

it's a nine game road trip.

You got three cities, no margin for error.

And then these first two games happen.

And it's like, man, those are two really winnable games.

Like you just do one or two things, right.

And it's not even on the players for all of it.

Yet you have an opportunity in extra innings.

And because you decided you wanted your faster catcher on the base path, you end up having a guy who puts up an uncompetitive at bat in extra innings that has an expected batting

average of 500 on the batted ball.

And you lose the game because you got bases loaded and that guy can't bring anybody in.

And then last night, last night's game was another one where it felt like maybe they could do something.

It was at least competitive.

And then you got today where it seems like everybody just gave up from the time the lineup was announced, from the time first pitch came around, it, nobody was engaged in this game.

And the fact that we, the fact that we had to spend our Sunday watching this West coast disaster, I feel cheated.

I feel like I was lied to back in, when was that January?

When I was told period, full stop, period, full stop, because it, because Doug, if you are going to be a competitive baseball team, you are going to put up a fight for three games in a series against another competitive baseball team.

You're not going to just let one slide.

You're not going to look at this season and say, you know what?

We're in this spot.

We need to win a bunch of games in a short period of time.

Let's just, let's give some guys a day off.

Let's put out a lineup that isn't necessarily our best lineup and just have a good Sunday.

But I don't know what's good about losing three straight games on the beginning of your road trip.

That was a very important one.

And I'm just so flabbergasted that it's come to this because like I said, I feel like I've been lied to that they were, they told us they were going to compete in this, the time where

it was like, this is do or die.

They just folded.

Yeah.

Out with a whimper, not with a bang even, you know?

yeah.

Bob Nutting for years has said he's given Ben everything he needs to succeed.

Travis Williams says we're fan first and then we're going to compete for the playoffs.

Period.

Full stop.

Period.

Full stop.

Ben Cherington doesn't really say anything and his approach and everything is a guy who's not at all competitive and who has no sense of urgency.

And, that's all just coming to a head right now and not really right.

We've been out of it for a while.

we've been out of it.

Honestly, we've tried to fool ourselves.

We've tried to dilute.

We've tried to be good fans.

We've tried to believe that, Michael B, super chats us says, Hey guys, did I not tell you months ago the season was over?

This is now as bad as all the other BC years might be worse.

Michael, that might be my only, disagreement.

This organization needs to fire everyone.

again, I'm with you, sell the team, fire Travis, fire Ben, do it all, change the manager, change the pitching coach, change the whole, the whole staff.

I won't be mad.

but I get the feeling is that, at the end of the year, we'll trade Tarek Brock and say, he's been here for seven years and he just doesn't have it enough, and it's Tarek Brock's fault, Doug.

It's nobody else's fault, but his, wasn't it like a bullpen catcher last year or a bullpen coach or something last year?

Michael's on a roll.

He's yelling at us now.

Thank you again, Michael.

If it, if idiot Cherington can tell the media Cruz needs days off, why even pinch hit him?

He could have de-aged.

I don't understand what they're doing.

None of us do.

Cause that they're there.

I said, they're not a serious organization.

They're not, it's just all there is to it.

Ben Cherington in particular, Ben Cherington is, I have my processes.

I stick to my processes.

And then from there it's luck and his processes are, again, we all knew this team needed bullpen in spring training, in the off season.

So, yeah, we kept, Doug, we kept asking the question, are they going to bring somebody else in here?

Right.

And honestly needed another starter, and boy, has that been borne out this year?

and then again, as they started blowing saves, they're like, oh, they've got to do something.

And again, you can't, I get that you couldn't trade for Luke Weaver in May.

Right.

Because he was, the Mets still were trying and you knew that people would over and why and they, but you also knew like with Luke Weaver, the Mets weren't going to trade him until they could get a bidding war going at the deadline.

That makes sense.

But Kirby Yates, Doval, those guys were available.

I live in the New York area, New Jersey area.

I got friends that are Yankees fans.

They've been wanting Doval off this team since the end of last year.

Yeah.

Like that was a guy you could have easily got.

You could have got him.

You could have brought up Kristen Curtis.

You, there were things you could have done and he just kept along with his processes and his internal analytics.

And, don't worry.

We, what did he say?

Yeah, we've had a few blips and, but we think it's gonna, it's gonna balance out.

It's going to equal out and it didn't.

And, this team has blown 20 saves.

Had they not blown 10 of those, had they converted 10 of those, they're in the thick of this thing now and you're not having to sweep and not having to win 12 out of 13 to get yourself into it.

Something they have not done all year.

They've not won three series in a row all year.

They've only had one five game win streak.

That was early on.

They are a win two, lose one, win one, lose two type team.

And we're actually not even that good.

So, yeah.

this falls all on Ben Cherington in my eyes and Ben Cherington should be fine.

I don't think he will, and so here we are, here we are going to San Diego next, a place we never play well, a team we never play well against and need to sweep.

And that's still not enough.

Need to sweep to get to be three games under 500.

And, we're doing a lot of complaining here, Doug.

So I think it's a good time to tell the people we are doing a sick of sound off after the post game show.

It is happening.

DiNardo told me to remind everyone to look out for that.

So it's not just us that are going to have some therapy today.

We're opening the lines to you guys.

So after this post game.

Get in on that.

It's fun.

I love getting in on that.

It's therapeutic.

It's a lot of fun.

Yeah.

It's therapeutic.

Your chance.

Not counting on us to tap on your little comment.

Just get on there and let it rip.

Exactly.

Keep it like PG-13, but yeah, let it rip.

But yeah, let's look at a little bit of what happened today because there wasn't a lot that happened.

they go with the Lake backer, Bocker experience to start the game, which all in all wasn't awful.

He gave up a run, only one hit, but he walked three.

And the thing is like, I don't even blame Lake backer, Bocker.

I blame Carmen Mlodzinski because he's proven that he can't start a game.

And yet he's in a position that he's been begging for and he can't, he can't do it.

He can't start a freaking game and that puts this team in a bad position that you have to waste a reliever in two innings to start the game just so you could, this guy who thinks

he's the second coming of, I don't even know, like 10 wins to come.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

He thinks he's the second coming of God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he comes in for three innings, gives up five hits, three earned runs, and gets only four strikeouts.

And eight wins.

Where is Sicko Soundoff?

Where did they go to get on the Sicko Soundoff?

It'll be here on the YouTube page.

I think you may actually have to go on Twitter to like talk.

I don't know.

I'm not quite sure how that works.

But Donato's in the chat.

But come here to YouTube or I believe it's also Facebook will be live.

And then from there, you'll be directed to how you tap in.

So.

Oh, you got to do it through the app, it looks like.

Oh, that's right.

Make sure you have the app.

Donato was working on that.

So yeah, tap in through the app.

So that's a good, it's a good time to take a break.

Oh, we're those people now.

Download the NS9 app.

We're those people now.

You've got to do the app.

You've got to have the everything.

You've got to have the app.

But yeah, the disaster today with pitching starts with Carmen Mlodzinski and the fact that he cannot be relied upon to come into a game.

And granted, four of our five starters can't even be relied upon to go more than four innings.

Yeah.

If Braxton Ashcraft's not pitching, I don't like our chances.

Right.

In any game.

So there you go.

Yeah.

this falls on Carmen Mlodzinski.

But again, on the large scale, that's Ben Cherington.

Ben Cherington has allowed this monster.

he was a marginal fifth starter, long relief guy.

And Ben Cherington has let him call into shots.

I'm all for empowering your players, but that's just a little much.

And he has not merited that.

He has not earned that.

He has proven that time and time and time again.

He is 200% better, statistically speaking, as a reliever than a starter.

He should be in the bullpen.

He should be pitching in the seventh and eighth inning.

For a stretch there, he was our best bullpen pitcher.

And but he would not pitch in a way.

And Ben Cherington wouldn't force him to pitch or whatever in a way that we could actually use him to help win secure wins when we desperately needed to secure wins.

We'd pitch him three innings and 11-0 blowout.

It's just stupid stuff.

Ben Cherington, today is a good day to fire Ben Cherington.

And I haven't heard that in a while.

It's yeah, it's coming back, baby.

It's coming back.

I'm an open-minded guy.

I was excited about the offseason that Ben Cherington had.

I wanted to give him some credit.

Again, we still had some questions.

As the not now, not after, as the offseason was going on when he wasn't getting a starting pitch and he wasn't, doing more for the bullpen.

And then we kept asking those questions in April and May and June and July.

And he never answered them, except with his stupid word salads is where he says nothing or he says stupid things that you're, yeah, we're winning more games.

Just, more of his dumb assery.

But, yeah, it comes down to like the whole thing with Carmen Mijinsky.

It comes down to the fact that you got a bunch of people running a baseball team that don't know how to run a baseball team.

They don't know how to just put their foot down and be like, we're not doing it your way.

Like, you're the player.

Right.

We're the we're the front office.

We do our job and you do your job, which we don't prioritize winning their process oriented, not results oriented in baseball.

Sports, professional sports is results.

Look, I was I'm sure you saw, but I was on a tear the other night, whatever.

Now we're getting on to another game.

Davis hit that ground ball in extras and Jim texted our group chat and he was like process over results.

There's an expected batting average of 500.

And I said, guess what?

Reality says he grounded out and we're done.

Yeah.

It's going to be over here.

I don't care what your expected stats are, because what's happening on the field is.

They're losing losers.

It's terrible.

It's a losing organization with a losing culture.

I don't care about the process.

I'm sorry.

I know you're a 76ers fan, Doug.

I don't care about the process.

I hate the process.

I want to see results, especially whenever Ben Cherington goes out there and does the, gets all these hitters in our offense is top five in the league.

I want to see us win, but then guess what?

They let the pitching staff, that's been great, call the shots.

And guess what?

The only thing that I can point to that is the reason they were great got fired because the players didn't want them because they thought they could learn more from another guy.

And look what happened.

Look at the regression that happened to this pitching staff.

They have regressed so badly, so badly.

And I don't know if you saw it, Doug, but Harold Reynolds from MLB Network broke down Paul Skenes's, like, his mechanics and what he's been doing this year as compared to years past.

And it's so egregiously bad.

And no one's pointed it out to Paul Skenes's, hey, maybe don't show the batter the ball as soon as it comes out of your glove and your wind up.

Like, hide it behind you.

And then they need to – it gives them less time to pick it up.

Billy Murphy is – Cody, you didn't understand.

Billy Murphy is on his way to tell him, but, he walks slowly.

And so it's going to be a while before he gets to Paul Skenes's.

He's taking him, what, 103 games to get to Paul Skenes's.

That's his signature thing.

as a pitcher coach with some of the – one of the greatest pitchers we've ever seen.

And, his signature isn't that he helped Paul Skenes's get better.

It's that he walks to the mountains slowly.

Yeah.

When you have nothing to hang your hat on, you start hanging your hat on tomfoolery.

Yeah.

I – I – well, you know me, Doug.

I try to stay positive.

But it's – it's just – it's – when I start talking like this, that's when you know it's over.

Yeah, it's been a long season.

Right.

It's been a long, bad season.

Yeah.

But let's get back to this game and point out the one – It is a post-game show.

No, I know.

Hey, we're both off the rails today.

But – and I got a fantasy draft in 10 minutes.

But let's point out the one good thing that happened with this pitching staff today.

And the guy that – I don't know if the Pirates understand how good this kid is, but Khristian Curtis comes up and gives us another great performance.

Granted, it was only three innings, but he only walks one guy, has a strikeout, gives up no hits, and has five whiffs.

Jay Sheldon42 hates five other people in this chat, and he has now made him members of – That's how people are lashing out now.

Thank you, Jay Sheldon42.

Thank you.

And welcome new members.

But, yeah, this kid, Khristian Curtis, I just feel like they're not ready to commit to him, and he's like, I'm like, I'm ready.

Yeah.

And they just don't want to commit to it.

And I get it.

It's late in the season.

He's a guy that's been in the minor leagues most of the year.

He's not ramped up to the MLB workload.

But, gosh, just keep him on the roster.

Like, what are we doing?

They sent him down after that Cleveland series.

I get it.

You needed an extra guy for the doubleheader.

After the performance he put out, like, what do you – like, figure out how to keep the good players in your roster.

This is often a management team that does not reward good performance.

Exactly.

They pick people.

They pick people that they want to – They stick to their processes.

Yeah.

They stick to their processes regardless of results.

That's what it is.

Yeah.

But Curtis looks good.

You're right.

He's the good takeaway from this game.

I would like to see more of him.

I would like to see him start if that means it's – he should be able to go four innings in his next start.

He pitched three innings today, right?

Four innings puts him with all our other starters except Ashcraft.

He's – so he's not going to hurt the team in any way, shape, or form.

Yeah, it's just going to be the same.

And it might be three or four shutout innings versus the three or four run innings.

So why not play him?

Why not play him?

Yeah, I know you can't add two more players until September.

September, but might as well start bringing up the young guys now because nobody else wants to do anything in that pitching staff.

Yeah, we're not – we're not – we're not playing for anything, so.

Right.

Apparently.

Let's see what – yeah, let's see what somebody's got.

Somebody might want to tell Travis Williams.

Well, Nick Gonzales should tell him.

You saw his great effort today, so.

Yeah, so let's get to the offense, Doug.

Just abysmal.

Just only two hits.

Brandon Lowe has a hit.

Horwitz finally gets a hit.

Ten strikeouts.

Or at least gets on base, but yeah.

No, Horwitz had an actual hit, yeah.

Yeah.

You took the words out of my mouth.

Ten strikeouts from the offense today.

who's that?

Flores striked out three times, struck out three times, sorry.

Esmerlyn Valdez strikes out three times.

Just top to bottom, incompetent at the plate today, and I – it's hard to get on these guys because they're the ones that have been dragging this team along, right?

Yeah.

Like, they're – on a team where the – not defense, the pitching is half decent, a game like this from your offense is like, hey, you guys have been doing the workload.

Everybody had an off game today.

It happens.

But it's like, when you don't have a pitching staff that can help you and you have a performance like this today, it's like, what are we doing?

Somebody wake up.

Like, you know you have a bullpen game going on.

It should give you some thought in your head that, hey, it's going to be a tough one today.

We're going to need runs.

Let's focus up.

Let's have good at-bats, and let's get after Blake Snell.

And I get it.

It's a lefty on the mound.

They don't do well against lefties.

Lefties kill this team.

But they got after Tarek Skubal yesterday pretty early.

They got three runs in the first inning.

Grant, they couldn't finish it out, and Skubal ended up settling in.

But Blake Snell also hasn't been phenomenal since, when was that he went to the World Series?

2020.

he's been on and off.

So, I just, like I said, it's hard for me to get on this offense because they have been what's kept this team competitive.

But two hits, whenever you're in, like, a must-win situation, it's nearly inexcusable.

Right.

They kept it competitive, through June, maybe.

And then it was Valdez in July, and Valdez alone.

Right.

And then everybody wants to get on Valdez because, oh, August comes around, he can't hit.

I was like, yeah, he was carrying the whole team for an entire month as a 22-year-old.

Give him a break.

Give the kid a freaking break.

Yeah, like I said, I certainly don't want to blame him for anything.

we're not getting production out of the big dogs.

And, it's, again, you want your whole lot of contributing, and they have much of the season.

But, you've got to be led by, Brandon Lowe, Reynolds, Horwitz, Cruz.

And, Cruz isn't playing today.

And I get people need rest and all that stuff.

Like, you're on your last digs.

It looks like they're all going to have a chance to rest now for 30 days until the season's over.

so, I guess.

Yeah, and I get it.

There was a conversation about Valdez.

He got the off day and then an extra day of rest.

Like, sure, I agree.

He should have been in the lineup that day.

But I just get so frustrated whenever people want to get on this kid and be like, what happened?

I thought he was, like, this great thing, blah.

It's like, he's a 22-year-old kid that no one expected to be in the majors this season.

And if you watch baseball, all sorts of guys come up and start out hot and the league adjusts.

And he needs to make adjustments back.

This is not a shocking development.

This is not the first time in history that this has ever happened.

But then everybody decides they want to put this team's woes on Esmerlyn Valdez because he can't stay hot for two, three months to end out the season, round out the season.

It's like, why are you expecting that of this kid when you didn't even know his name on April 1st?

Get out of here.

I'm over it, man.

I need to go on Sicko Soundoff.

Yeah, exactly.

You need to be the first one on it.

That's my biggest pet peeve right now is people getting on this kid.

And like, sure, I'm biased.

I love the kid.

I think he's a great athlete, great baseball player, great person.

That's why I'm so passionate about defending Esmerlyn Valdez.

He's just a great guy.

And when you want to put the pressure of trying to carry a terrible organization to a possible playoff appearance on a kid like this,

just get out of here.

You don't know baseball.

Like, it's not on him.

It's on guys like Bryan Reynolds.

It's on guys like Brandon Lowe, Brian O'Hearn, Oneil Cruz, who, granted, was out for two months.

And guess what?

He came back.

He's hitting the ball.

But guess what happened today, Doug?

I saw some uncompetitive at-bats from Oneil Cruz because I think he figured out nobody else cares anymore, so why should I?

That usually happens to him early in the season because that's what usually happens early in the season for the Pittsburgh Pirates is that everybody gives up early.

And he came back ready to go.

Nobody else did.

Nobody else was on it.

So, I can't – you can't even get mad at Oneil Cruz being uncompetitive because he's just reading the room.

Yeah, when you look at the lineup that they put out today, just in general, that's not a competitive lineup.

So, again, I don't know who puts the lineup out.

Is it Donnie Kelly?

They'll tell us it's Donnie Kelly.

Is it Ben Cherington?

But whomever.

Not good.

that was not our best lineup.

And, again, whatever.

look, I've said this before and I'll say it again.

Ben Cherington, Bob Nutting and Travis Williams have created a losing culture here.

And that losing culture is going to be nearly impossible to overcome.

And I don't think it can be overcome until Ben's gone because, again, Ben is not results-driven, you know?

He has his ways.

He sticks to his ways.

It's like – this is such a stupid – but this season's stupid.

So, I'm going to go with this analogy, Doug.

It's like watching the WWE and you see a guy get naturally hot with the crowd.

It's natural pops.

He's got – like, everybody, like, naturally likes a guy.

And then creative is like, nah, that's not what we wanted.

We wanted Roman Reigns at the top, not LA Knight.

So, LA Knight, you're going to be out.

Like, we're not putting you on TV because you got naturally hot with the crowd.

Like, that's what this team does.

Is they see something working and they're like, well, that's not what we wanted to do.

We got to keep doing what we were going to do.

Oh, that was working?

Let's – oh, so-and-so is hitting pretty well.

He went two for two, three for three, whatever.

Had a great game.

Let's give him a rest day the next day because that's not – we didn't expect him to go off like that.

So, we need to make sure he gets rest because that's our process.

That's what this team does.

And it's so awful.

No.

Like I said, Curtis comes up and pitches a gem against Cleveland and you immediately send him down.

there had to be somebody else that could have been sent down at that time.

And there definitely was, Doug.

Yeah.

– Oh, I'm just so – everybody's telling me to chill out.

I'm trying to chill out.

Yeah, deep breath, brother.

In through the nose.

Out through the mouth.

Like, I love this ball team.

I love the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Dave – Well, and that's – see, there's your problem.

You love something that refuses to love you back.

They have no interest.

They'll say they're a fan person.

Don't be a mile life, Doug.

And they're not.

They're not fan first.

They've never been fan first.

And when Travis Williams says that they're fan first, he honestly believes it.

And that's because he's not very good.

That's because he gives you a good experience at the ballpark, Doug.

It's because he's not very good at what he does.

He lets you know you can hang out at the Miller Light Bar and you got happy hour before first pitch.

And you can have an Instagrammable moment.

As he said, even in a loss, you can say I had a good pretzel, you know.

And you can.

That's the thing, Doug.

You can't take it away from him because he's right.

Like, you can't have a good time at a loss at the ballpark.

The pretzels suck.

The pretzels are undercooked.

Now that – you're right.

You're right.

Yeah.

The food has taken a hit.

Undercooked, overpriced, and, room temperature.

And, right, you don't get a good pretzel Travis.

The food has taken a hit at PNC Park, I will be honest.

The food's not good at PNC Park.

The actual customer service experience at PNC Park is terrible.

They're not fan-first in any – and it's not just in that.

they're not fan-first in any way, shape, or form.

They don't communicate to us as if we're fan-first.

They don't try to win.

Winning is not their priority, you know.

Right.

Well, Doug, my fantasy drafts just started, so.

All right.

Let's get you going.

Sorry, it starts in 15 minutes.

I was awful at the time.

Let's get you out of here.

Let's thank all our fans.

Please roll on over to Sicko Sound Off.

That's all you got today.

Give me some FanDuel.

Give me some FanDuel.

Oh, you want your FanDuel?

I'll give you your FanDuel.

It's bad.

Because it's Ashcraft tomorrow.

It should be – I think it's Ashcraft.

It's Ashcraft tomorrow, but – oh, we are favored.

I'll take it.

Buckos are minus 118.

Padres are even money, plus 100, if you want to just do that.

That makes sense, if you ask me.

But I don't give – I'm going to bet Ashcraft tomorrow.

Over-under is 7.5.

Ashcraft versus Robbie Ray, somebody who I think a lot of people thought – Dang, lefty, right?

Yeah.

Somebody I think a lot of people thought the Pirates should have targeted at the trade deadline, and they decided, no, we don't need a starting pitcher, even though none of our pitchers can go more than four innings.

And none of them are left-handed.

Yeah, we couldn't have used any of that.

Yeah, and none of them are left-handed.

We couldn't have used any of that.

So, get on FanDuel, look at what they got for the game tomorrow.

But, yeah, I think we're out of here.

Sicko Soundoff coming up right after this.

I believe DiNardo will be hosting.

I think I got everything out, Doug.

If I didn't, I'll be on Sicko Soundoff.

You were great.

The Pirates suck.

Cody's awesome.

Sicko Soundoff will be great.

That's not true.

That's not true.

Tomorrow, there's Bucco Brew.

Bucco Brew tomorrow.

Tomorrow, there is Offbeat with Alex Stumpf.

They should have some stuff to talk about this week over the things that I've heard this weekend.

So, make sure you check in for that.

Come join us for Sicko Soundoff.

Download the app.

Yeah, download the app.

Read the blog.

Download the app so you can get on Sicko Soundoff.

You got to call in through the app.

There you go.

It'll be fun.

Join us.

Join us once again.

Thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for the gifts.

Thanks for the super chats.

Let's go, Bucks.

Let's go, Bucks.

Thanks, everybody.

All right.

That wraps up this episode of North Shore Nine.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

Whether you're listening on the podcast or catching us on YouTube, if you enjoyed the show, please give this video a thumbs up.

And don't forget to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already.

It really helps us grow.

And if you're listening on the podcast, a quick review goes a long way in helping others find the show.

Plus, be sure to tell a friend about us.

There's always room for more here in the NS9 community.

And for those looking to support us a little more, consider joining our Patreon.

Become an MVP member and get exclusive perks while helping us continue to bring you more of the Pirates content you love.

Thanks again for all your support.

And let's go, Bucks.

Bye.