Our Takeaways from an Offensive Explosion in Chicago Opener

Yo. Welcome to the North Shore Nine podcast presented by FanDuel. This is the NS9 postgame show powered by Primanti Brothers. I'm your host, Anthony DiNardo. With me, we got Jim Rosati. And Jim, the Pirates win. They beat the White Sox 9-3 tonight. How you doing, buddy?

What a game. Just like right from the get-go, too. 18 hits. how many doubles were there in the first inning? Four?

Four first inning doubles? Yeah. It's just, yeah, it was a great game. And then Bubba Chandler just pounding the strike zone, doing his thing. And yeah, overall, just an outstanding game by your Buccos tonight.

And it was, the tone was set early by the offense. The first out came with, was it Gonzalez?

The first out was, the first out was Flores, I believe. No, Flores got a hit. It was Gonzalez.

So it was, it was Gonzalez, right? Yeah. Yeah. So the number eight hitter had the first out.

Yeah. just again, the first inning came out there, all kinds of hits, all kinds of doubles. Like you said, it started out as a five, nothing ball game.

And at that point in time, Bubba Chandler finally takes the mound at 8.03 p.m. Eastern time and just did what he had to do. Throw strikes. And he did more than that for the first four innings.

But, just go out there and let this team win. And they did. And they added some insurance. And like you said, just a great game overall, offensively, pitching-wise, everything.

Yeah. I was really impressed with Bubba Chandler tonight. Anytime you get like a lead like that early on, it's so frustrating when you see pitchers just not attack.

And he did exactly what you want to see a pitcher do when you get a big lead early. He was pounding the strike zone. He was throwing strikes, throwing his best pitch over and over and over again through a ton of fastballs.

Chicago couldn't hit it. he went what for perfect innings, I believe, before finally giving up a hit. but yeah, that was the big thing for me today was obviously the offense.

We'll talk about them at length, but when you get that big lead, just row strikes and pirates pitchers today, nine innings, 10 strikeouts, zero walks. It was just, it was a fun game to watch.

It was exactly what you want to see. they need to come out, swing in the series and they did it literally. Absolutely. Did, and again, to Bubba here.

Yeah. like the stat line doesn't do him justice for this game. You see the two earned six innings like that's fine. That's fine. He was way better than that. you mentioned he was for perfect and right. It's a nine, nothing ball game.

You as a starting pitchers, any pitcher, it's nine, nothing. You're now in the middle, innings of this game, deep into the game, go out there and throw strikes. Now for sake, like the fastball was his best pitch today. Right. So you got there and throw fastballs, throw strikes. That's what he did. But his fastball was incredible today.

he threw the four seamer 51 times. They had 32 swings at it and 16 whiffs. He had a 50% whiff rate on his four seam fastball, 16 whiffs generate today in those six innings. Incredible.

Yeah. And he just didn't mess around. he threw 54% four seamers, 23% sinkers. So that's what a seven, 77% fastballs is what he threw today. He only threw 16 breaking balls and then six changeups the entire ball game.

So, yeah, he, I said, got the lead early, just spammed his best pitch. The White Sox couldn't really do anything with it. and yeah, it was a great, it was a great outing for Bubba Chandler. One of, one of my favorite starts of his, this season, I'd say.

Yeah, he's had a nice string of them recently. He certainly have had them over the season, but that's also the point I'd want to make too, is like the string. he has looked much better as a pitcher. And that's the one thing too. We talk about the force and like the throw, go out there, throw strikes, throw the, throw the fastball. We did that. That was clearly his best pitch today, but like this also just shows who Bubba is when he has that fastball working.

He looks, we talked about Jared Jones, when Jared Jones has that slider working, especially when he's getting ahead of the count, how unhittable he becomes. That's Bubba Chandler with the fastball.

if he's throwing strikes and he has that fastball going, he just looks as unhittable as anybody.

Yeah. Yeah. He was great today. He was great today. I can't really say a whole lot more like it, just the fastball, the top of the zone, the swings and misses the whiffs. he had what finished with eight strikeouts in his six innings of work. He was efficient. yeah.

He reminded me of like how much fun it was watching Paul skein's pitch back in the long ago, right before this season. Like it was, it was fun to watch Bubba Chandler pitch tonight.

It was, it was 95 pitches, 65 for strikes, 73 of them just purely fastballs.

and again, with that kept it simple, 17 whiffs on the day, just amazing.

Yeah. had early five, nothing lead, which then turned into a seven, nothing lead really quickly. And yeah, at that point, again, like just go out there, throw strikes, your stuff's good enough that if you just attack the zone, attack these hitters,

you're either going to strike them out or they're going to put the ball in play and your fielders are going to make out. So yeah, it was, it was outstanding job by Bubba today.

For sure. And I jokingly said it. And like, there's a very small smidgen of merit to this, but in just somewhat, yeah, this offense did him no service.

Like the offense was so good today that it kept them on the bench for how long, like, it's like he couldn't get into a room. He would go out there and pitch the three batters, walk back, sit there for a half hour.

They'd have to come back on the mound to throw nine more pitches and then go back on the bench for a half hour. but that's how it was. he got that early lead, the offense, switching from Bubba back to the offense.

Just incredible again with them. everyone got a hit. Everyone got on base twice, except for Jacob Gonzalez. I do believe, let me double check that. That started. yeah, everyone got on base at least twice as Roland had one hit and Jacob Gonzalez had one hit, but Esmerlyn Valdez did get on base by a walk, everyone, but Jacob Gonzalez got on base at least twice today by this offense.

So like also it wasn't just like one guy carry this offense. It was just going around and round and round and round and round. Yeah. And Gonzalez was just being nice to his former team because he felt bad.

That's what it was, right? Yeah. The Jacob Gonzalez revenge game. It was more like the Jacob Gonzalez, pity game. He was just showing pity to his former team.

It's his old brothers. It's his old brothers. yeah, still has a soft spot for them. He's been with them. there's been so many ups and downs, a lot of downs with this organization in many years. Yeah. He was just being a nice guy.

Jacob Gonzalez, Jacob Gonzalez, nice guy.

How about that was, so I didn't even notice this until just now looking at the stats. that was Bubba Chandler's first outing this year without a walk.

Boom.

Boom. Yeah. Good stuff. He's been progressing very well over the season.

When you talk about how you want to see things finish, Bubba is certainly one of them. Not that it's really going to change the outcome. He's with Penn. He's in the rotation next year, but it is nice seeing his development, his growth this year. He's becoming this pitcher. So again, nice cap right now. So far in the season, I was going with him.

On today's game. Shout out to Edward though. Remember for 16 months. Good stuff. Appreciate it.

So we talked about Konnor Griffin a little bit here.

Let's talk about everybody. Yeah. okay. Griffin, I guess starts the whole thing off. leadoff double.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, he's, he looked back because this weekend, was his first series back, but he didn't really, have a whole lot of success this weekend. no one on the pirates offense had much success this past weekend. but it was good to see Griffin back hitting the ball.

He played the ball hard every single time, even when he was out, he was, he was making loud outs. and then defensively to that play that he made in the, what inning was that? That was like the eighth inning.

The, it was late. It was, it was later in the game. Oh, it was the, it was the seventh inning, Colson Monk against Colson Montgomery, just an outstanding play that no other pirate shortstop makes that play.

Like if Gonzalez is out there, if Triolo is out there with all due respect to both of those guys, they don't make that play. so it was good to see him, yeah, back at, back at the shortstop position.

And it was good to see him get some nice hits today.

Yeah. with authority, no hesitation to even like look at home. He knew the play was at first. He got that whipped it over the first. He saw the athleticism. You saw the actual arm. Just great play. so again, like offensively, defensively, he goes to has two hits today with a walk. And yeah, he looked good. It was nice to see that shortstop, that kid, that one, that's the rookie that's going to develop this year. And what can he be? And he looks every bit of a really good player.

Brandon Lowe followed up. Okay. I would say, his double to lead off the game, 109 miles an hour. He had a line out there in the ninth inning, 107 miles an hour. So yeah, hitting the ball hard. he had three balls in play, four balls in play today over a hundred miles an hour.

Oh, so yeah. Like he was, he was hitting the ball really hard. In fact, the pirates had more balls in play today of 99 miles per hour or harder than they've ever had ever.

In the stack cast era ever since they started measuring exit velocity, more balls of 99 miles per hour or harder today than they've ever had before.

And they had 18 hits.

So take that Doug, take that Doug.

Yeah. Doug exit velocity. The harder you hit the ball, the more hits you get. Doug. Yeah.

That's just math right there.

but no, I guess I want to go down here. Brandon Lowe also two for four today with a walk.

He was, he didn't get a double to start off the game in the first inning. He was one of the lonely guys that didn't get a double. He just got a walk.

That's everyone else is getting doubles, but he had a very nice offensive game also. and then when, Burke went out, they brought a lefty in as well, but, and then here are key came into

Jose or Katie. How about that? Pirates legend, Jose or Katie coming into this game. first off, Rafael Flores homers off of him, but I don't know about you, but when I saw or Katie throwing the ball,

he looked like he was a position player, like for, like I had to do a double take at first to realize that it wasn't a position. Cause I think it was like the first pitch of an inning. I was like, Oh crap. Did the white Sox put a position player in? No, it was just Jose or Katie throwing a 79 mile per hour changeup. And I'm like, Oh geez, this is what we've been missing out on.

Well, to be fair, he was about the best picture of the white Sox throughout today. So Yeah. He, yeah, I floor, shout out to Rafael Flores. He, I think that was the first batter he faced was Flores, and Flores, homered off of them. So that was, that was fun. But yeah, or Katie four innings and long relief. How about that?

Four innings, two earned runs, one strikeout, but yeah, Rafael Flores does come in and face him home run. And also, and not just Flores, quite a few. we'll talk about, Oh no Cruz, but

he had a liner off the wall. Rafael Flores almost went opposite. I'll put taco today. he almost got enough to have his second home run today as well. So a good day by Rafael Flores. He had a three hits the home run. And again, almost had another home run. It could have easily been a four hit day for Rafael Flores with two home runs.

so yeah, good game from him. Another quality performance behind the plate as well. Again, the one that seems like you're watching how it looks behind the plate, the challenges. He's seems like he's getting a better awareness of the strike zone recently too. That's gotten better. I think that the first few times out there is way off, but he's looked good and challenging pitches as well. Getting some calls here.

No, I agree with you. I think he's getting more comfortable back there. The more and more that he's playing. and the more and more I watch him at the plate, I think there's, I think there's something there. he hits the ball really hard and he hits the ball on the air too, which is like, that's important. Right. Because a lot of times this is my, this is my talk to Doug. Right. Like it doesn't matter how hard you hit the ball all the time, especially if you're just pounding it right into the ground. Right. That's like classic.

Right. Yeah. Like we would, we would say like, dude, if you could just hit the ball in the air a little bit. but Flores, he hits the ball hard and he hits the ball hard in the right direction. So, he hits his what eighth home run of the year today. He's got an 843 OPS. I don't know if he's going to be a, an over 800 OPS guy for his career, but if you can get anywhere near that type of production from your catcher, that's a huge win. so yeah,

keep playing Flores down the stretch here. I, going into next year, they said on the broadcast today, pirates catchers have 25 home runs this season. Like even with how poorly Davis has been hitting with, how, with the injury, you, Bart got hurt and you got trade and you traded him.

So, but yeah, the pirate pirates catchers have hit 25 homers this year, which is yeah, crazy.

Again, it goes back to like the whole trade deadline talk. I think that the pirates catching core has just been quietly, not bad. everyone, I think it just has this envision of the pirates catchers are bad, but collectively they've been above average.

So, yeah. Henry Davis doesn't have it about, high batting average, but he'll hit the occasional home run and you have Andy there. Now you have Flores and yeah, it has not been a bad situation for the catchers.

It could be better, but it hasn't been bad. And yeah, again, we saw Andy, he came up and he produced and when he got injured, Rafael Flores came in and he's like, they haven't skipped a beat, with ND being out.

So good day by Rafael Flores. And another thing too, like we talk about him and his development and the type of player he is, like the contact rate was always a problem.

It's still sitting about 79% in zone contact rate. Again, like that's not, that's not league average. That's below, but that's not a worrisome issue at this point where like, it was worrisome through the minors, Esmerlyn Valdez track, it's gotten better. And it's, this is something you can live with as long as he's hitting the ball hard in the air, as you mentioned, which he's doing right now.

Yeah. As long as I said, the swing and miss stuff is always going to be there. I don't think it's going away, but if you can hit the ball with this much power, you can afford, you can afford that type of swing in this.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And again, like it's not egregious. Like you can absolutely live with that, especially at the catcher position.

So Rafael Flores, also big day from him. Oneil Cruz. Jim, Oneil Cruz. Three hits again for him today.

Yeah, he's good. he hit a line drive single off the center field wall. It was hit too hard. Oh, was it a double?

Yeah, he got. Oh, you know what? You're right. Everyone got a double. It was a double.

But anyways, a line drive, just screamer right off the wall. That's what O'Neal does. Just so casual.

That ball was crushed. That was in the first inning, like during the whole doubles parade.

but Oneil Cruz hit two balls today over 110 miles per hour. That double off the wall. It was only a homer in four ballparks because of how hard it was hit.

Like if he would have just hit that ball a little bit farther in the air, that thing would have gone 450 feet.

Instead, 18 degree launch angle. It barely got off the ground. And yeah, just pelted the center field wall.

As soon as he hit the ball, I thought that was going to be like right at the center fielder.

But he hit the ball so hard, it just kept going. And when it bounced like a foot off the top of the wall, I was like, oh.

Oh, OK, then. Yeah, no one was getting to that one.

No, yeah, no one was catching that. Yeah, that was that was crushed.

He had another single later in the game that was 116 miles per hour.

And I think he had another single that was only eighty five, eighty five.

So I don't know what he was doing on that one. But yeah, no, it was that was a good day.

Good day for Oneil Cruz.

He's they missed him. They missed him a lot.

He's so fun to watch, especially when he's not stealing third with two outs.

Yeah, he did get caught. He did get caught stealing today.

He did a bad, not a bad jump on a pitcher, but he was he was gunned down.

But that is a rare occurrence when he's trying to steal second.

That is. Yeah.

Again, you take that. He had a great game today.

Let's go and talk about the rest of this.

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One more Bubba Chandler tidbit here, DiNardo.

Alex Stumpf just tweeted out, 16 whiffs on his four-seamer tonight.

The only other pitchers who have done that this year are Jacob Misiorowski, Cole Reagans, and Cam Schlittler.

That's the list.

Also, 50% of his swings against his four-seamer resulted in a whiff.

That's the highest rate of anyone this year with a minimum of 10 whiffs.

So, yeah, it was a stellar fastball performance for Bubba Chandler tonight.

That's good stuff.

All right.

So, again, we talked about Cruz, Rafael, Connor.

Anyone offensively that stood out that you want to talk about here?

I do want to talk about Bryan Reynolds because I think we rightfully dogged him, right, for the period of time where he was just god-awful.

He has been a whole lot better lately right when this team needs him to be.

Today, he goes, what, two for four with two doubles, drives in two runs.

Just in his last 15 days, hitting .348 with a .937 OPS, over a 1,200 OPS over the last week.

So, Bryan Reynolds finally looks to be turning things back around.

If you just share this real quick, rolling xwOBA over his last 100 plate appearances, it's up and to the right, which is a good sign,

and it's very up and to the right.

So, yeah, Bryan Reynolds having a really good stretch right now, which this team just desperately needed.

They've needed him real bad.

And he has not been producing for a while.

No, for sure.

And I think it's quietly gotten there.

So, yeah, just some quick numbers here.

Last 18 games, including today, which is last 80 plate appearances, he's batting .314, .388, .443.

So, yeah, he has slowly, quietly started turning it on in the course of recently, absolutely has.

So, yeah, big day for Bryan Reynolds.

I believe he was another one.

Did he hit one off the wall today, too, or close to it?

I know he had two of them in, like, the past five games.

So, in the first inning, Reynolds hit a ball, like, right off the base of the wall.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, he's been hitting the ball well of recent, too, and almost just well enough to hit a couple more home runs.

So, that's like, yeah, that's third ball.

I feel like he's hit off the wall in, like, his past seven games.

Yeah.

It would have been a homer in Yankee Stadium.

But, most balls are home runs in Yankee Stadium.

So, there is that.

Had he had another child, he'd probably have three more home runs with that dad power.

The Pirates actually would have had, if the Pirates were playing this game in Yankee Stadium, I think they would have had, like, four home runs today.

What a terrible stadium.

It's just proof that, all those Yankees legends are just fraudulent, right?

Every single one of them.

All of them.

Every one of them.

No, he's looked really good.

Valdez had a really good at-bat in that first inning, too, driving.

Like, it was good to see him taking the double the opposite way.

Right center field, getting that opposite field double.

He drew a good walk, as well.

And then Spencer Horwitz, who's been just having a really rough go of it lately.

He picks up two hits today, three RBIs.

Just to, yeah.

The team actually got hits when they needed to today, which was nice.

Yeah.

No, I'm glad you picked up here with Spencer Horwitz, because he needed this game, I felt like.

Now, it's baseball.

It is what it is.

They're all major league pitchers.

But today, and the thing is, with Burke, like, he's had a very successful season.

It's not like they faced this terrible pitcher by any means.

But everyone was teeing off on him tonight.

And sometimes you might just need that game where some guy's not on his game, and he's giving meatballs up, and you're teeing off.

And, like, Spencer might have just needed this game.

Because, again, he has been a good hitter his entire tenure with the Pirates, more or less, right?

He had the late start last year because of injury, so it took him a little bit to catch on.

And, like, lately, with this year, he has had a really rough go at it.

I'm not here to tell you this is going to be the spark, but this might be that game he needs because he needed a spark.

It's been rough for him for a while.

Yeah, the way he runs created plus dip below 100.

His war was, and this surprised me.

I was watching, it was an offbeat, either today's show or yesterday's show.

Alex mentioned, Spencer Horwitz and negative war for Spencer Horwitz on baseball reference, which is, he was the team's best player last year in terms of position players and, yeah, below replacement level up to this point.

So, yeah, it was good to see him get a couple hits.

Yeah, it really was.

I saw that, like, Jake Mangum had a couple hits.

He had a double as well.

Everyone had a double.

He had a stolen base here as well.

good day for Jake Mangum at the plate.

Again, also, a good day for everyone, basically, at the plate.

Again, Jacob Gonzalez was the only one that had the one hit, but still, like, he had a hit.

everyone who started got at least a hit.

Everyone who started was on base at least two times other than Jacob Gonzalez.

Like, that's how good today was.

The Pirates had 18 hits, like we talked about, three walks, and also just three strikeouts.

That was it.

What a day at the plate.

More importantly, DiNardo, Billy Cook entered this game, which I don't know if anybody noticed, but he did play.

Do you know what the Pirates record is when Billy Cook plays?

Well, see, I know there's a reason for it.

I know there's a reason for it.

Right, it's skewed for this reason, but go ahead and tell us.

49 and 27.

You know what?

Stop the count.

I don't want to hear the reason.

49 and 27 when Billy Cook plays a ball game.

If Don Kelly would just play Billy Cook more.

This is all Don Kelly's fault.

There you go.

Yeah.

It's bad managing.

Those are the numbers.

They speak.

Yeah, we won't mention the reason why that's the case.

It's not because they have the lead.

No.

But I was curious on that today.

Billy Cook vibes this team into leads, and he needs to be in the ball game, damn it.

I was curious on that today because I was like, man, I didn't even realize he was in the game.

Yeah, 49 and 27.

Boom.

Billy Cook.

He's the winningest ball player on this team.

And honestly, if he only just played for the Yankees, who knows what his career would be by now.

He'd probably have a bunch more home runs, too.

He's probably a 30-30 guy.

Minimal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shout out Billy Cook.

And his 18 OPS plus.

We don't need to look at that.

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Real quick.

We announced it on NS9 Live last week, but we haven't really talked about it since.

Just keep in mind, this weekend, we're going to be starting our fundraising drive for the Clemente Museum.

So make sure you are tuning into our post-game shows starting Friday.

It's going to go through this whole weekend and then leading up to Clemente Day, which is next Tuesday.

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We're going to match up to $1,050 in donations.

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Donate.

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Outside of that, no NS9 Live this week because there's games and games and games.

So like, subscribe, shout outs in the comments.

Anything else?

Any other news we have to state?

Well, I was looking up because they just announced Lake Bokker is going to start tomorrow.

So there is, there is that.

But they don't have, FanDuel doesn't have the lineup quite yet.

So we won't, we won't go over that.

But the Pirates are still over under 79 and a half wins as of right now on FanDuel.

They are minus 225 though to go over that 79 and a half wins.

So they need to keep winning.

Obviously, they are one game below 500 right now.

They're still quite a ways away from a postseason spot.

But really all you can do right now is just keep winning as much as you can.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

So, hey, Bokkers look good in this, in this role.

He's look good all just in all facets, but he's done a good job here.

these bullpen games have actually been very successful for the Pirates.

So they win tomorrow.

It's another, what's the fifth series in a row.

they need to see one more against the White Dogs.

I think it's, is it the fifth or sixth in a row?

If they win tomorrow, it's their fifth straight series win.

Which they haven't done since 2015.

Yeah.

And if they win tomorrow, 2015 was the last time they've done that.

And it'll be seven of eight series wins if they win tomorrow.

Boom.

And then off to the Cubs.

So, we'll see you guys tomorrow.

Is that it, Jim?

That's everything.

Let's go Bucs.

Bye-bye.

Love y'all.

All right.

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