The Pirates offense sputtered once again against a left-handed starting pitcher and questionable bullpen decisions led to a 6-1 loss to the Angels. Braxton Ashcraft gave up three runs in five innings of work and then Don Kelly went inexplicately went to Isaac Mattson for two innings as he gave up three runs to put the game out of reach. Bryan Reynolds hit his 16th homer of the season, a solo shot late for the only Pirates run in this one. DiNardo and Doug break down the loss on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti’s Bros. You can watch or listen here:
Can We Ever Manage with Urgency?
We learned early on that this regime likes to schedule things out and they don’t like veering from it very often. Like when Carmen Mlodzinski went to the bullpen and instead of being a shutdown reliever and available every game for when you’re needed, they had a meeting to discuss when he wanted to pitch next. That’s not exactly the most efficient way to deploy one of your best relief arms at the time and it didn’t lead to many wins doing that. Well fast forwar to Saturday night when the Pirates are down 3-0 and the first arm out of the pen that Kelly calls us is…Isaac Mattson. Why though? Mattson hasn’t pitched since August 29, last Saturday and he was called up from Triple-A. How can he be your first option out of the pen? Yohan Ramirez, Luke Weaver, Gregory Soto were all available. Mattson pitches a scoreless 6th inning, ok great you got away with it. Now let’s go to Soto, Weaver or Yohan. NOPE. Kelly keeps Mattson in there for another inning. He promptly gives up three. It’s like they had it predetermined that Mattson was going to pitch multiple innings in and get is work no matter what.
Where’s the urgency here? I understand have a loose relief schedule and using it in May or June when there’s a long season ahead of you still. But it’s September 5 now and you’re supposedly in a wildcard race or that’s what fans and the announcers tell me. Can we have a little bit of urgency now? You have Paul Skenes on the mound Sunday afternoon and then have another off day. Why is Mattson going two innings in this game? And then to make things even more maddening, after Mattson gives up 3 and the game is basically over now down 6-0, Kelly brings in Yohan for the 8th and he pitches two scoreless innings. WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST FIRST GO TO RAMIREZ IN THE 6TH INSTEAD OF TRIPLE-A MATTSON?? It’s mind boggling. Apparently it’s too much to ask to manage with even a shred of urgency in September?
This Offense STINKS
This offense continues to sink this team. They have brutal for a while now. On Friday they had to win 1-0 and even in their series-winning game against the Giants where they scored five runs, those runs were scored on a bases loading walk, bases loaded HBP, an error, a forceout and a sac fly. Not exactly tearing the cover off the ball. If this team isn’t hitting it out of the park, they’re horrible. They clog up the basepaths and then never find a clutch hit anywhere. And then they’ll have a random explosion game where they score 13, but then go back to this crap. They’re too inconsistent and just not a good hitting team right now. And they strike out a ton. Striking out is fine if you’re hitting home runs consistently, but they stopped doing that a while ago. They had eight hits in this loss and just one run. Not good enough. I’m tired of watching them. And Oneil Cruz and Konnor Griffin are back too so you can’t even blame injuries anymore. Scoring two runs in two games against the Angels pitching is pathetic.
Can We Stop Talking About the Playoffs Now?
Delusional folks on Twitter keep telling me the Pirates can still make the playoffs. They just need to go 25-5 and then 20-5 and now 15-4. Let’s stop this nonsense. Folks, they can’t even get back to .500 let alone get back in this wildcard hunt. They haven’t been at .500 since the morning of August 4, over a month ago. And I don’t want to hear about playoffs and a wildcard hunt when you’re team is below .500.
Could this team finish the season with 19 straight wins? Sure anything is possible. Any team could do that, but let’s be real, this team isn’t consistent enough to do it. Here’s what’s working against them. They’re not fundamentally sound, defense is suspect, they’re dumb (see Oneil Cruz getting thrown out trying to steal third with two outs down 5), they’re not clutch hitters, Paul Skenes’ struggles for the past three months and the manager lacks urgency for whatever reason. I don’t know how many more red flags and signs you need to call it for this season, but the postseason is long gone for this team in 2026.
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