Our Takeaways from Another Life loss Pirates

All right, what's going on, beautiful people?

You are listening to the North Shore Nine podcast presented by FanDuel, and this is the NS9 post-game show powered by Primanti Brothers.

I'm Tyler.

Live from Miami is Jim.

Jim is walking away already.

Pirates lose this one, two to nothing.

I don't have much positive to say here.

I think Jim's back with us, but Pirates lose this one, two to nothing.

They are five games under 500.

If you came for anything nice, anything positive, any hopium about the Pirates, I don't think you're getting it here tonight because I got nothing for you.

Yeah, that game sucked, Tyler.

Offense was completely dead the entire time.

There were zero base runners that advanced past first base.

Not a single at-bat with runners in scoring position today.

Yuri Perez absolutely dominated this lineup.

Yeah, it was, it was a pathetic display by the offense.

We'll get into Paul Skenes's, too.

the line doesn't look awful, but he got hit hard.

It wasn't, it didn't look pretty, but yeah, Pirates lose two, nothing.

And again, we talked on Bucco Brew on Monday that, like, everything, every series going forward is a playoff series.

And losing game one here means if you don't win these next two, you're out.

As the overlay here says, stick a fork in them, and that's where I'm at right now.

Stick a fork in this team, it's over.

They've got no life right now.

They're coming off 17 straight games.

I understand that.

They finally got a day off.

And with that day off, personally, I expected maybe a little bit of life here.

Maybe a reset.

Some recharge batteries.

I don't know.

Something.

Instead, you got one of the most pathetic performances at the plate that we've seen all season.

Started absolutely pathetic with three of the worst at-bats I think I've ever seen in the first inning.

Just complete and utter freaking joke.

Awful.

Yeah, it started off terrible, right?

Like, that first inning, strikeout.

It looked like the offense wasn't ready to play today, quite frankly.

It was a lackluster performance.

It was a disappointing performance.

And, yeah, man.

Season is on life support.

If it's even still on that at this point.

You could probably call it life support.

they could get hot, I guess.

But I have no hope of it.

It's going to take them winning 12, 13 games in a row.

It doesn't seem like that's going to happen anytime soon.

No.

No, it doesn't.

I understand they're down three big pieces offensively.

Oneil Cruz, Konnor Griffin, Ryan O'Hearn.

I get that.

Those are big pieces.

Big parts of this offense.

It doesn't excuse not having a base runner in scoring position all day.

Can't win with it.

No, it's just stupid baseball, too.

Like, they're not fundamentally sound.

They're making errors.

They're having base running blunders.

They're throwing baseballs to the wrong bases.

Somehow, through all that, they still only lost two to nothing today.

Paul Skenes is getting hit around, like, I don't know, dude.

Like, he was just knocked around so hard today.

I don't know what.

The velocity that he has is completely gone.

Gone.

Not a single fastball touching 97 miles per hour today.

Averaged 95.7 on the fastball today.

Like, just completely ineffective.

He was hit hard.

He was hit often.

Bryan Reynolds robbed a home run, or else this thing would have been even worse.

Yeah.

Before we get into some Skenes talk here, because that's where we'll start this thing, got to give a shout-out here to Silas.

Silas TV, let's stop pretending there's a chance to win, too.

Can't really disagree with you.

The way they look right now, it's tough.

And then, of course, a shout-out to our guy, Michael B.

Thank you.

He predicted 75 and 87 before the season.

He might have been a little too high on the win total.

Skenes throwing 95 miles per hour meatballs.

The dumb fielding heirs.

Fire Kelly.

Let's go ahead and get into Paul Skenes.

You mentioned that the line didn't look terrible today.

And really, if you look at it, five innings, four strikeouts, five hits, walked one, gives up one earned run, two total.

You look at the line, and you probably don't think Paul Skenes performed that poorly.

He only threw 65 pitches in five innings.

I'm here to tell you, Paul Skenes looked terrible.

Yeah, he looked bad.

And then, on top of that, why 65 pitches?

he got taken out after five innings and 65 pitches.

If there was one thing he was beating today, it was efficient.

Like I said, he was getting hit hard, but he was being efficient.

He was getting outs.

He was limiting runners.

He was limiting runs across the plate.

But 65 pitches, it was his third shortest outing of the year.

The only two shorter than that was his opening day start where he didn't even get out of the first inning.

And a rain delay against the Rays, the first NS9 tailgate, by the way.

So, that was the second one.

But, yeah, this is something that we're not used to seeing.

Typically, even when he's not all that effective, he's still going 90, 95, 100 pitches.

They took him out after 65 today in five innings.

It leads me to believe that the Pirates didn't really like what they were seeing out of Paul Skenes.

he had just given up a really hard hit right before that Reynolds robbed a home run there to end the fifth inning.

So, maybe they just saw enough.

They were like, you know what?

You clearly don't have it today.

They are hitting you hard, so we're going to take you out.

But I'm curious to hear Don Kelly's reasoning for pulling him at 65 pitches.

So, there was a lot of discourse online about him being pulled early, and I think a lot of complaining as well about him being pulled early.

I'm going to be honest with you.

If the Pirates wanted to win this game, they made the right decision pulling Paul Skenes.

He was not giving them the best chance to win the game.

Yeah, I agree with you.

He was getting hit all over the ballpark.

Yeah.

They barreled everything.

So, if you want to win this game, taking him out was probably the right call.

And they didn't lose this game because they went to Yohan Ramirez.

He was lights out.

No.

No, that decision, it ended up paying off.

Yohan Ramirez came in and did what he's been doing the last two-plus months.

Three scoreless innings.

Only gives up one base runner.

Five strikeouts.

He's got a 0.28 ERA, Tyler, since June 6th.

And that covers 32 in two-thirds innings.

So, he's just been absolutely incredible.

And he was, this may have been his best outing so far.

With those three scoreless innings, he just ran through this Marlins lineup.

So, yeah, he looked really good.

But, no, I'm with you.

Like, Paul Skenes was getting hit hard.

Again, like, with the fastball particularly, average exit velocity against the fastball was 100 miles per hour.

He only generated four swings and misses the entire evening.

Yeah, like, he did not look good.

And the Pirates had seen enough after five.

Yeah, I think I had seen enough after five as well.

And I might have saw enough after the first inning.

Again, line-wise, it looked good.

Like, good enough.

And to be honest here, he only gave up two runs.

They could have won the game.

He did enough to win the game.

He kept a minute for his five innings.

The offense is a real reason they lost this thing.

But, yeah.

Paul Skenes started.

Yeah, this loss wasn't on Paul.

He didn't look good.

But he labored through it.

He got the job done.

They didn't lose the game because of Paul Skenes.

No, but he definitely did not look good at all.

No.

His fastball right now is just, it's not competitive.

you saw it early in the first inning.

He's trying to locate that at the top of the zone.

They were getting the barrel to it every time.

It's just, he's extremely hittable right now.

And I'm starting to get a little worried, Jim.

I'm starting to get a little worried about Paul Skenes.

Starting?

Starting to get worried?

Starting to get really worried.

I think that, at least in my head.

There was something wrong.

Like, tonight it looked like something was wrong.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's the first time, like, I've been buying the whole, like, he's doing this for arm health reasons.

It's a stupid reason.

Don't get me wrong.

Like, whatever they're doing is stupid.

It's clearly not working.

But tonight was the first time where it was like, he just, something looks wrong with him.

The fact that he didn't throw a single pitch at 97 miles per hour, the fact that he was a full, almost tick and a half below his season average on the fastball is a red flag.

He's still usually someone who gets swings and misses, even when, during the stretch, he wasn't getting swings and misses tonight.

Yeah, he was, he looked awful.

He looked awful to me.

It, I wish I had some wood around the knockdown.

There we go.

I found some.

It, the discourse here seems very similar to the Mitch Keller discourse before his season ended, where it just, every outing, it just got worse and worse and worse.

And then you find out something's wrong.

If we find out in a week or two that Paul is hurt and he's got to sit the rest of the year, I would not be surprised.

I'm to that point.

Yeah.

I'm honestly, I'm close to the point where you, I'm close to wanting to just shut him down anyhow.

Cause if he can't continue to look like this, like, yeah, the problem there is like you, the little hope that you have left, which is an extremely small amount.

if you shut down Paul, then there's not, there's no hope.

Right.

But he's also been completely ineffective, for the last 16 starts.

This is now the last 16 starts.

The pirates have won three of them.

Think about that.

The last 16 Paul scheme starts, the pirates have won three of them.

They are three and 13.

Like that's catastrophic to your season.

And he has not gone.

The last time that he went six innings was July 19th against Cleveland.

We are almost at a month where no six inning outings at a Paul Skenes.

Something's wrong, Jim.

You said it.

Something is wrong.

I don't know what it is, but there is something here.

If this was all by design, then whoever designed this needs to lose their job.

Like if this was someone's idea, like, Hey, let's try this, let's do this.

It, this decision for Paul Skenes to be the pitcher that he is right now has cost the pirates the season.

At the very least, this started somewhere.

Someone had some stupid idea with this.

Cause I'm going to guess that some, at some point this year, someone had the idea for him to not throw as hard because Paul was pretty open about that he was saving or he wasn't giving, he wasn't throwing max effort basically.

Right.

That was someone's idea.

And whoever's decided that stupid.

We'll see a couple of people.

It was a terrible decision.

A couple of people here to get to got to give a shout out to Brock.

He says Mangum whiffing at three straight balls, resulting in a strikeout in the eighth sums up this offense.

Still waiting on that first Luke Weaver save.

Hell, I almost forgot that they acquired Luke Weaver.

And then another shout out.

Yeah.

the new bullpen hasn't had a chance to really show off at all.

They've been pitching well.

As a unit so far, but it hasn't meant anything.

The bullpen might be the strength now.

The bullpen is absolutely the strength of this team right now.

They can't hit.

They can't pitch.

the rotation can't pitch.

They can't hit.

They can't feel.

They can't run.

The team can't do anything except pitch real effective relief.

Now that's like, it's completely flipped.

They traded it all for relievers.

We didn't want to give it all away.

Right.

And then real quick, shout out to Silas here.

The lockout is sounding better every day.

I need more than a fallen winner to get over this catastrophic collapse and the pain we sustained from it.

I could use a lockout as well right now after tonight.

I'll be back with you tomorrow, though.

Don't worry.

Tonight, I'm just sad.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've got one more post-game show here.

That'll be my last in-person post-game of the year.

But, yeah, at this point, I don't really want to watch these guys much longer.

No.

This game tonight was brutal.

It was a brutal game to watch.

The offense was just completely overmatched the whole time.

It wasn't fun.

This was not a fun game to watch.

It was not.

And moving over there to the offense, is there anyone here you want to talk about?

Because they all sucked.

I guess the one thing I'll say is, as Merlane Valdez got a hit and he didn't strike out.

So there's that.

He went an entire game without striking out.

So that's maybe that's something there, Tyler.

I don't know.

The top of the order, though, was just, one through five was 0 for 12.

No, 0 for 15.

One through five was 0 for 15 today.

There were a couple, like I said, 6, 7, 8, 9 each had one hit apiece.

But your one through five can't go 0 for 15.

Actually, wait, hold on.

0 for 18.

I didn't even keep scoring the ninth because I had already walked down here to do this stupid show because I knew we were going to lose.

You said 0 for 18.

Gonzalo was 0 for 3.

Good Lord.

0 for 18.

Just rough math looking at my scorecard.

7, 11, 14, 18 with 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 strikeouts.

There you go.

Can't do that.

You can't do that, Tyler.

8 strikeouts to one walk from the top of your order.

Jake Mangum had three of them.

Now, I don't even want to point out Jake that much because up and down this lineup, there was just stupidity all over.

if you didn't do something stupid today, you're the first.

maybe Valdez is the only one that didn't do something stupid today.

I don't know.

Yeah, Valdez, he made a nice play in the outfield.

I don't think he did anything stupid on the base paths today.

Ronny Simon, who did get a base hit, did something stupid.

he made the final out of an inning at second base in the seventh inning, down two runs.

So, that was dumb, Tyler.

Yeah.

Jake Mangum threw to the wrong base.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

it didn't end up costing them a run, but, like, it almost did.

If that would have cost them a run, that would have been worse.

But, yeah, Mangum threw to the wrong base.

Skenes was able to get out of that with a strikeout to pick him.

But, yeah, Jacob Gonzalez looked like a mess at shortstop, which led to the second run.

Nick Gonzales made another error.

Yeah.

luckily, the defensive miscues, they resulted in one run.

this, I guess, should have been a 1-0 loss, if you think of it that way.

And the defense made it 2-0.

And, yeah, but, I think the main story today was the offense was just completely inept.

And something is wrong with Paul Skenes.

Like, this was – the line doesn't show how bad he looked tonight.

It doesn't, again, just – he could have given up more runs.

You mentioned the Bryan Reynolds robbing of a home run.

Yeah.

It could have been even worse.

However, at the same time, I think Jacob – well, didn't give up a run that inning.

So, I guess that didn't matter.

Because Jacob Gonzalez had another play where it should have been an error.

Well, in the fifth inning, the Jacob Gonzalez error led to a run when he – he made a diving play and then threw the ball in the dirt.

So, that led to an unearned run.

But, yeah.

Yeah.

And he also had a play, I think, in either the first or second where he just booted a ground ball.

That was the first inning.

Yeah.

But, they didn't give up a run on that.

Yeah, it's – I got nothing positive about this team right now.

They are playing a horrific brand of baseball that is plain and simple, unwatchable.

I can't even call it borderline unwatchable.

I don't want to watch them right now.

I don't think anybody wants to watch them right now.

You're in the ballpark.

I don't want to watch them right now.

You've got to be halfway ready to get the hell out of there.

Yeah.

I don't want to watch them.

Yeah, it was rough.

It was a rough game.

And the crowd – I don't know if anybody's ever been to Marlins Park or Lone Depot Park, whatever they call it nowadays.

This place, it is very strange because no fans come here.

There were roughly 87 people in the stands today.

Half of them were Pirates fans.

Half of them were Marlins fans.

I think the announced attendance was like 9,000-something.

So, I don't know if they were counting, like, every single potato chip sold as a person in the stands.

But it's an odd place because, this is a Marlins team.

They're two games above .500.

They're within, like, three games of a playoff spot right now.

It's quite weird walking in here and just, like, there's just no one here.

No one.

There's more employees here than there are fans.

They're probably all in the Clevelander.

Is that place still open in the outfield?

It's – there are four people out there from my count.

Yeah, four people.

Yeah, Miami doesn't seem like the place to go.

Yeah, this is my first time here at this ballpark.

It is weird.

It's not, like, a terrible ballpark as far as indoor ballparks go.

But, yeah, the entire upper level is shut off.

You can't even get there.

And, yeah, like, there's just – it's just completely dead.

It's just dead.

Just like the Pirates.

Just like the Pirates.

Yep, they get shut out by Yuri Perez.

Seven innings, seven strikeouts from him.

Like you mentioned, they don't threaten whatsoever.

There's truthfully nobody else on this list I really want to talk about, Jim.

Like, just going up and down.

They all make me want to puke.

No, it was awful.

Yohan Ramirez deserves a ton of credit for what he did here today.

Because my guess is – and I don't know if you can look, but they're probably announcing tomorrow's starter any minute now.

I don't know if it will be Carmen Mlodzinski.

I don't know if it will be an opener.

But that – like, you're going to need people to pitch tomorrow.

And Yohan was able to bridge that gap because Paul Skenes, like I said, was pulled after five.

And, Ramirez finished it off.

So he won't be available tomorrow, but everyone else should be.

Yeah, I'm not seeing tomorrow's starter announced yet.

Yeah, nothing yet.

Carmen will at least be the ball guy tomorrow probably, so.

Right.

Carmen will pitch tomorrow.

It's just a matter of if he's going to start or if they're going to put someone out in front of him.

Yeah, but like you mentioned there, Yohan Ramirez does deserve a boatload of credit for how he threw today.

He kept them in the game.

I know the line from Skenes kept him in the game as well.

But I don't think you can say enough about how good Yohan Ramirez has looked over this last couple months.

He has been absolutely lights out.

Even when the bullpen was scuffling, like he was the one guy that I don't really know if you could say you could count on him because every time you brought him in, he still like walked two batters and threw three wild pitches.

But like it was never pretty during the stretch.

But at some point, you just have to acknowledge like 32 and two thirds innings, Tyler, since June 6th, and he's only given up one run.

Now, he's given up 19 walks over that span, but he struck out 40, and he's only given up one run.

He also had as many whiffs as Paul Skenes did today.

Yeah.

He had four whiffs in three innings.

And that's the other thing, though, is that he is giving them length out of the bullpen as well, which has been very much needed.

Like getting three innings out of him tonight with the effectiveness that he gave them, it at least puts them in a pretty decent spot tomorrow.

they only used two arms today with Skenes only going five.

You'd probably expect to use up a good bit of this bullpen, but they're in pretty good shape tomorrow.

Yeah, I said the entire bullpen should be good to go.

Like Ryan sends out that bullpen breakdown every day.

If you don't follow us on social media, make sure you check that out.

But yeah, everybody should be ready to go tomorrow.

And who knows?

Maybe we'll actually see Luke Weaver pitch with a lead at some point.

It still is yet to happen.

Hasn't happened yet.

I just like to watch him pitch, Jim.

I don't feel like I ever get to see him.

We've seen him pitch one time.

Seen him pitch one time, and it was during like a four-run deficit, I think.

Yeah.

thank God the Mets are paying him.

Right.

Because the Pirates would be paying him to sit on the bench right now.

It's been something.

They're back with it tomorrow.

We don't know who the starter is.

Trying to find exactly what the line is.

If FanDuel actually has the Pirates favored, I will be shocked.

They probably don't have a lineup since there's no pitch.

Yeah, it doesn't look like we have a line through FanDuel yet.

So how about the Pirates are now.

Ooh, that's.

The Pirates are plus 30,000 to win the NL Central, which is obvious, I think.

With how good the Brewers are.

But to make the playoffs, we are now plus 1,800, Jim.

The odds continue to shrink.

Yeah, it's not looking good.

I think it's over.

But you get to talk about it again tomorrow.

Can't wait.

Cannot wait.

Hopefully you have a good bit more to talk about than we did tonight.

Hopefully there's some positives to talk about, Jim.

Because today, I got nothing for you folks.

I got nothing else.

Outside Yohan, I got nothing.

Yeah.

Thank you, Yohan, for giving me something positive.

And thank you all for hanging out with us.

We will be back with you tomorrow.

And for the rest of the season, hopefully it goes better than it did tonight.

With that being said, appreciate you all.

We're out of here.

Peace out, Griscouts.

See you, guys.

All right.

That wraps up this episode of North Shore Nine.

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