Our Takeaways from the Pirates Throwing a Win Away

What's going on, beautiful people? You are listening to the North Shore Nine podcast presented by FanDuel, and this is the NS9 postgame show powered by Primanti and Primanti Brothers.

Pirates lose 4-3 to the Cubs. Before I get into all the negatives of this day, we are raising money here for the Clemente Museum, so you see that little

donate button here on YouTube. If you feel it, maybe help us out here, reach our goal of $2,100. We are matching every dollar up to $1,050. Hopefully that's the good thing that comes out of today. Use that donate button, and as Cody says here, use it as a Tyler was right about Gregory Soto button.

Like I said, Pirates lose us 1-4-3. I'm Tyler. Doug's with me, Doug. Gregory Soto blows it. Don Kelly blows it. The season's over. Everybody is angry.

Yes, look at Padfolio. He starts the podcast out by choosing violence. I don't think we're Don Kelly apologists here, but Padfolio, I am fully expecting you to make a large donation to the Clemente Museum for that ridiculous

front to Tyler and I. We might have to, you might have to, I've never banned anybody. We might have to ban him. I don't know.

Yeah, let's just, no, it was awful. let's raise the money for Clemente and we'll complain while we're doing it here.

It should have, it had the makings of a good game. Paul Skenes's pitched pretty well. It gives up two solo home runs. O'Hearn shows that he was missed, hits the three run home run. And then Soto comes in. He's, you could tell immediately that he's bad. But Donnie Kelly, is over there fiddling while Rome burns. I don't understand why he won't take somebody out that's pitching poorly in a close game.

It just, early in the season, I didn't blame him for the bullpen was because the bullpen was terrible, but you have a good bullpen now and you've got options. maybe you couldn't use Weaver or Montgomery today.

You still wanted to give them a rest, but Romero's was there. Other people were there and Soto clearly didn't have it. You gave this game away and you just sat there and watched him implode. So, yeah. But that being said, donate to the Clemente museum. Donate to when the pirates were good. Donate to a great pirate player.

And we're going to go ahead and start this thing there. The eighth word Doug was, or what Doug was talking about there. the pirates have a three to two lead in the eighth inning.

We'll talk about Paul Skenes and how they got to that here in a bit, but the most important part and what is the most anger inducing has had to happen there in the eighth.

Gregory Soto comes in assuming that Luke Weaver was just unavailable today. He didn't throw yesterday, but he did throw two days in a row.

Seems like he was unavailable. You pay Gregory Soto almost $8 million. He should be able to get people out. He can't, he's whatever. We'll get to all that. but

Paul Skenes comes out after the seventh inning Soto comes in immediately gives up a double does get in out with a fly out.

And then PCA comes up. Seems like it's going to be quite a difficult battle. He's able to get PCA to strike out at that point.

I thought we might've got over the hump, Doug. I thought we might jump on this post game show and maybe be a little bit. I've been watching too long. It's yeah. He gives up the double, then gets two outs. And I'm like, okay, we all take a sigh of relief and then boom.

it's, he's not out of it yet. We just think he is. And also I do have a quick question for you.

Yeah. Skenes had only thrown 82 pitches.

keeping in mind that it seems like he wasn't going to go to Montgomery or Weaver because they have been overused lately, even though they didn't pitch yesterday. they've been pitching four out of five games. Do you think you should have stuck with skeins a little longer?

I think there's an argument to be had that you could have left them in. I'm that's not exactly.

There's an argument to be made that I think you could have kept skeins in. That's not exact. That's not really why I'm upset.

I don't think I'm more upset because of what happened after that strikeout of PCA where Soto then hits Alex Bregman with a pitch.

He walks, say a Suzuki. He walks Matt Shaw, which tied the game. And then he hits Nico Horner with a pitch.

All of this happens. And Don Kelly's just sitting on his freaking hands.

Inexcusable. You come into this game at 500. Yes. The season is on a ventilator.

Don't get me wrong. It is the longest of long shots to be able to sneak your way into the playoffs here. It's not going to, it wasn't going to happen.

It would have been a miracle, but if a miracle could still happen, I want you to put your best foot forward.

Or at least you've got to play like until you're officially out, you have to play like you're still in. I think we all agree it wasn't going to happen. It would be absurd to think that it would.

However, just to sit there and watch this guy implode when you have other arms. and he's done this before. this is not the first time. This is, it's a regular occurrence. Like he, it seems like he's not sure that he can go out, in the middle of an inning during an inning and remove a pitcher.

it's, I know people in here saying, Oh, well, he learned from Shelton. Well, he also sat next to Leyland who managed the bullpen pretty well. So did he forget everything that he learned from Leyland? golly.

It just, yeah, just sitting by, it's just, it's just so frustrating. You had a chance to win this game. You had a chance to win this game. You had then, which would have given you a chance to take this series, but no, you just sat there and, you didn't even go do a mountain visit, do something.

Yeah. It took them trying to, when exactly did, Bill Murphy have a mountain visit there? Was it after the game was already tied up?

I think so. Yeah. They came out and, he was, yes, he was very late in coming out for his mountain visit.

So not just that dog, but even when one, you don't have anybody even warming up here.

Bases are loaded and you're still sitting on your hands.

And then when you get someone to warm up, it's Yohan Ramirez who you've lived, used the living shit out of, right?

Not Mason Montgomery. Do we not care about winning this game? Do you not care?

Right. And again, what are we saving guys for?

So often in the Ben Cherington tenure and with Doug Kelly is that they never seem concerned with winning the actual game in front of them.

they're worried about next year's game. They're worried about some other game down the road, but they don't ever seem to be concerned with winning today's game.

Because I have more questions about Kelly in the lineup for you a little later. I just don't understand the, lack of urgency that this team has had for years now.

Again, this isn't the Braves. It's not the Yankees. It's not a team that's in the playoffs all the time. you get close, you get an opportunity to make the playoffs.

You should be selling out. You should be going all in. And today's not the day for that.

I'm saying, but like, a month or two ago, they should have like, hey, we're hanging around. We've got a chance.

We've got some good things going here. And, no. We're not that. We're not that worried about today's game. It's okay.

It crossed my mind that we should win this one.

It is the story of this entire season, Doug, lack of urgency. It has been a complete lack of urgency from day one.

This season, they allowed this bullpen to blow game after game, the first half of this season, day after day and refuse to do anything.

Even try something different refused. Right. No, they rely on their internal analytics. Yeah.

All the way to today. And you're still no urgency. There's never a desire to just let's go get this one.

Let's get this one to worry about tomorrow. That has not been a thought in anybody in this organization's brain all season long.

It is. We're worried about tomorrow constantly. And guess what? Tomorrow comes now. All of a sudden you're a game under 500 seasons over, just like it has been for the last month.

But we just hung on the hope because we're a bunch of dummies. Yeah, we really are.

We really like the season's been over. We shouldn't even be worked up. It's been done, but it's so frustrating when you just won't go try to win the baseball game in front of you ever.

Sure. Right. Like I said, they're always so worried. for years they were worried about the 2028 team, like that was, that was always the team.

It was some team that, the guys in single A were going to come up and save and that thing.

It's just, it's just so frustrating. Like the way they put out lineups again, the way they did not handle the bullpen this year.

Just, guys just being terrible and just keep running them out there, keep running them out there and just, thinking they're going to figure it out or the light bulbs going to go off.

And yeah. And again, as a fan, like, we hope, and we hope, we hope for the best and we're optimistic and we think maybe it can happen.

And apparently no one in the pirates organization thinks it can happen because they're, like I said, they're more worried about something else down the road, something off in the distance rather than winning today's game.

And I don't want to let Gregory Soto off the hook here because yeah, a lot of this does fall on Don Kelly as well for allowing Gregory Soto to stay in this game.

And I think there's a lot of questions to be, there's a lot of questions that need answered about Don Kelly here that we'll discuss a lot during the off season.

I'm sure, but you can't let Gregory Soto off the hook plain and simple.

You've got to throw strikes.

You need to attack hitters.

And the reason this guy is just never going to be a top flight reliever and one of those elite arms is one, because of the inconsistency two, because he just won't go after guys.

He refuses to do it.

He nibbles, yeah, right.

He's with his food, right?

Thank you, Doug.

He just plays with his food too damn often.

And he's never going to be that guy.

I don't care what his numbers are this year.

I don't care that he came in with a 308 ERA, and this is one of the best seasons of his career.

He can't get the job done in big moments.

You can't trust him in the eighth or ninth, because as you just said, he plays with his food way too often.

It's again, Billy Murphy's that, the only thing I can give Billy Murphy points is for Mason Montgomery, because, as a pitching coach, why aren't this whole team has trouble attacking the strike zone, except Ashcraft, right?

Except Ashcraft, and I guess, Montgomery now too.

But it's like everybody, Mitch Keller for years, and Skenes does the same thing.

It seems like they've been instructed to go three and two on everybody.

And then when you get to three and two, just nibble and try to outsmart them.

But don't give them anything.

You got guys with 98 mile hour fastballs, throw some freaking strikes, and I know your defenses are great, but by and large, they'll make the play because, that's what happens most of the time.

That's how baseball works.

Trust your defense, even though they're not very trustworthy.

But it's much better than keep walking guys and throwing wild pitches and, throwing, 59 foot pitches and that thing.

It's just exasperating that, these major leaguers making millions, can't execute some of this simple stuff.

And that it seems like, again, nobody holds them accountable.

Nobody asked them to change.

It's incredibly frustrating, Doug.

it really is.

This team should securely be in the playoffs now.

This team with all its flaws, this team with its bad defense, this team that can't hit lefties, this team should still be securely in the playoffs.

If they've just managed their bullpen properly, if they just managed their bullpen properly, you've got 10 less blown saves, you've got 10 more wins, people are chasing you.

People are hoping that you collapse at this time of year instead of you, saging the freaking stadium, hoping for the miracles.

Yeah.

And then while I'm complaining here, I'm sorry, but you have to go to Mason Montgomery there.

As soon as that becomes a tie baseball game, Mason Montgomery needs to be in it.

I would have brought him in before that.

I'm not losing this game without throwing my guy.

Yeah.

You want to lose when you want to lose, you want to lose what Paul skates a start and Mason Montgomery's finishing type thing, right?

Like I'm going out with my best guys.

I'm not going out with the fourth guy in the bullpen.

I'm not going out with a guy that's being DFA six times.

I'm not going out with a guy that should be DFA, after today's game.

It's like, no, I'm going to go out my best guy.

Yes.

He's pitched a lot.

He didn't pitch yesterday.

So he's got something.

And again, you're fighting for your life.

Or at least you should be, showing us that you're fighting for your life.

Clearly again, you know.

Yep.

I'm going out on my sword.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they didn't.

I don't care if he's unavailable tomorrow.

I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Right.

Tomorrow is a nebulous thing that might not exist.

Who knows?

Right.

Today, this game, this game is real.

This game has a result.

This game is coming to its conclusion and the game is tied and you've decided to go with a guy that, won't throw near the plate because he looks like he's scared, I guess.

Yep.

Frustrating.

It's a good day to fire Ben Cherington.

Probably a good day to fire Donnie Kelly.

and I have another disappointment.

I haven't seen any money come in for the, it is coming in here, Doug.

It is.

we have, I think there's a, unlike the super chats, they don't pop up on our screen as easily.

Okay.

Okay.

So appreciate everybody that has been donating here.

You guys rock.

Thank you.

Yes.

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I got it today.

I'm hopped up, baby.

I am hopped up.

I haven't checked my mail yet today.

I need to take a look.

I might've gotten them as well.

I can't wait to not see Gregory Roussetto in a Pirates uniform anymore.

Two more weeks of that guy.

And I, he's hopefully gone and I don't have to watch him in black and gold because God, I don't want to watch him pitch.

He's painful to watch.

Yeah.

He's unenjoyable to watch.

Right.

Even when he's going well, it's frustrating.

And, look, give credit where it's due.

He had a one 42 ERA since July or something.

he's pitched pretty well, but when he does, it's like Yohan Ramirez.

It's like a lot of guys, quickly when they don't have it, he didn't have it today.

he didn't have it first at bat.

He gives up the double does some good work.

Gets the two outs, but man, then just again, playing with his food, just did not want to throw a strike, did not want to throw a strike and he didn't.

So, mission accomplished.

He didn't want to throw a strike.

He didn't throw any strikes.

and again, as we've said many times, Donnie just sits there watching.

So just frustration.

Sure is.

I guess let's talk about Paul Skenes.

He did take the ball today and had quite the nice outing.

Doug, he should have got a win.

He ends up going seven innings, four hits, two earned runs, one walk, four strikeouts.

Both runs were given up on solo home runs.

Paul Skenes looked not vintage Paul Skenes, Doug, but he looked like a good major league pitcher.

And when I say that, even when he's been good results wise lately, I feel like it's still been like pulling teeth, trying to get him to get outs.

And every, it just looks like a bad word.

Right.

It's just, again, it's three and two, it goes seven, eight pitches, fat stuff being fouled off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It just looks like he just looks like he can't get the third strike.

He can't put the guy away.

And today he was better.

No doubt.

a lot of his better starts in the past, he's looked like, he looks like a fifth starter and, today he looked at least like middle of the rotation or maybe even a second starter on a good, with a good ace in front

of him.

yeah, he was good.

he was somewhat efficient.

what did he, how many strikeouts did he ever, four strikeouts or just one walk, four hits, two solo home runs.

some guy named Jose Ramirez has played 70 games or whatever, but if you've been to Wrigley, yeah.

If you've, if you've been there, if you've been to Wrigley, solo home runs, home runs are a thing.

So, it's, it wasn't elite.

It wasn't Cy Young.

It wasn't Paul Skenes of his first two years, but I think this is the best we're going to get from Paul Skenes.

I guess he's only got two starts left, but we'd like those starts to be good and then let him go back to the drawing board in the off season.

you did, he didn't have the swing and miss that we've come to know from Paul, but I think sometime in probably the fourth or fifth inning, I thought he's something kind

of clicked for him a little bit.

And I think what he did and what, well, what he did was he threw more sliders and put the sweeper on the shelf a little bit.

He started throwing that, 86, 87, 88 mile an hour slider.

That's a lot tighter, it's a lot sharper, a lot harder, shelved that 82 to 83 sweeper that he kept missing arm side with.

Seems like a pitch he's battled with all year or something.

He's just not able to command as well as he has been in the past.

And I thought when he was able to do that, he looked significantly better.

I don't know if it got his body more in rhythm and it synced him up a little bit.

But when he went to that, I thought he looked pretty good at that point.

And he was able to get a lot of weak contact as well, especially those last couple of innings.

Yeah, that's why I asked if you thought maybe he should go out for the eighth.

he retired, one, two, three in the seventh inning.

He looked good, looked like he was still on his game.

Given the bullpen, just the usage, I don't want to say the woes, the bullpen's been pretty good lately.

But given that, if you can go without having to use, one of those two guys or something, I would have brought him out on a, at bat by at bat basis, comes out in the eighth inning.

If he gets the first guy, let him go for the second guy.

cause he did look like he was getting a little stronger.

It looked like he figured something out.

but that's not how it went.

I will say Hooper in a steel city DW, I believe we're both in the comments.

You're saying that Skeen said he was done after that inning.

They're saying they have it on camera.

Well, he may be saying that to protect Donnie cause he often does say things like that, you know?

and that breaks my heart if he says he was done, cause I just, I don't know, man, like we're, I, it seemed like in the past two years, he was a guy.

I want him.

I want the ball.

Yeah.

You want to pry the ball out of his hand and not say, yeah, I'm done, man.

I'm good.

It is what it is.

Donnie was right.

I'm getting tired of that post game, his post game interviews.

so yeah, I don't know.

I don't know what happened to him this year.

I sure hope he gets it straightened out, figured out and not just for us, but for him.

Right.

And that's the thing at this point, like if I knew what it was, if any of us knew what was wrong with him, it probably would be fixed by now.

Yeah, for sure.

Someone would have figured this out with him and he would be back to normal at that.

I'm sure it's a multitude of things and he probably needs a full off season to figure out what went wrong this year.

And right.

I think he really needs to go back to the drawing board.

Right.

And really break down, everything that went wrong.

Cause I do, I have my thoughts.

There's a lot of different factors and I don't want to necessarily speculate, but, I'd like to see him coming in laser focused next year, in the best shape of my career, all that stuff, are you calling him fat now too,

Doug?

Everyone else.

No.

But there, it's one of my least favorite cliches from athletes.

I'm in the best shape of my career.

Why weren't you in the best shape of your career last year?

It's your job.

It's your job.

Like why are you in the best shape of your career now after five seasons?

Like what you, sure.

Maybe you don't want to win, but don't you want to make money, right?

You should be in the best shape of your career every year.

again, if a guy's coming off injury and can't do stuff, that thing, he's like, okay, the next year, Hey, this was my first real full off season where I was just to work on my butt, whatever.

But yeah, I hate that you should be in the best shape of your career every year.

Should always be getting better.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That should be the goal.

Right.

But yeah, it, I say that as this perfect, physical specimen that I am.

Same.

Cause my body is a temple.

Yeah, exactly.

I treat it like a sewer, but it's a temple.

Right.

Yeah.

Just because my body is how I treat it.

Those are two separate issues.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

he was good today.

He should have got the win.

He could have went deeper.

Probably he only threw 82 pitches.

It went the way it went.

Bullpen's got to be able to get guys out.

Yeah.

This was another thing.

And I'm glad that steel city dev posted this, that was when they finally did get wrote Ramirez up, like it was too late, like you're in the eighth inning and you've got Soto pitching and he's putting guys on the basis.

You don't, you don't get someone up until he's got the bases loaded.

Like the minute he allowed a guy, another guy on, someone should have been up.

Somebody should have been up.

And yeah, maybe in hindsight, it should have been Weaver, Donnie Kelly.

Golly.

Not only do we make bad decisions, we can't even give good excuses.

we're just, plain and simple, it seemed like he fell asleep at the wheel in that inning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

Fire the general manager.

Let him bring in his own people, including manager.

if he wants to keep Donnie, that's fine.

I'm not going to get all nuts about it, but man, this team needs, this team needs a breath of fresh air.

They need some new blood.

Sure do Dougie.

Sure do.

And I'm going to call him Mark Cuban, see if he wants to get together with me.

If he can put in 2 billion between the two of us, I think we can get the team.

There we go.

That's all we need.

Well, that means we'll have 2 billion and some Lurine pouches between us.

And I think that will, I think that'll get the job done.

That should do it.

Between the two of you guys have like $2 billion.

Yeah.

Between the two of us, we got 2 billion.

it's nothing.

It's not, you know.

There we go.

It's not changing, I'm not changing my net worth by any, and, he's not really changing his, so that's good.

There we go, Doug.

One of the new guys, though, Ryan O'Herm provided the only offense of this game for the Pirates.

The offense was basically non-existent all day long.

Ryan O'Herm with a three-run home run.

Man, did they miss him, though.

He's a pro's pro.

You got to give him credit.

Should have been enough to win the game.

You want more, but it's not our day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The only problem with, like, O'Hearn coming back to producing, Cruz coming back to producing, Griffin coming back to producing, is there is the excuse.

And I don't want to call it the excuse for Ben Cherington.

It's the excuse for Bob Nutting, being able to keep Ben Cherington, being able to rationalize it to us.

And, of course, we won't accept it.

And, oh, gosh, he did a great job and had a great offseason and things just went well.

We had a little bad luck.

And then the injuries, I think we're going to keep him for another 10 years.

Hope not.

Well, Doug, it is a football Saturday here.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

I'm keeping you people from your college.

So, with that being said, I'm tired of talking about the Pirates.

What I'm going to talk about here is, according to FanDuel, my Ohio State Buckeyes, O-H, plus 102 on the money line, big game against Texas tonight.

Go ahead and bet against me, because I'm taking the Buckeyes on the money line.

There you go.

I'll be cheering for Texas.

I don't like that.

Don't like that at all.

That link will remain up here to continue to donate to the Clemente Museum.

Like I said earlier, we will be matching up to $1,050.

Help us reach our goal of $2,100.

I kept saying $1,055 yesterday.

How bad was my math?

Jeez.

The math ain't math in there, Dougie.

Yeah.

I was off by $5.

All that being said, we'll be back with you tomorrow.

Doug's on again.

You get a full week in it, Doug.

I apologize for that, but I'll do the best I can.

Man.

I promise.

I promise.

When the podcast is going off the rails, I will not wait.

I won't just sit there and watch.

I'll do something.

This has the potential to be a real bad sports weekend for Tyler.

Steelers back tomorrow.

We'll see what happens with that one Buckeyes in Texas tonight.

And then with what the Pirates have been doing, this could be rough.

It could.

It could be rough.

This could be a bad weekend for me.

Because the Pirates thing is already officially back.

They did not win.

So, and they blew a game in the process of not winning the series.

I'm assuming this could be bad, but the Steelers should win, but I don't know.

Cooper Rush is the quarterback for Atlanta.

please.

Yeah, he has back spasms now.

See?

Welcome to NS9-11.

We already moved on.

We moved on.

Exactly.

NS11.

That's more correct.

Yeah.

And spell out 11.

All right.

I appreciate you all for hanging out with us.

We'll be back again tomorrow.

Peace out, Girl Scouts.

Let's go, Bucks.

All right.

That wraps up this episode of North Shore Nine.

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