Results tagged ‘ Ian Snell ’

Chicks Dig The LongBall

<a href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=39ceea580f&#8221; >Game 65: Pirates at Twins</a>
Well the Pirates got beat pretty hard last night, but they turned the tables around and dished out some pain of their own tonight. They did it with the help of the long ball. The Pirates his 3 home runs tonight, which has been a very rare occurrence for them this year. It all started in the 3rd inning when Andrew McCutchen hit his first home run of his career and gave the Pirates a 2-0 lead. The Twins battled back and tied it at 2, but that tie was quickly broken in the 4th inning by Andy LaRoche’s two run bomb that drove in his brother Adam. Ian Snell, John Grabow, and Steven Jackson took it from there. Snell earned his first victory since April, and improved to 2-7 as he pitched 6 innings giving up only 2 runs. Snell had good stuff tonight despite striking out only 2. That’s Snell’s third consecutive start where he gave the team a chance to win, this is good news for the Pirates. Either it’s good news in the sense that he could be effective as a starter for the rest of the year with the Pirates, or good news in the sense that his trade value has gone up a bit. There are interested suitors for Snell, including rumored Colorado and Texas. I would be pretty excited if we could get a decent prospect or two for him, the sooner the better. Charlie Morton and Daniel McCutchen are hinting that the future is now. Let them pitch. 
Anyways, the third home run of the game came in the 9th by Adam LaRoche. He roped one out quickly to right field. They added on 3 runs before that bomb in the 8th with help from Robinzon Diaz’s 2 run double into the left center field gap. This was just another very well played baseball game for the Pirates. They hit, they pitched, they played defense, and they won convincingly. It’s not easy to beat the Twins in Minnesota, that was only the 13th time it happened this year. 
This all puts the Pirates record at 31-34 as we head into the rubber game tomorrow against the Twins. It’s a 1:10 start and not televised. Zach Duke takes the hill to face Nick Blackburn. Duke has been good all year long, and Blackburn has been lights out lately. He’s won 3 of his last 5 decisions and hasn’t given up more than 3 earned runs in a start since May 16th against the Yankees. The Pirates have proved to be very effective in games against good starting pitching, so let’s hope that trend continues tomorrow. I’d like to see the Pirates keep hitting home runs too, they seem to really help a team win. 
Let’s Go Bucs!

…And The Bandwagon Departs for Detroit

Well the Pirate game is under delay and very well might not resume tonight, so I’ll turn my attention to the other big event in Pittsburgh sports tonight, and that is the Penguins advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals. They swept the Hurricanes and now move on to face either the Red Wings (who lead the series 3-1) or the Blackhawks. Of course, if you know me, you know I have nothing good to say about hockey. So this is going to be a sour, offensive, completely biased post… that I think most real baseball fans will enjoy, especially those in Pittsburgh. 

Well this whole thing has really been caused by arguments I get into on facebook when I knock Penguins fans in my status updates. This really ticks some people off and arguments ensue. I really just do it for the fun of argument, but I do have valid points. The main points here are these, trust me I could go on for hours : 
  • Nearly all hockey fans are fair weather fans. Of course I know very little about hockey fans nationwide, but I can guarantee you that over half of Penguin “fans” in Pittsburgh have never heard the phrase “beat him like a rented mule” (a classic Mike Lang line from the 90′s), or heard of players such as Alexei Morosov or Tom Barasso. 
  • The Penguins were so down and had so little fans that they nearly ceased to exist. They were days away from going to another city because they weren’t making enough money in ticket sales (that might not have been the only reason but it was part of it). Granted, the Mellon Arena doesn’t exactly hold many, but tickets were extremely cheap because no one wanted to go. This is kind of like the Pirates are now, but hey, more people go to Pirate games now than went to Penguins game back then. You can attribute that to the fact that baseball is AMERICAS pastime, and not Russia’s. 
  • Hockey fans aren’t real sports fans. Now every rule has exceptions, and this holds true. I know many sports enthusiasts who take interest in hockey. The thing is though that very few of those would call hockey their favorite sport or would even say they’d rather watch a playoff hockey game than a regular season baseball game. The game of hockey just doesn’t blend with the other sports. It seems you can almost classify fans in 3 categories. Strictly hockey fans who don’t like other sports, sports fan who hate hockey, and the very rare sports fan who enjoy hockey but don’t call it their favorite. I think I fit into the 2nd category. 
Anyways, I just realized I made a similar post to this in (ironically) my fantasy hockey league last winter, so I’ll just post that. This might not be up to date with my current thoughts, but copying and pasting is easy. 
5 Reasons I Hate the NHL
5) They Changed The Game 
After that massive NHL strike that almost ended the league permanently in the US, they made all kinds of changes to the game. It was these changes that saved the game and made it relevant again, but just the fact that they had to make the changes makes me hate it. It was a popular sport through the 90′s, but near the end of the 90′s and early 2000′s, it became less popular for various reasons – mainly player greed. The fact that a major sport would become this unpopular in America gives me a reason to hate it. Many argued that the game was boring and not fun to watch – but heck, more than half of America thinks that baseball is boring and not fun to watch, but it’s still incredibly popular and they didn’t have to change it at all to make it such. Although the change did save the game, and was needed, I still hate it. 

4) The Overtime Loss 
What kind of league are you playing in when your team’s record can be something as dumb as 4-4-2? A loss is a loss, sure, give them a point for making them work the extra 5 minutes, but just make it a loss. You’re not 4-4-2, you’re 4-6, quit making it sound better than it is. Better yet, bring the TIE back into the game. Although that would take away the best part of the game in the shootout, so just get rid of the OTL column, it just makes you look childish. 

3) The NHL’s Fake Popularity 
At the end of the Penguin game tonight ( I did watch the whole 3rd period and overtime), Paul Steigerwald said that hockey is “the most exciting spectator sport in the world”. Are you kidding me? It’s not just Paul that thinks this either. Many of the NHL’s fans think it’s this way, which is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. How could a game that was not even relevant 5 years ago be recognized as the most exciting to watch? Have you forgotten that one sport they play this time of year called football? Give me a break. 


2) It’s Not American 
This is America. If you’re an NHL fan, more than 80% of the players you watch are not American, and near a third of them don’t even speak English. I understand America is the best place to play professional sports, and it’s where all the money is at, but do we really have that few good hockey players in America? And for God’s sake, the players that do come over to play should at the very least do us the service of learning the language. 

1) The Fan 
You’ve all heard my views on the bandwagon fans. How people that had never watched nor thought of watching a hockey game 3 years ago are now “diehard” hockey fans who act like they actually know what sports are about. The worst part is they all claim that they’ve liked it for a long time, which is complete bull because of the fact that teams like the Penguins nearly moved to another city because of lack of support just a few years ago. Not to mention the NHL strike, which never would’ve happened if their were a large fan base. To add another point, I can guarantee that over 70% of NHL fans would not call themselves fans of any other sport. Basically, you can be a sports fan who likes hockey, but it’s tough to find a hockey fan that likes sports. 


so there you go. My rant on hockey. My night isn’t getting any better, the Pirate game was just called and they are 5 inning losers, what a joke. Final score : Cubs 6, Pirates 1. 

Nothing Lasts Forever

Well the Pirates finally lost a game. They dropped the 4th game of the series with the Nationals and are now 19-22 on the season. They played well enough to win, but in the end the Nationals probably deserved it more. 


Believe it or not, even a team as bad as the Nationals can string together 9 good innings in a row once in awhile. Their starter was amazing. I didn’t get to watch any of this game except the 9th so I didn’t see him pitch, but his line was fantastic. He had a perfect game through 4 and was throwing a ton of strikes. He didn’t get the win though. The Pirates squeaked 3 runs off of him in the 7th to take that possibility away. The runs were scored by an Adam LaRoche 2 run bomb and an Andy LaRoche base hit that scored Brandon Moss. It’s good to see all 3 of those guys hitting the ball. Anyways, the Pirates downfall was a couple of weakly hit singles surrendered by Tom Gorzelanny tonight, which politely reminded Pirate fans everywhere that he still is the same old Gorzo. Alright that might be a little bit harsh, he’s pitched great since his call up, but he’s not going to be an ace and will promptly be sent back down to AAA to continue starting games so he can work his way back to the majors later in the year or next year. The guy still has potential. 

Anyways, the Nationals bullpen did a good enough job in the 8th and 9th to put up two 0′s and take the win. The Pirates head to Chicago to take on the Sox this weekend then the Cubbies next Monday through Wednesday. This will be a great test to see how well this Pirates’ team is actually playing. 

In other news, nobody reads my blog. I failed to crack the top 50 once again on mlblogs rankings. I guess it’s because I really don’t go on any of those advertising websites or whatever the rest of you do, and also my commenting of other blogs has declined recently. I’m a busy man, I appreciate all of you readers, remember to come back soon! 

Up and Down

Victory! The Pirates looked great tonight, after Ian Snell was done anyway. Snell got roughed up, despite pitching decently well in my opinion, and gave up 3 runs in 2 innings. The Pirates put up 4 in the second to take the lead, and then the rains came. The game was delayed for nearly an hour and a half, and the Pirates came back and played great ball. Sean Burnett pitched 3 innings surrendering one run but pitching well. Evan Meek, Jesse Chavez, John Grabow, and Matt Capps teamed up to finish the game and pitch 4 scoreless innings. The big story of these guys was Matt Capps. As many of you know, Capps blew the game for us last night. The Pirates had a 1-0 lead (should have been a 3 or 4 to nothing lead) in the ninth, and Matt Capps gave up 3 and took the loss. He was anxious to get back out there and get those thoughts out of his head. He did a lot of work earlier today with pitching coach Joe Kerrigan to fix some of his mechanical issues, and it paid off. He came on in the 9th with a 3 run lead and put instant butterflies in my stomach with a 5 pitch walk of the first batter he fixed. However he quickly righted the ship by getting two ground balls to Jack Wilson, the first a double play ball and the second to end the game. The Pirates took the game 7-4 and improved their record to 15-21. More importantly they earn a chance to win the series tomorrow as they send Zach Duke to the hill. Duke has been our most reliable pitcher this year and always pitches great in PNC Park. I’m definitely feeling a win of this series as we head to Washington for a 4 game set with the Nationals. 


Other notable performances tonight were from Delwyn Young and Brandon Moss. They both had 2 hits tonight. Young had the defining hit tonight, as his 2 run single in the 2nd inning put the Pirates on top and swung the momentum in the Pirates favor right before the rain started coming down. He looked good at the plate in 4 of his 5 at bats, and even stole a bag (okay, he was easily out, but it still counts). He’s been a great addition for the Pirates and I stand behind my statement that this guy should see more playing time. I’ll touch on that more in a minute here, but first I’d like to talk about Brandon Moss’s performance. Like I said, he had 2 hits today. He is really getting the good part of the bat on the ball in this homestand. It’s funny how much confidence can do for your game. Before the St. Louis series Moss just looked awful at the plate, and I’m sure he was feeling even worse than he was looking. He has that one big game and now he’s been one of our best hitters in the 4 games following that performance. We’re finally seeing the potential that this guy has been rumored to have now. This is huge for the Pirates. 


This all brings me to one point. The Pirates have 4 guys that get playing time in right field. And I, at one point, have said that all 4 of these guys should get more playing time there. Now that doesn’t make sense, you can’t alternate 4 guys at one position. So I guess now is the time for me to pick whom I want to see in right field and whom should immediately back that person. The problem is these guys have all looked really good this year. It’s a good problem to have. 

So when I’m making this decision, I pretty much immediately rule out Monroe and Hinske. Any mature bucco fan knows to do that. They are good players and can definitely contribute to the offense, but they most likely aren’t going to be with the team next year and they are both past their primes. There is no way either of these guys makes a significant impact past 2009, and the Pirates aren’t playing for 2009 right now. We are a team of the future and everything we do should be trying to strengthen our team 2 to 3 years down the line. So this all brings me to Delwyn Young vs. Brandon Moss. Such a tough call. You all know that I am a huge fan of Andrew McCutchen and would love to see him starting for the buccos today, but that’s just not going to happen. Between Moss and Young I’d probably like to see Moss get more playing time, just because of the power. Young could definitely be an above .300 hitter, but he doesn’t have much power. At most he’ll be a singles and doubles hitter who doesn’t steal many bases, which really doesn’t help us all that much. Brandon Moss might strike out more than average but atleast he has a good chance at hitting 20-30 home runs some day. This is what the Pirates need. We haven’t had a big power bat for a long time. Not saying that Moss can be a Brian Giles this year or even next year, but he definitely has a chance to be that player in the future and I think we owe him a shot. 

So final conclusion, I’d play Moss in right field primarily, and work in Delwyn Young had second once every couple weeks, then throw him into right field against lefties or just to give Moss a spell. I’d use Monroe as the primary pinch hitter against lefties and Hinske the primary against righties. It’s nice to have Hinske too because he can spell the LaRoche brothers at the infield corners. Again, this is a very good problem to have. I love the Pirates.

And I love you. Yes, you.  Have a great day. 

Let’s Try This Again

Well the Pirates are out on the field as we speak trying to end this terrible losing streak to Milwaukee and bring their record back to even 500. They haven’t been more than 1 game under .500 at any point this season. Right now they are down 3-2 to the Brewers in the 5th. Snell is pitching decently well, he really doesn’t have much velocity tonight, but he’s getting guys out. The offense has wasted some opportunities, but they’ve gotten a couple big hits and drawn a lot of walks. This game is far from over, and I feel like the Pirates actually have a shot at winning this one. Although it’s not likely, because something ridiculous will probably happen. 

Ergh, It’s not been a good day for me, the rain ruined my entire day and now I’m just laying here disgruntled and in need of SOMETHING to cheer me up, and the Pirates may be just that thing, although it’s more likely that they will make my mood two times worse. 
A lot of comments might cheer me up too… it’s worth a shot, right?
8:56pm: Well Ian Snell just got pulled and now it’s the bullpen’s turn. There are runners on first and second with nobody out so be ready for the wheels to fall off in this game. 

Anger

I hate the Milwaukee Brewers. They are my 2nd least favorite baseball team. They swept the Pirates and brought out record and most likely confidence back down to earth. Here are the things I hate about the Brewers: 

  1. How they all untuck their shirts after a win. Like what is that about? It has no meaning, class, or even entertainment value. It’s just a bunch of jerks showing that their jerseys are 3 sizes too big for them, and that’s saying something when you’re a guy like Prince Fielder.
  2. Their stadium. It’s disgusting. I hate home run parks, it takes away the best part of the game, the classic pitching duel. They probably score over half their runs by the home run ball.
  3. Their one-dimensional-ism. All the Brewers have is power hitters. None of those guys plays exceptional defense. Not one of those guys knows how to play fundamental baseball and manufacture runs. They could go all game doing nothing right and looking terrible at the plate, but then one of them connects with runners on base and it’s a whole different ball game. Today, the pitcher homered, like get out of here. 
  4. Bill Hall and Rickie Weeks. 
  5. The annoying fans. Through that series I was extremely annoyed hearing those dang fans cheer loudly every time the Brewers made contact. They are the dumbest fans in baseball, a guy will pop out to shortstop and they’ll react like it’s a 500 foot home run. 
  6. Ryan Braun’s game 1 antics. Hey Ryan, it’s baseball, you’re going to get drilled every once in  awhile. Just because you hit a home run earlier in the game doesn’t mean Karstens is mad at you and throwing at you. Maybe you should keep your mouth shut and take your base, because Karstens (and every other guy taller than 5’6” in the league) would beat your —you know what— any day. 
  7. Most of all, the fact that the Brewers have now beaten by Pirates 14(?) times in a row and completely ruined our hot start. 
On the plus side, Ian Snell looked phenomenal today, not that I could watch the game, but it sounded like he was doing well. He went 6 (or 7 or something) scoreless and they said his slider velocity increased a lot, which is an awesome sign. Let’s be glad we’re out of Milwaukee and can start winning again back in PNC. 
Let’s Go Bucs and Let’s Go Diamondbacks (who start a series with the Brewers tomorrow).

Pick ‘Em Fridays CORRECTIONS

Okay I majorly screwed up this morning when I posted the standings. First of all I had the Padres losing to the Phillies, when they actually beat them, so that changes the standings a lot, and I was also wrong when I said that Eat, Sleep, Baseball didn’t make his picks – he actually e-mailed them to me and I had failed to see it. Now I have it all fixed up and ready to go and I want to say I am sorry for the mishaps to the contestants. Darion from Braves World is working on getting his picks to me as well, he said he commented them and it said successful but it never showed up. If he can prove to me that he made the picks I will put him on. He said he’s on an online pick ‘em league so he could definitely legitimately prove that he had them, so I’ll wait for him to do that. Anyways, I will do better from now on. Here are the REAL standings :

FridayPick22.png
 

Now for some good news, the Pirates are playing another great baseball game right now, up 5-0 on the Braves in the bottom of the 7th. Snell pitched 7 scoreless (don’t ask me how…) and I guess he looked pretty good. He wasn’t blowing anyone away or even throwing that great of pitches, but he got the job done today. The runs came from an Andy LaRoche 2nd inning double, a Freddy Sanchez triple and a Nate McLouth base hit, and then a 3-run jack from Craig Monroe. It’s a great game for the bucs, and we are in good shape to improve our record to 6-5. I will be attending tomorrow’s game to see Zach Duke take on the Javier Vasquez as the Pirates go for the sweep, assuming we don’t blow this game late. Let’s Go Bucs!

Game 6 @ Reds : Recap

Alright well the Pirates continued their trend of alternating wins with losses, and lost to the Reds 2-0 today to drop their record to 3-3 heading into their first home-stand. All in all I’m not too upset with this loss, they played pretty well in most aspects of the game. 

The only runs of the game came in the first inning when Brandon Phillips took Ian Snell out to deep left field, a shot that drove in 2. At this point thoughts of “here we go again” rang in my head. However, Snell settled down and those runs would be the only ones he would surrender. It wasn’t smooth sailing though, he had to work his way out of several jams and only had one 1-2-3 inning. The reds stranded 18 base-runners in the game today, but it was good to see Ian pitch effectively enough to put 0′s on the board after that first inning. 
The bullpen did an awesome job. Craig Hansen, Sean Burnett, and Jesse Chavez combined to shut the Reds out in the 7th and 8th innings. They also allowed some base-runners, but got out of trouble and gave the Pirates a chance to win the game. 
I was really expecting the Pirates to score a couple of runs late in the game, but it just never happened. Aaron Harang pitched amazingly. He had a complete game, 3 hit, 9 K shut out and never gave the Pirates a chance. His control was impeccable. He wasn’t overpowering guys or making unbelievable pitchers, but he definitely did enough to shut them out and put 9 K’s on the board. I was very impressed with Harang’s performance, and I am now glad that I drafted him in a couple fantasy leagues. 
Games like these I do not mind losing. There’s really nothing you can do when you have a dominant pitcher going against you but keep the game close and minimize the damage on defense. The bucs played great defense and had really good pitching after that first inning, and they were in the game the whole way through. Another exciting moment was when the Pirates turned their first triple play since 1993. The runners on first and second were taking off and Edwin Encarnacion hit a soft liner to Jack Wilson who promptly threw it on to Freddy who threw it on to LaRoche for the triple play. Finally, something to get on sportscenter for! 
Tomorrow is opening day here in Pittsburgh, and I’ll be down at the stadium all day. Can’t wait! I’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures. If any of you Pirate fans are at the game and see me, go ahead and say hey! I’ll be wearing my Nate McLouth T-Shirt. 

Same Old Snell

Well all my disappointment about the Pirate game not being on TV was quickly resolved after the  first 3 innings of the game tonight. The offense put a run on the board in the first, after 2 base hits from Morgan and Sanchez, and a sac fly from Doumit, but Ian Snell did his best to erase that lead in a hurry. He gave up a 2-run homer in the first to Chris Duncan, a couple of hits in the 2nd that scored a run, and then another 2-run shot to Pujols in the third. He continued to give up 3 more runs after that and ended his outing with a line of 4 IP, 9 H, 8 R, 6 ER, 3 BB, 2 K. Just a familiar terrible Ian Snell outing. I’m sad to say that this will probably be all too common this year. Paul Maholm will give us hope every 5th day, and the rest of the rotation will put up terrible numbers most of the other days. So far the Pirates have only scored 3 runs off of Kyle Lohse through 7 innings. Freddy Sanchez is 2/3 with a 2 run homer, and Nyjer, Hinske, and Wilson have added hits. Andy LaRoche made yet anther fielding error. All-in-all this game could not be going any worse, so let’s stop talking about it. 

I’d shift my focus to fantasy baseball here, but that’s even worse. My primary team is amazingly doing worse than the Pirates are tonight. My squad is 2/33 today, Dan Uggla providing my only reason to smile with a 2-run homer. He quickly erased the smile with 2 strikouts and a 1/4 performance. Zimmerman and Rollins both pulled 0/5′s tonight, and Morneau, Lopez, Johjima, and Ordonez have all gone hitless. Cameron Maybin collected a hit, Mike Napoli isn’t playing (again), and I’m waiting to see what Justin Upton will do tonight. How this night is going, I would not expect anything more from Upton than an 0/4 night. Oh, and not to mention Tim Lincecum pitched a ******** 3 innings today and gave up 3 runs, just an absolute terrible night for me baseball wise. 
Let’s take a look around the league for now… anywhere but Pittsburgh.
The White Sox beat the Royals 4-2 today, I watched a lot of that game. Jim Thome led the White Sox to score 3 runs off the Royals bullpen, namely Kyle Farnsworth, and they won in comeback fashion after Gil Meche pitched a very nice 7 innings. 
The Red Sox beat the Rays tonight, more bad news. Nothing too exciting happened in this game, just a great outing from Josh Beckett and homers from Dustin Pedroia and Jason Varitek. 
The Giants put up 10 runs on the Brewers today and won despite Linecum’s short outing. A good first showing for the San Francisco offense, they could really surprise some people this year. 
The Braves had more great pitching tonight as they shut out the Phillies, although it took them 5 pitchers to do it. Jair Jurrjens, Bennett, O’Flaherty, Soriano, and Gonzalez all teamed up to 6 hit the Phils and beat them for the 2nd time in a row. 
Today we had 2009′s first walk-off win, coming off the bat of Blue Jays catcher Rod Barajas in the form of a sacrifice fly that scored Jose Bautista. 
The Marlins scored their 20th run of the season today en route to a 8-3 win over the Nationals. They are really pounding the ball. Emilio Bonafacio collected 2 more hits and consequently a spot on my fantasy team (I snagged him after his RBI triple). Jorge Cantu and Dan Uggla both went yard for the Marlins. It’s not going to be a pretty season for the Nationals ladies and gentlemen, in case you didn’t know that already. 
Right now we have some close games going, the Cubs and Astros tied at 2, Seattle up 5-3 going into the bottom of the ninth in Minnesota, Colorado and Arizona scoreless through 3, and the Padres and Angels both have 1-0 leads in the 2nd inning. 
Let’s just hope the Pirates can put a couple more runs on the board and make this somewhat respectable. The bullpen has looked decent, so that’s a pretty good sign. Let’s just hope for better luck tomorrow!
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