0 comments by Pat Lackey on 4/12/2015
I didn’t really have much time to spend online yesterday after flying into Pittsburgh in the morning, so I was a little surprised to be greeted by my uncle yesterday afternoon with, “Did you see the lineup? Harrison’s leading off, Worley’s batting ninth, and everything’s crazy in between!” He was right, of course, with Jung […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 4/10/2015
Well, this is a little better. The Pirates jumped all over Mike Fiers early on, with second inning doubles from Neil Walker, Francisco Cervelli, and Jeff Locke that lead to three runs. They swung and missed a ton, particularly against Fiers (he struck out eight Pirates in his five innings), but Pedro Alvarez added a […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
I think that the Pirates will be better than the Brewers this year. I’m not hugely concerned about the Pirates’ 0-3 start. I am still not terribly happy to know that the Pirates are now headed to Milwaukee to play at Miller Park after losing the first three games of 2015, thanks to their recent […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 4/9/2015
It’s not particularly fun to try and deal with an 0-3 start when five days ago you were attempting to catalogue all of the respected media pundits that picked the Pirates to win the World Series, but these are the sorts of things that the baseball season foists upon you occasionally, and so here we […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
The Pirates and Reds were the last two baseball teams playing last night, and they’ll be the first two baseball teams playing today. The bullpens are empty. The players are tired. The fans are tired. The bloggers are tired. Anyway, it’d sure be nice to see the Pirates get into the win column. AJ Burnett […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
If the 2014 Pirates taught us anything, it’s that there’s no limit to the number of excruciatingly frustrating losses that a good team can rack up over the course of 162 games (or maybe it’s that the better the team you’re watching is, the tougher most losses get to swallow, I guess we’re debating a […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 4/8/2015
If you asked me to list the one thing that I was most excited for on the 2015 Pittsburgh Pirates besides the most plainly obvious reasons (they’re probably going to be good, Andrew McCutchen, etc.), I would tell you that it’s this: Report Created on Baseball-Reference.com Baseball is full of dynamic young arms right now, […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
At noon today I was frantically trying to finish up some lab work and working on getting ready for my four hours of recitation this afternoon when
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 4/7/2015
Over the past couple years, one of my main goals has been to Understand Jeff Locke. Every time I read something interesting about pitchers that I didn’t previously know, I say to myself, “AHA! This is what it is that Jeff Locke does that the Pirates see in him!” And then I go into the […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 4/6/2015
There is no room for context on Opening Day, which is probably the best and worst part about the whole thing. In a few weeks, this game will be just another data point, but for today, it’s all we have and so it’s hard to not scrutinize everything that happened in it. There was plenty […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
If prompted to name one person most directly responsible for the Pirates’ early exist from the 2014 MLB Playoffs, I think most Pirate fans would come up with one of the following names, in order of preference: Madison Bumgarner, for being super-human. Clint Hurdle, for not saving Gerrit Cole. Edinson Volquez, for pitching poorly in […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
What normally felt like the only possible world became one among many. – Ben Lerner, 10:04 Opening Day is a day of optimism in the face of a Major League Baseball season that actively encourages pessimism. This is the reality of the Major League Baseball season: it is long, it is harsh, and it is […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 4/5/2015
The Pirates set their Opening Day roster this afternoon, but I spent most of the day grading tests and working on a season preview for tomorrow, so I’m just getting around to putting the post together now. There is exactly one surprise with this final roster: Charlie Morton’s ugly spring indicated coupled with the rehab from his […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 4/2/2015
Chances are pretty good that you’ve seen someone pick the Pirates to win the World Series this year. Buster Olney did it. Grant Brisbee did it. I’m sure they’re not alone, either, though I can’t think of anyone else right off the top of my head. Here’s the thing about this prediction: neither one of those […]
“I wasn’t in denial of anything,” he said recently, reflecting on the call. “I wasn’t mad about anything. I was just aware of the reality.”
Peretti called him “mad mature” and her favorite caller yet.
I mean, we already knew that he’d called into the podcast, but now that we have the full story and a Chelsea Peretti quote to go with it, this is pretty much my favorite against-all-odds baseball story of all-time.
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0 comments by Pat Lackey on 4/1/2015
This is an oft-repeated pre-season 2015 Pittsburgh Pirate trope: If Starling Marte can play like he played in August and September last year, he’ll be a star. This is a list of the outfielders in Major League Baseball to have more than 10 WAR (Baseball-Reference WAR, at least: UZR haaaaates the Pirates’ outfield defense and […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/31/2015
The Pirates’ final roster decisions are coming quickly with the season less than a week today. Yesterday, they announced that Jeff Locke would get the final spot in the starting rotation, with Vance Worley headed to the bullpen. Today, John Holdzkom was among the players the Pirates demoted to Indianapolis, giving the bullpen more or […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/30/2015
Last year, the Pirates started the season with Pedro Alvarez at third base, Travis Ishikawa at first base, Wandy Rodriguez and Charlie Morton in the rotation, Jason Grilli in the bullpen, and a right field slot reserved for Gregory Polanco. By the end of the season, Polanco was the only one of those players even […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/26/2015
Now that we’re rolling into season preview season, I’m starting to notice a trend in Pirate previews. There are really, really positive previews and there are guardedly optimistic ones. The dividing line between the two tends to be what the previewer thinks of the absence of Russell Martin. I mainly noticed this while reading the […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/23/2015
Every once in a while, there’s a time dilation effect with prospects that makes it hard to properly figure out exactly what sort of player you have on your hands. Andrew Lambo hasn’t been on a Top 100 prospects list since 2009. He actually first hit Double-A and played in the Arizona Fall League the […]
