Before last night’s utterly embarrassing loss to the hapless Braves, the Bravos had won an entire one (1!) singular series at home the entire 2016 season!
This is an abjectly terrible team that a supposed playoff contender just lost two out of three against. In isolation this would be bad, but when you factor in the extenuating circumstances, it is downright catastrophically bad. Remember when the mutli extra inning epic was lost in Atlanta on a terrible call by Jerry Meals and it seemed to suck the life right out of the (up untill then spunky) team and sent them into a tailspin for the rest of the season? This was worse.
First you had the trades (management throwing up its hands and giving up on the season). Then you had your star player benched for the entirety of the series because his manager just felt he didn't look right out there. Then you had John Jaso, the man brought in to give more effort than (former NL home run king)Pedro Alvarez and holding back the ultra-promising Joshua Bell at First Base, that John Jaso, the man who thinks he is somehow an actual Pirate and hits like he is wielding a fencing foil instead of a ball bat most days, that John Jaso hit into a back breaking double play and didn't even feign enough interest to leave the batter's box. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.
"Not Guilty till Proven" Kang also had a very costly error that surrendered two runs in the 8th. It is obvious that Kang’s head is not in the game right now, and he should certainly not be on the field for the obvious reasons surrounding his legal troubles and most likely him being an absolutely terrible person. But you know Billionaire Bob Nutting's philosophy is that if he is paying for something, he is darn well going squeeze every iota of value out of it, even if it offends the senses of the general public and does not lead to optimal results outside of his personal checking accounts. So Kang stays put while others are shipped out and buried.
Speaking of buried, the Pirates State Run media continues to run a campaign of dissonance against their own Star Pitcher Gerrit Cole. This has absolutely zero to do with Cole’s performance on the mound, where he has given up only three earned runs over 20 innings in his past three starts, and it has absolutely everything to do with his pending contract negotiations. And by negotiations we mean he will be low balled and ridiculed until the day he hits UFA (or is traded away) and will promptly sign an earth shattering mega deal with a real life Major League team while we here in Pittsburgh are left holding the embers of fading hope in our system, “the plan,” and those oh so valuable prospects who can only ever be traded if it is in a maneuver to dump and unload unwanted salary, and never ever, ever are to be touched for the purpose of acquiring major league talent to assist the major league team.
This team is done. They have won two of their past eight (and those two games were started by the falsely maligned Cole) and the actual results on the team’s psyche go much deeper than that. There will be no one and done wild card this year. There will be no hope. And if you really think that they are going to pour their savings on the contracts of the players they traded away into improving and putting a better team together this offseason, it is beyond my ability to describe to you how much you are not paying attention to the way this organization operates. They will stoke some interest and Just Miss(!) on some key acquisitions, but the obvious needs of the major league squad will be attempted to be filled in by bargain basement veterans and dirt cheap rookies. Why would next year be any different than this year? Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.
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