Just a quick hit here with some updates on how badly things have gotten for our Battling Buccos since our last update last August (dedicated fans don’t always make for dedicated bloggers and I do have a family, a personal life, and an actual championship contending Hockey team to keep me busy most days).
The great (cost controlled) Center Fielder of the present and future Starling Marte was pinched for abusing the hardcore steroid nandrolone, a substance easily detectable by basic drug testing that stays in the system for months or even years and the head of infamous BALCO labs considered the “Kiss of Death” for tested athletes. Marte will be out 80 games (and more importantly if by chance this misfit squad gets that far, be ineligible for postseason play).
Obviously the Pirates are not in charge of what Marte puts into his body and cannot be blamed for their guy getting nicked by the piss police. However, the loss of one of their best young players for such a significant chunk of time puts yet another dark cloud onto the already stormy horizon of this season and beyond. Jung Ho Kang, the once promising Korean infielder is also still missing as he battles legal troubles surrounding a 3rd drunk driving arrest in his homeland after last season’s comeback campaign was marred by other legal troubles here stateside involving sexual misconduct investigations. Between Kang and Marte this year’s version of the Pirates has not only become a lot worse as far as on field expectations, but also a whole lot less fun to cheer for, as they obviously are housing at least a few bad apples under their fold.
Other than Marte himself, the player who is most directly affected by his unforeseen (and unpaid to Nutting’s delight) half season vacation will be erstwhile superstar and mildly discontented trade chip Andrew McCutchen. Cutch was immediately reinserted into his long held familiar territory of Center Field last night in St. Louis.
Although McCutchen was the much beloved leader of the club during their glorious but brief 3 years of playoff existence after 2 decades of futility, he was unceremoniously shopped around last winter and told when he did return that he would be moved over from Center field to Right to make way for the emergent Marte. To anyone who has followed this team under the reign of Nutting, it was obvious last year that the worm had turned on Cutch, conveniently as he went from affordable to expensive at the back end of his large contract, and even the slightest downgrade in his on field performance was enough for the regime to begin the propaganda campaign of throwing him under the bus and getting ready to trade his salary to a team actually attempting to win a championship. Mark my words, he is certainly on his way out the door still soon, and as Sean Gentille of the Post-Gazette has noted, Marte’s ill-begotten attempt at pumping up his physique to late 90s McGwire/Bonds levels just sunk any remaining hope of a happy goodbye campaign for his fellow outfielder.
So welcome back to the bad old days of Pirates baseball, I hope you fellow fans really enjoyed the brief respite of good fortune our team had for a few seasons, but fortune is a fickle mistress, and she appears to once again have abandoned the North Shore of our fair city to losing baseball and nefarious characters whom are hard to root much for. Who knows when the next shoe will drop and the next update will come, but perhaps by then John Jaso will actually have obtained a singular basehit in this cursed 2017 season. Cheers!
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