58 Comments

The Pirates are calling up Jake Woodford on purpose to start tomorrow. Probably Nicolas is done.

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Pirates against teams with winning records since Cherington's deadline "improvements": 7-23.

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Pitiful! Just difficult to even imagine how they can be any better in 2025 under Shelton - time for somebody in the dugout/clubhouse who might be able to inspire players to play at a higher level. Don Kelly needs to be the Manager - we need somebody with some fire in them!

BC bet on IKF being able to provide veteran leadership, instead his OPS drops from .758 with Toronto to .599 with the Pirates with only 1 HR, and K/BB numbers of 33K/3 BB. Hard to imagine him being on this team in 2025. Promote Liover Peguero to play SS.

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Pirates are now within 100 strikeouts of the team record with 11 games to go. It's going to be right down to the wire it appears. They are at 1,399, trailing 2023 (1,464) and 2022 (1,497). How much fun is it that their last three seasons are their three highest strikeout seasons ever

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Pinch-hitting Grandal for no apparent reason to end the game and having him take 3 called strikes in a row, 2 of which were right down Broadway, is a fitting end to this game and would have been a fitting end to the Pirates' season.

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what? huh? choke up and protect the plate with two strikes...

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Haines has 11 more games to get that nonsense out of his system. For the love of all that is holy, man, he might make... gasp... soft contact!

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Nick Yorke!!!

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Three hits. The dude has sentenced himself to a week on the bench.

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It's sad that I saw the slight silver lining in "at least Billy Cook got to play two innings on defense". You gotta take the wins where you can.

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2024 summed up in one half inning --- 1st and 3rd with no one out and no runs.

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And they get two fly balls to move up runners to score a run without a hit (I know, but it should've been an error)

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Call that a “Benny.” Sort of like a bogey.

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Or a Haines, as in, getting yanked up in the air by your Haines. Sort of a disappointment wedgie.

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Great reference. Excellent start to my comment reading day.

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A wedgie -- a perfect comp for watching the Pirates.

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Liberatore would be an interesting offseason acquisition

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Looks like he's heading into his arb years, so he'd be pricey.

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non tender candidate for certain

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We take a lot of pitches down the middle. Cruz third pitch looked like a fastball right down the middle

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Sep 18·edited Sep 18

Chandler through 5 innings

5 h 1 er 2 bb 7 k

78 pitches 53 strikes gave up a homerun in the 5th for the earned run.

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Sep 18·edited Sep 18

Out through 5.1 innings with the bases loaded and Ryan coming in.

Ryan walks the first batter he faced on 5 pitches, score now 2 - 2 got the next 2 out without them scoring again.

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Finished one out short of reaching 120 IP. Would have been a nice milestone, but impressive nonetheless

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His control kinda came and went tonight, wish they would have given him another batter after striking out Castillo with the bases loaded. I thought his fastball looked as good as it did all night then. He also looked determined to get out of the jam he was in.

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to be honest, I'm kinda surprised they put him out there for the sixth. Last start (probably), figured they'd just end it on a high note.

Still a good finish.

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Me too, that's why I put up his line after the 5th lol

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If you want to guess the Cardinals attendance tonight, look at the stands, then add about 12-15K to that total. I'd be willing to bet that they will have over 500,000 unused tickets this year (I'm guessing a lot on the secondary market), as their in-stadium attendance has been way off of the actual attendance since mid-season.

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30,562! There weren't 30,562 people at the stadium if you included all of the workers, players, team staffs and people who were within 50 feet of the stadium at some point today

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I suspect a lot of the no-shows are from businesses season-ticket plans, which they give out to employees, clients, etc. Even the "best fans in baseball" don't show up when they didn't pay for the tickets and the team is out of it.

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I was thinking about it the other day and the Cardinals usually pack the house, so I was wondering if a bunch of resellers bought up tickets assuming they would be easy to resell. I mean the town has a strong history of it, so it seemed like a safe bet. I assume it's a combo of things, such as your idea, plus long-time season ticket holders who show up more often when it matters.

Teams will never release the numbers, but I know they know the actual in-house attendance. I'd love to see the difference this year with the Cardinals. We see with the Pirates these April games or day games with maybe 5,000 people at the game, then they say 10K announced attendance, but the Cardinals this year (mainly second half) have some attendances that are insane compared to the actual people there. It has to be at least 500,000 no-shows, and I might be shooting way low with that number.

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According to their statements to the press, the Cards expect to sell 70-80% of their tickets for the season before opening day. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/01/17/st-louis-cardinals-dewitt-family-mlb-ticket-sales

They were "surprised" this year as the number of packages and season-ticket plans did not decline significantly despite last season's disappointment. We will see if that changes going into next season. I suspect that they may see a precipitous drop in pre-opening day sales as many fans "wait and see" and companies scale back from full-season ticket plans to smaller packages. If no one wants the tickets in August or September, it makes little sense to pay for them in March. Expect a large decline in paid attendance next season.

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Their ticket sales are definitely going to decline next year, yet they still might get more butts in the stadium seats too. It's so odd to count no-shows in the announced attendance. Most of baseball history didn't do that. The attendance you see for old games is the actual amount of people who showed up (though many numbers you see were rounded off for the press, instead of an exact number)

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As to resellers buying tickets for late-season games, I doubt it. The resale market is well-tracked now, and since early in the season, the resale value of Cards' tickets has been dropping.

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I figured that they just bought them at the beginning of the year

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In all the hubbub this season, lost, at times, has been the yeoman job Falter has done all season. I am the first to call fire and brimstone down on the front office, but it is only fair to acknowledge that this was a very good acquisition by GMBC and co.

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And thankfully Falter didn’t get hurt on Rowdy’s latest blunder.

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every year there has been a successful left handed acquisition

2024 Falter

2023 Boroucki

2022 Cantina

2021 Anderson

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Boom!! Goes De La Cruz!!!

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Prop bet time.

Over-under 2 Lance Lynn f-bombs after lighting up hapless Pirate bats.

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Sep 18·edited Sep 18

2 already in the second, make that 3. Two to Triolo, 1 to BDLC lol

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Over. Over. Way over lol

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Over

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Sep 17Liked by Anthony Murphy

Just a reminder Bubba is pitching for Indy tonight. Most likely his last start of the year.

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On one hand, a little break would be nice.

On the other, really don’t want baseball to end lol

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They just have to play one or more of the players who won’t be back. Why Clark isn’t playing and Taylor is makes no sense.

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sorry Cook

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And after pinchhitting for MAT, now Cook is the defensive replacement in CF.

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It makes zero sense to not get as many looks at Cook when he's in the majors now. He has so many options for his position. You don't need to bench anyone for him to get regular time. I hope they at least play Yorke every single game, but that feels like I'm asking a lot.

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Beno?

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I liked Beano

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For those still hitting up the comments on the Gameday articles, and the site in general:

You all are the best.

Let’s finish strong this year, not much time left in the season.

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Sep 18Liked by Anthony Murphy

This is a tough one to get excited about. Cruz hurt, no Cook in the lineup, Falter is the least exciting starter. Yorke getting his first hit was pretty cool

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Yea at least we got to see Yorke get his first hit. Love those moments.

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Well... since the Pirates can't hit, it is probably for the best that the fans hit the comment sections.

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