6-1-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter A team lacking urgency tends to describe a club that isn’t making moves to address issues with their team. At the very least, not fast enough for fans. What it means this year though, is that local journalists and bloggers and radio hosts, and podcasters and regular fans dahn at Primanti’s, have decided two things. First, that the team saying “competitive” meant World Series now. Second, regardless of what the team said, it’s been deemed by the experts, you know, that list of folks I rattled off up there that YEaeaeeeaerrrrr Fieieeiiii ..read more

6-1-24 – By Corey Shrader – @CoreyShrader on Twitter Well, if we learned much of anything from May, it is that this division is VERY fluid. The Brewers are the clear leader right now with the end of month tiers breaking down something like this: Tier 1 Milwaukee Tier 2 Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh Tier 3 Cincinnati Pittsburgh finds themselves in the backend of Tier 2, but could very easily tumble down into Tier 3 or even up to the top of Tier 2. June promises to provide even more movement on this front since we are getting a ton of intra-divisional games. I don’t have a whole lot m ..read more

5-31-24 – By Ethan Smith – @mvp_EtHaN We are just about a third of the way done with the 2024 MLB season and the Pittsburgh Pirates make their way north of the border to end the month of May and welcome the month of June as they face off with the Toronto Blue Jays in a three-game series. The Pirates enter this series off the heels of a double-header split against the Detroit Tigers, which saw Jared Jones and Paul Skenes have very different outings against a Tigers team that the Blue Jays saw earlier in the week, losing three-of-four to the Tigers. Toronto does enter this series coming off a se ..read more

5-30-24 – By Ethan Smith – @mvp_EtHaN on X I hope you all enjoyed the April edition of Five-Up, Five-Down, it was a fun piece to write and fun to highlight the players who are playing good baseball and giving reasons why the guys who aren’t can come out of their respective funks. Unlike April, May saw plenty of call-ups, moments we’ll never forget, and some players who didn’t have great starts finally pick up some steam on their 2024 campaigns. Let’s not delay and get right to the players that were up in and the players that were down in what was a wild month of May for Pirates ..read more

5-28-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X The Pirates are coming off a really nice series, taking 2 of 3 from the Atlanta Braves and now they enter a 2 game set against a completely not made up in any way “rivalry” series with the Buccos MLB designated rival while throwing Jared Jones and Paul Skenes. Detroit isn’t exactly tossing slouches out there though, and in Comerica Ballpark, there’s every chance these are two low scoring affairs. 5-28 Tigers – Tarik Skubal (L) – 6-1, 60 IP, 2.25 ERA, 72 Ks/10 walks, 0.85 WHIP Pirates – Jared Jones (R) – 3-4, 59 IP, 3.05 ERA, 68 K ..read more

5-27-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X Memorial Day they say isn’t for celebration, it’s for solemn reflection about the sacrifices made to ensure our freedom. It’s hard to separate the two, if the country wasn’t worth celebrating, all these incredible people wouldn’t have felt it was worth sacrificing for. I’ve never lost someone personally in combat. I just have a ton of people who were willing to give it all and managed to make it home. I tend to think about how lucky I am to be able to say that more than anything on Memorial Day. 1. They’re 25-29… I guess I’m not feeling the overwhelm ..read more

5-26-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what the Pirates will do when Hayes comes back. First, the team is hitting, and no, I’m not taking the coincidence of him hitting the IL and the offense coming back to life as evidence they’re a better team without him. That doesn’t mean we should ignore entirely what has been happening, and it certainly doesn’t mean Derek Shelton should just plop him right back into the top half of the order, especially as they’ve really seemed to gain some traction with what they’ve been doing. Andrew McCutchen ..read more

5-25-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter It doesn’t always work. In fact, it doesn’t work most of the time. Young hitters with pedigree that make it to MLB and struggle like Nick Gonzales or Henry Davis get sent back to the minors all the time. We’ve even seen Jackson Holliday jump to the Bigs and struggle mightily, then struggle just as mightily on his demotion. It’s hard to make the jump and in many cases, it’s really more about how a player handles the failure of their first chance and what they do with the instruction they receive about what’s missing. I had a chance to ..read more

5-24-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter I think it’s funny how often baseball mirrors life. My kids probably have an encyclopedia worth of life lessons taught to them through the prism of baseball. Kid fails his driver’s license test, hey bud, it’ll be ok, even Ted Williams failed 60% of the time. I’m sure most of you have done the same, even if it was completely by accident and reading this has you thinking back to your own experiences where all these baseball truth bombs have come out of your mouth at work. There’s always something to learn in life, and in baseball, I mea ..read more

5-24-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X When your bullpen is struggling to hold even big leads, it’s probably not a perfect time to face the Atlanta Braves, but it wouldn’t be the first time a series that should have been a nightmare on paper and it turned out to be the medicine they needed. Bluntly, if this is indeed to be a competitive team, they shouldn’t enter a 3 game set against anyone and feel the outcome is predetermined. I’m not saying that’s reality, I’m just saying IF you want to be considered competitive, a series like this is one you should welcome, not fea ..read more