Talkin' Bucs 2012

[Black Panther]

9

[Black Panther]

8

[Orange and Brown]

It was a nice run............One or two more pieces and you will have a division winner next year or the year after.

[mister b]

Big 3 game series vs the Brewers starts tonight. Both teams are tied for 3rd in the Central and tied in the wildcard standings. Both teams sending out their aces. Bucs need this series badly to have chance at a winning season and the experience of playing meaningful games in September.

LETS GO BUCS!!!

[mister b]

Stick a fork in us, we're done.

Swept by the Brewers and lost the first game of a 3 game road series to the Astros.

Bucco upper management threw the towel in on the playoffs and a winning season with the September callups and by telling manager Clint Hurdle to play the minor leaguers so they can get major league experience and be evaluated prior to spring training.

This will be our 20th straight losing season. No excuse for this after being 16 games above 500. I blame GM Neil Huntington for this debacle and not Hurdle or the players.

This would have been an excellent time to get a very young team a playoff run experience for next year even if you didn't make the playoffs. Instead, we have instilled a losing mentality on several good, young players and they will come to expect a second half collaspe every year until upper management is replaced.

Record is 74-76. 12 games left in the season and still time to salvage a winning record. Hopefully we will play to win every one of our last 12 games to at least end the year on somewhat of a high note. But I doubt that is the plan.

As always...

LETS GO BUCS!!!

[Black Panther]

Coonelly,Huntington,The minor league coordinator that sent the email all must GO!!! And Nutting should be shown the door too,but the problem is he owns the team.The only one that stays is Hurdle, but on a short leash.I like Clint and thought he was the perfect fit for the job,and he may still be,but they need to let him do his job and stay out of the way...

[Black Panther]

7

[mister b]

Coonelly,Huntington,The minor league coordinator that sent the email all must GO!!! And Nutting should be shown the door too,but the problem is he owns the team.The only one that stays is Hurdle, but on a short leash.I like Clint and thought he was the perfect fit for the job,and he may still be,but they need to let him do his job and stay out of the way...

I agree.

Bucs salvage a win vs Houston as Burnett goes 8 strong.

Heres the rub, we bring in Chad Qualls to finish it and he does but he cost us the game in Milwaukee when he gave up 3 runs on 3 hits and got only 1 out. Where were our regular relievers? Brock Holt, whom I like, has started 14 games at 2nd base since his September 1st callup. Granted, Walker has been hurt but you have to play when you are in a pennent race. Holt has hit .300 but he has 4 errors in 14 games. That equals to 45 errors in a 162 game season, that isn't major league material and his errors have been bad fielding errors, bodily totally out of position. Trying to field routine grounders backhanded because he doesn't move to get his body in front of the ball, these are Little League erros.

Where has Josh Harrison been thru all of this? On the bench watching a minor league callup (Holt) play his backup position during a pennent race. Where was he yesterday in the 8-1 win? Starting at 2nd and going 4-5. He set the table for the rest of the lineup and Cutch, who didn't have to carry the load, gets better pitches to hit and goes 2-4.

In my opinion, you can trace our collaspe to the trades at the deadline. A top reliver, Lincoln and a solid 1st baseman Magehee, plus our top rated minor league prospect were traded for a RF Snider who was told he would play everyday (he hasn't) because he had huge upside that Toronto never saw and kept him on the bench and a 1 time All-Star 1st baseman Sanchez who has never done anything except for his 1 good year. These 2 trades have hurt us terribly. Granted, we are a young team and weren't going to stay hot all year but being 16 games over .500 at the first of August one would think that we would have at least played no worse than .500 ball the rest of the year and stayed in the race.

We head to NY for a 3 game set vs the Mets. Again, we are starting a minor league pitcher, McPherson, in his second major league start because the organization wants to get a look at him as they view him as a possible starter for next season so we will sacrifice a possible playoff spot, but most importantly, sacrifice a winning season so we can have an early start on the 2013 spring training season. Our owner Nutting needs to step in and stop this shite and tell GM Huntington we play to win and break our streak of 19 straight losing seasons or he is gone. We are only 2 games below .500 and the schedule is somewhat favorable as the Reds will be resting starters the last week of the season when we play them, and they should, to get ready for the playoffs and the Braves will probably be doing the same the last 3 games of the year since they will be in the playoffs.

I had planned 1 more trip to the Burgh for a series but I'm not going to waste my money to watch spring training games in September when a winning season is on the line. I will stay at home and root on the Bucs and save my money.

As always and forever...

LETS GO BUCS!!!

[Black Panther]

It's a four pack series with the Mets... I agree with your points too...Did you also find it funny nobody ever said how Walker even got hurt? Never heard that talked about...My speculation was maybe when he hurt his finger on the double play chance he hurt the back too?? But it cropped up later? But usually when someone is out that long the media knows what caused it.They just didn't speculate much for some reason.

[Black Panther]

6

[mister b]

Bucs 10 Mets 6

RAISE THE JOLLY ROGER!!!

Haven't got to say that much lately.

The last 3 games the Bucs have started Josh Harrison at 2nd instead of Brock Holt. In those 3 games Harrison is 7-15 with 1 walk, 1 K, 4 runs scored and 2 RBIs. He has kept innings going which is what we need and he has put the ball in play in every at bat except for the 1 K.

Bucs send out Locke (why?) to face Hefner. Oh, I remember, we want to get an early start on spring training so we are sending out minor leaguers when we haven't been eliminated yet from the post season or still have a chance to break the 19 season streak of losing more than we win. SIGH!

As always...

LETS GO BUCS!!!

[mister b]

Mets 6 Bucs 0

Bucs manage 3 hits against a pitcher who has a high strikeout to walk ratio and who only lasted 7 batters in his last start vs the Phillies in a 16-1 loss. Why? Because the Phillies knew he was going to throw strikes from the first pitch and were swinging. The Bucs were watching pitches go by and trying to out guess the pitcher, never a good thing.

Bucco starter Locke goes 3 2/3 and gives up 5 runs on 9 hits as the Mets made mince meat of another Pirate minor league pitcher in this early 2013 spring training game.

We would have a chance tomorrow with Corriea on the mound but the Mets have moved up Dickey a day so he can have a chance to get his 20th win of the season at home. Good move by the NY brass, at least they value what a win means.

Pittsburgh president Frank Connelly says that GM Neil Huntington and manager Clint Hurdle will be back next season. I don't blame Hurdle as he can only do what upper management tells him to do and who to play. Huntington needs to go. Bucco fans were told that last seasons 2nd half collaspe wouldn't happen this year as the holes had been filled and a winning season would happen. Somebody needs to walk the plank for this and I think it should be Huntington.

7 games left and 7 1/2 games out of the wildcard so we are officially out of the post season. I didn't really expect us to make the playoffs this year but I thought we would have pushed for a winning season at all costs being 16 games over 500 after the All-Star break. We aren't going to do that, we have gotten an early jump on spring training 2013 and will have our 20th straight losing season as we prepare for next year, again.

Our record is 76-79. Don't see us winning 2 more games this year. Maybe Cutch can get a batting title. Was in the stands on the last day of the 2006 season when Freddie Sanchez won the batting title that year and PNC Park was full of excitement. Think I'll watch him win it on TV and not spend any more money watching spring training games in person.

As always...

LETS GO BUCS!!!

[mister b]

RAISE THE JOLLY ROGER!!!

Bucs 5 Braves 1

Bucs trying to finish season on a positive note. They win the first 2 games of the series vs the Braves.

Bucs look to sweep the Braves in the final game of the season tomorrow and finish the year with 80 wins. The most wins in a season for us since the 1992 season when we finished 96-66, our last winning season.

I said I wasn't going to waste my money and watch early spring training games in October but my son and I are making the trip to PNC Park to close out the season since we are both off work on Wednesday. Never a bad day at the ballpark, especially when you spend it with your only son.

Plus, we get to see Chipper Jones play his last regular season game. He is a class act.

Hoping that Burnett and the Bucs get the sweep.

As always...

LETS GO BUCS!!!

[Black Panther]

I'll be honest with you,No Pirate loss ever frustrated or hurt me more than last Friday nights.I dont give a crap if I saw history.It was history in a negative way! Glad you guys are going...I'll be watching.Raise that Jolly Roger one more time for us!!

[mister b]

I'll be honest with you,No Pirate loss ever frustrated or hurt me more than last Friday nights.I dont give a crap if I saw history.It was history in a negative way! Glad you guys are going...I'll be watching.Raise that Jolly Roger one more time for us!!

I agree, and the official scorer was kind to Bailey.

[Black Panther]

Did you have some good seats today? I think the Braves switching pitchers every inning was to their advantage.We did nothing with any of them.And yes,Bailey got a hugh break from the official scorer in Friday's game.That added to the frustration of the end result.

[mister b]

Braves 4 Bucs 0

79-83 is our record. It was an improvement of last year's record, for the 2nd year in a row so progress is being made. However, after being 16 games over .500 during the first week of August, our final record is a huge let down over "what should have been" and I don't see how anyone can really look at the season as a whole as a step forward.

Many holes still need plugged. And, from what I can gather, only the #1 pitchers position is a lock in A.J. Burnett. In my opinion, our #2, #3 and #4 pitchers are set in McDonald, Karstans and Corriea. But, there is little chance that Corriea will be back since he is a free agent and he has no desire to go to the bullpen and I don't blame him. He is good enough to be our 4th starter but I'm sure that Pirate management feels that they can do better via McPherson or Locke since they have so much "upside" and will cost next to nothing; more than likely they will be paid the major league minimum salary for 2013.

This word "upside" is a key buzzword in the Pittsburgh organization. This translates into "low salary-long term" and the hope that they can catch lightening in a bottle like they did with McCutchen.

Don't look for the Buccos to be major players in the Hot Stove League this off season as they will continue to look for free agents with "upside" like Travis Snider and Gaby Sanchez or sign 1 year free agents with a club option for a second year like we did with Rod Barajas to fill a need at catcher. Rod won't be back next year as he doesn't have much "upside" left in him.

Nothing short of a winning season next year will be an epic fail. And if we don't have a winning season, then everyone above manager Hurdle needs canned. He did what he could with what he had and deserves better players to work with but I doubt that they give him much more than what he had this year.

Looking forward to off season developments and hoping that Bucco leadership throws us long suffering fans a bone or 2 to chew on this off season as it looks like we won't have much hockey to focus on.

As always...

LETS GO BUCS!!!

[mister b]

Did you have some good seats today? I think the Braves switching pitchers every inning was to their advantage.We did nothing with any of them.And yes,Bailey got a hugh break from the official scorer in Friday's game.That added to the frustration of the end result.

Yes, switching pitchers kept us off balance at the plate.

We had nice seats. We sat right behind home plate in the upper deck. My son likes those seats so that is where we sat. Bob Walk signed a couple of items and dropped them down with instructions to give them to young kids, credit the Bucco faithful, every item was passed to the person he requested.

Also, nice touch of class by Pirate fans on the standing ovation for Chipper Jones during his PH. Burnett also showed class by stepping way off the mound during the standing ovation and then threw him a nice fastball on a platter for Chipper's last regular season hit. He also tossed the ball into the Braves dugout for him. To bad the Bucs defense failed to cover their bases after that, 3rd and muffed a DP, that caused 2 runs to score. I think the Braves and Jones neither one wanted to score on Burnett as nobody ran the bases very hard after Alvarez failed to cover 3rd when Jones should have been easily forced out there and Garret Jones muffed the DP which led to 2 runs. Chipper practically walked from 3rd to home when he scored to not show up Burnett.

[Orange and Brown]

As a Reds fan, I just want to say how much fun it was to be able to battle it out with you dirty Pirates this season. It has been a long time since both teams were able to play games against each other that meant something. I hop we see more of the same in the future!!

[mister b]

As a Reds fan, I just want to say how much fun it was to be able to battle it out with you dirty Pirates this season. It has been a long time since both teams were able to play games against each other that meant something. I hop we see more of the same in the future!!

ARRRGH!!! Best of luck to ye landlubbers in the playoffs. It has been fun given each other some good nature ribbing over the course of the season but keep a weather eye on the horizon because the Bucco faithful will have the necessary provisions ready, dry powder, plenty of cannonballs and fresh rum when we unfurl our sails and look to do battle against ye next year.

Fairly warned ye been, sez I.