DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Hands! Off!

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Hands! Off!

[Music] [Applause] I mean, the case isn’t easy to make, you know. And after having several discussions with several people yesterday at BNC Park, I still want to make it. Good morning to you. Good Monday morning. I’m Don Kvachovic of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you’re into football andor hockey, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this. Pirates six, Diamondbacks zero. A nice bounceback for the club in general after the three-game humiliation against the White Socks. The Pirates going five and one on the remainder of that home stand. Paul Skins did his thing yesterday. Six scoreless innings, nine strikeouts, one walk, three hits, 20 whiffs. Dude had 20 whiffs. You know, every once in a while, I think it’s worthwhile to just step back and go, “Wow.” to some individual stats, like really specific stats. 20 whiffs in a game, seven of them on the sweeper, which the Arizona guys just couldn’t touch, even when it went right down the middle. What else? So Neil Cruz scored from first base on a single. That was cool. Brian Reynolds scored from first base on what ended up being a double, but it still looked like it was almost as much work. And yeah, and you can’t take it too far because their overall record is 44 and 62. They’re horrible on the road. And there they go flying out to San Francisco now for three against the Giants. Heck, who knows if that’ll even afflict them in Denver when they go and face the miserable Rockies after that. But they’re not the kind of team, and they certainly don’t have the kind of roster where you can just casually state, “Oh, no. Don’t break them up. Don’t make any trades. Don’t send out some of all that pitching so that you can get back even a little bit of hitting. Don’t do any of that except that there are two pertinent points to be made here. One is the one that I’ve been making ad nauseium for months now, which is that this general manager has no business making any trades, nor does he have any business holding on to the job as long as he has. But the other pertinent point is that despite how it looks and despite the totality of the result, there are indications and really significant I think indications that the pirates already have these pirates right now already have some of the hardest pieces that there are to acquire. That of course being starting pitching. Why? Because starting pitching is really, really expensive. And in an unfair economic system like the one Major League Baseball has, you’re either going to be able to draft and develop starting pitching or you’re just not going to have it. Well, they have it obviously at the highest conceivable level in skins. They have it in Mitch Keller. It took Mitch a while, but Mitch came around. And Mitch has been for about three years now a legitimately valuable starter whose value would be a heck of a lot easier to appreciate on a winner. You also have some other starters. You have some other possibilities for starters. You have some prospects that you have reason to believe in. But you won’t find me going one name past Skins and Keller when it comes to certainty. Why? Andrew Heeney and Bailey Falter might not even be here after this week. Jared Jones has a challenge ahead of him. Bubba Chandler’s taken a significant step backward in Indianapolis. That’s not alarming. That’s fairly normal. you actually kind of want that in a way, but it still happened. And a lot of these other prospects that have been seen on and off as being sure things, Thomas Harrington was in the top 100 of all of baseball and now he’s not. Braxton Ashcraft’s been touted. Carmen Majinsky was supposed to be a starter and then he wasn’t and then he was again and now he isn’t. You just don’t know beyond those two starters. After the game yesterday and after Skins was done with his usual media session at his stall, he and I had a a one-on-one talk about this team heading into the trade deadline about this team’s future heading into 2016. I’m going to play some of it for you here and I’m going to open in case the audio sounds a little confusing for you at the very beginning by asking if he shares my stance that this team isn’t super crazy far away from anything about your belief in this team and we’re kind of at a trade deadline. I’d never put you in a position to say they say something about, you know, what the GM should do or whatever, but this team’s not that far, is it? It’s not. I mean, and we didn’t think we were that far either last year, so there obviously moves that we need to make. I I’m not the GM, so I can tell you exactly what those things are. Um, I mean, we’ve thought about it. We, you know, we can play GM and do all that, but with the deadline coming, obviously, we need to make the team better for next year. Um, and hopefully put us in a position where we can make some moves in the offseason, too. So, um, that’s kind of what I’m expecting. That’s what I’m hoping. Um, I know that’s what a lot of other guys in the locker room are hoping cuz, um, I think obviously on field we have some guys that have grown this year that have gotten better. Um, other guys that have, you know, probably under underperformed a little bit. Um, they’re career norms. Yeah. As opposed to legitimately under, right? Yeah. Um, and so, you know, there’s room to get guys that we have better. Um there’s room. I mean, you know, we’ve seen some guys like grow, you know, I think O’Neal’s grown this year. I think Nick has grown this year and that’ll continue. Um I think so. Just got to find players that are going to put us in positions to help them grow. I think, you know, um character, we don’t have losing players necessarily. I think we have players that need to be taught how to win. Just a footnote here that that’s some of the most candid comments I’ve heard from skins related to anybody. Easily the most candid conversation he and I have had on what’s know generally not the easiest subject to bring up especially with a young player. And I’ll add that there’s not a blessed syllable in there that I disagree with when we come back to J1Q. [Music] If you’re looking for a great dining experience, look no further than Northshore Tavern. Located directly across Federal Street from PNC Park, next door to Mike’s Beer Bar, Northshore Tavern is Pittsburgh’s home for steak on a stone. Enjoy your steak finished on a hot lava stone in front of you, where you ensure each piece is cooked to exactly your liking. or try their rotating selection of entre, hot sandwiches, salads, and burgers, all while enjoying the ambiance dedicated to the great players and history of the Pittsburgh Pirates all around you. Come see why everyone’s talking about Northshore Tavern and Steak on a Stone. It’s Gun Storage Check Week. Help prevent unwanted access to your firearms. No one wants their unsecured gun to be used in an accident, a suicide, or a crime. Use lock boxes, safes, and locks to secure your firearms. Learn more at gunstoch checkck.org. That’s gunstoch check.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the Firearm Industry Trade Association. [Music] Today’s J1Q comes from Alan Bovas who says, “DK, just how historic has the start of Paul Ske’s career been compared to Hall of Fame pitchers? Has any pitcher ever been a rookie of the year and then established themselves as a legitimate Sai Young candidate in his second year?” There’s going to be a ton of different metrics that get applied to these sorts of discussions and debates, Allan. And there’s also going to be just, you know, intangible things that get brought up. Uh Dwight Gooden really jumps out for the way he broke onto the scene with the Mets in the mid 80s. And when you’re talking about a century and a half of the sport, there’s a lot to pick from. Now that said, as you and I are speaking right now, skins has a 1.83 erra for the season. The next lowest is Trick Scooball’s 2.09, which isn’t close. More impressive, skins’s 1.83 erra is almost a mirror match for his 1.89 89 since getting to the big leagues. In his first 45 appearances, and that’s how many he’s made now, 45 starts. He is the only pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball, dating back to at least 1893, to have a sub 2 erra and at least 300 strikeouts. Now, why is that significant to bring up the 1890s other than that, you know, it’s also part of baseball and all that other stuff was that pitchers back then pitched a lot more innings like they pitched complete games. That’s just the way it was. They didn’t throw this hard. They didn’t have the injury risks. Whereas, as we see every time Skins is out there, you’re getting, you know, five, six, seven innings depending on how they’re trying to be smart with him with the pitch limits, with the inning limits. And as we recently saw some of the roll back around the time of the All-Star game. Well, in yesterday’s game, Skins logged 99 pitches in 99 feels like degrees. Not an exaggeration on my part. That was official at PNC Park grass level. and he withstood one sequence very early where the Pirates in the bottom of the first inning thought it’d be a good idea to let Zack Allen get away with a five pitch inning. I’m not kidding. Five pitches. It was 1 minute. 1 2 3 Everybody sat down. Which led me to ask Skans this afterward. Did you even sit down in the second inning catch any? Yeah, before that uh I think yeah, I mean we have a fan down under. I sat down for a second, got some water and then went back up. I to an extent I like short innings because it just you don’t have time to settle in. So, um probably could have used a little bit more rest, but it was obviously fine. So, yeah, he goes out there, he gives up a one out triple that actually could have been caught by O’Neal Cruz, who otherwise had an outstanding game. Skins, of course, strands that guy at third, mostly coasts the rest of the way. The best answer that I can give you, Allan, is that I don’t know. I not able to access, you know, enough baseball history to stretch back to the Civil War. I can say with confidence, and I’ve done this previously, that this is already the most gifted pitcher in the history of this franchise, which is 144 years old. and he very obviously is off to one of the best starts that anyone’s ever seen anywhere. And I hope you also, as a little bit of a bonus today, got to get a little glimpse as to what he’s like off the field, how much he pays attention to his teammates, how much he values his team, and how much he wants to win. Cuz I’ll share this with you as well. He, not me, he kept that conversation going. He wanted to talk about this. Good for him. My goodness, that future is so bright. I appreciate the question, Al. And I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’ll be back with another one of these tomorrow. [Music]

Hands! Off!

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