DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: What a finish this’ll be

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: What a finish this’ll be

One of the many reasons you need to be careful about moving a closer is that you could lose two backend relievers for the price of one. Good morning to you. Good Thursday morning. I’m Dan Kavaj of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. 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 Giants 4 Pirates 2 yesterday at PNC Park. That was the rubber match of the series. San Francisco took the series and the Pirates are now, coincidence or otherwise, two and four in the month of August since trading David Bedar to the Yankees for whatever it was that they got back for him. Trading closers, no matter how good they are, is something that the cool kids do in baseball. It’s been that way for a while. Ever since the cool kids were successful in convincing the, you know, not so cool kids that closers are easily replaceable because all they’re doing is getting people out. It doesn’t matter what inning they’re doing it in. They’re grossly, as such, in the eyes of the cool kids, overvalued. One problem with that, it isn’t accurate. Based on about a century and a half of actual baseball and based on my own comprehensively very very very very small experience within that century and a half of talking to people, players, coaches, managers, executives, but especially players. Yes, it’s different. Of course, it’s different. How could it not be different? For those of you who would rather not go back, you know, 20, 30 years for examples, because you don’t have to, this part of the game has never changed. And I will cite for you the case of one really, really, really good relief pitcher that the Pirates had with their last set of playoff teams. That was Tony Watson. All Tony did was do his job. He’d come to the mound the eighth inning. Whether it was a lefty or righty at the plate didn’t matter to Clint Hurdle. He was going to use Tony and Tony would get those guys out and Tony would call it a day. And then at one point or other, the Pirates decided they needed Tony to close. Tony couldn’t do it. It just wasn’t for him. That’s not a knock on him. Everybody’s got different personalities. I’ll bet there are some ninth inning guys who couldn’t be eighth inning guys for whatever it’s real. So, here we were with this game yesterday. The Pirates are up two to one going into the eighth inning. Isaac Matson has a little bit of lousy luck. Giants put some people on board. The lead is intact. Don Kelly decides to go and get Dennis Santana a little early. And I like that. That’s good aggressive managing. It’s showing everybody, hey, I want to win this game right in front of me. I’m going to go with my best remaining reliever. And Santana’s absolutely been that. Long story short, Santana gives up one run in the eighth. That’s charged, of course, to Matson. Score is tied. Ninth inning. The Giants put together two doubles and a single. And that’s the ball game. That’s it. And after having a 0.87 87 ERA and a 0.97 whip through the month of July. Santana now in three appearances since Bednar’s been gone has a 23.63 erra and a 3.0 whip. More specifically, in three appearances spanning two and two/3 innings, Santana’s been hit for seven runs on seven hits in a walk. He’s only struck out one. He was asked yesterday by reporters at PNC Park, including our own Jose Negron, what’s changed for him over the past week. It’s been tough lately since Colorado, but any player have tough time. I’ve been having like the first half incredible. of another night. They got player who going to have the six months without giving up couple runs. First off, good on Santana before I go any further for having the season that he’s had with virtually zero fanfare or appreciation around here. He had been before this past week outstanding. And even now that he has literally seen his ERA double in the past week, it’s still at 2.57. His whip is still at 0.94. So yes, to what Santana just said, he’s going to bounce back. He’s right. He has every reason to be confident about that. And really just bearing my soul here for you. I feel like a heel bringing up Santana for the first time today that I think he’s been even mentioned in the first segment of one of these episodes of Daily Shots all year long. That’s on me. That’s lousy. However, my point isn’t to take a shot at Santana. Rather, it’s to emphasize that closers do matter and roles on the back end matter. meaning setup guy, closer guy. Sure, a lot of setup guys graduate to closer. We’ve seen it right here over the years with Solomon Torres, Matt Caps. Bednar actually made that step. But you do also see cases where it just doesn’t work, where for whatever reason, there’s just not a click that occurs between the personality and the role. and pile this on top of the very large stack of reasons why you don’t make trades principally for the purpose of dumping salary. The pirates already had an asset in this regard. He sure as heck didn’t want to go anywhere. All they had to do to keep that asset was to gasp pay that asset. When we come back, J1Q 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 Stake 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 gunstorage check.org. That’s gunstoch check.org. org. Brought to you by NSSF, the Firearm Industry Trade Association. Today’s J1 Q comes from Matt who says DK on MLB network’s MLB central show last week there was a segment on Quinn Pster Brian Anderson one of the Brewers broadcasters had texted one of the participants to say that Priers’s improvement came because Milwaukee management convinced Priest to use his sinker as his dominant pitch. Nice. and not breaking balls as Pittsburgh had emphasized. It’s further proof of your point. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that, Matt. I was basing my opinions on yesterday’s show for anybody who missed it on a couple of things. One were personal observations that were really exasperating of Priest during his time in Pittsburgh where he just was not throwing his fast ball. And two, I looked at the analytics and saw that Priest’s percentage of sinkers, the the two seamers, went skyhigh, not when he left Pittsburgh, but when he left Boston to go to Milwaukee. The Brewers are just smart. They’re run by smart people. That actually begins at the top with the owner, Markasio, who, believe it or not, takes some heat up there in Wisconsin because they say, “Well, he doesn’t spend enough. He didn’t pony up to keep this guy or that guy. The Milwaukee market in general is 23 the size of the Pittsburgh market. The Brewers right now, sit down for this if you’re not aware of it, are 70 and 44. They have the very best record in all of Major League Baseball. They’ve won six in a row, including last night in Atlanta. And get this, just for fun, these are some of those stats within the stats that you can find. Teams are going really well. The Brewers have now gone 24-6 in their last 30 road games. That includes winning 12 out of the last 13 on the road. And the reason that I bring that up where they’re concerned is that there’s always been that little buzz in the background about how they have an unfair advantage at their stadium because it’s enclosed and they’re probably stealing all kinds of signs with cameras all over the place. Well, they’re not taking that stuff with them on the flights. It just happens to be a really good baseball team. Now, if you want to get a little bit disappointed here, Pster is lined up to pitch Sunday in Milwaukee against the Mets, which means he won’t be available to pitch against the Pirates, which would have been way too much fun. The Pirates talk about having smart people. Ben Cherington used that terminology again this past weekend on his radio program. Smart people. We have some smart people. Generally speaking, if you’ve got to tell people that you’re smart, you’re not all that smart. There are genuinely smart people running the Brewers. Excusefree. I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’ll be back with another one of these tomorrow.

What a finish this’ll be … without anyone to finish.

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