tmwiese55

The same people who don't care if Counsell gets asked about this are same people who couldn't believe he wasn't asked about the Hader situation. The media job is to ask any and all relevant questions. If the Cubs switch catchers from Contreras to someone else Maddon will be on the SCORE getting grilled. It's just shocking to me that the question has never even been addressed at all. When your starter has been injured off and on for 2.5 months you start the backup, what exactly are they supposed to be addressing? When Judge sat out for 2 months they didn't have to address why he wasn't starting. So if Judge came back after that injury and hit well when he played but only played 2 of every 5 or 6 games you didn't think people would ask what's up? Pina came off the DL on July 20, two months ago. He's raised his BA 17 pts since then with sporadic playing time.

Just here two people gave possible answer to it. Lingering injuries and/or pitcher preference. I'm behind Counsel and he's not an idiot, he knows Kratz is hitting terribly and still playing him so there is a reason. I just think after 2-3 weeks we'd know what it is

I get it but it is only 5 and only the 7th inning. Not like it's a 9 run lead. I see either way and now he's coming out

Well if you remember me at all on here I'm by no means a bash Counsel guy over every little thing. If anything I'm on the exact opposite side. I mean Braun missed 3 games and we find out he has a back issue. This is happening and there is no explanation at all. Like I said earlier, initially I thought some linger issues from the face HBP but that's weeks ago now. IF they come out and say the stats on the pitcher matchups this and that, HBP to Pina's face, we're trying a strategy to get our Cs totally in sync with the P so they're matched up together, so be it. They're the managers, do what you think is best but one would think after this long we'd know something.

Pina had a very good year last year and was your clear starting catcher all year. Finally started hitting well in the second half but is now playing less than a 38 yr old generally poor defensive C who's basically never made the bigs and is hitting terribly and you don't think someone should at least ask what the story is?

I know it's funny but last 28 days BA/OBP: 239/308 Last 21:200/286 14: 250/250 I don't hate the guy and good for him getting involved, good story and good backup. Has come up with some timely hits and I'm rooting for him. Just feel like someone asking the question should happen and there has been no info.

ETA: I did some quick googling to try to find some Pina D info last year but struggled. So no help there but I thought he checked well on everything last year the way he was talked about. Gonna be heading out soon so I'm gonna give up. Hope Kratz goes 3/4 for with a ding dong Perfect.

So can we complain the next 4 days if we play poorly because we had to sit around the ballpark for 2.5 hours? Will ESPN write an article about it

Great throw by Kratz from his knees, just perfect. To the 5-11 Pirates chat a couple pages ago. something lost in that convo is that 5 of those games were at the end of our ridiculouss 23 games in 22 stretch or whatever it was. Just go 2-3 in that 5 gamer like would be normal variance and you're at 7-9. This 5-11 is massively skewed by that situation where our pen was roasted.

They’ve averaged 4.64 runs a game in the month of September. I’d say the offense has been doing really well. I mean they’ve lost one series in like the last ten. A big part of that has been the pitching, which Kratz has done well handling. Honestly, if handling pitchers was as easy as what is in bold, stats wouldn’t matter because you could just teach any catcher the game plan. The difference of receiving the ball between the two catchers is probably closer than most would give credit for. True true, I see that. But this screams small sample. Basically everything that we're assuming here about Pina as the reasons on this are things he was massively praised for a year ago. But now in like 3-8 game samples he's lost it? I'm sure they have their reasons and all, but I think a reporter should definitely ask about this and see what they say. At first I thought it was because of the HBP to Pina and wanting him to get over that but that's a long time ago now. Basically Pina in the 2nd half Pina has hit similar to last year but we're now not playing him as much. Interesting stat to find out would be runs scored based on who catches, but man I'm not gonna do that work. ETA: I did some quick googling to try to find some Pina D info last year but struggled. So no help there but I thought he checked well on everything last year the way he was talked about. Gonna be heading out soon so I'm gonna give up. Hope Kratz goes 3/4 for with a ding dong

Yea I think someone pointed that out somewhere recently and that's why they're tied to each other. However, this again screams small sample. Pina is a great defensive C and just last year helped the P staff to massive over achievement. He didn't all of a sudden forget how to call a game. I guess I'd just say they should be finding away for him to improve with the Ps he hasn't done well with rather than just accepting it and therefore running out an inferior C 3/5 days. Come playoffs Pina should play every game. They should start prepping for that I think Pina is a good thrower but that’s where it ends for me in speaking of his greatness defensively. Obviously whatever they have data wise has been pushing Kratz into the lineup more and hey, we have been pitching pretty well lately. Don’t care if he’s 38, whatever works. We're just average joes so IDK anything about pitch calling. But what concerns do you have on his blocking? I've never felt a problem there, and if you compare to Kratz it's night and day on blocking. He's just so tall he really struggles to get down on things, passed balls are frequent. And like I was getting at pitch selection is stuff you can coach and plan for, basically you should be training/coaching Pina to do whatever Kratz is doing if that's the reason behind it. Have to note that our offense has also started to go down again to early season looking. not surprising that we now have a non-hitting C again and Arcia playing most days. At least Arcia is better than before but he's still very poor on O, so you're back to 1/3 of your lineup being very very bad. Note: I feel like i'm coming off too anti Kratz. I generally appreciate how he's done overall this year and that recent hot streak was great and he had some clutch hits in there too. and he's a great story overall. But Pina is just better and I'm gonna somewhat cringe seeing playoff lineups with Kratz. So I wish they were working to correct whatever issues Pina is having with those guys and working through it. Could be like how people now rip on Kotsay in CF in the playoffs 2011, especially if a passed ball at the wrong time bites us

Yea I think someone pointed that out somewhere recently and that's why they're tied to each other. However, this again screams small sample. Pina is a great defensive C and just last year helped the P staff to massive over achievement. He didn't all of a sudden forget how to call a game. I guess I'd just say they should be finding away for him to improve with the Ps he hasn't done well with rather than just accepting it and therefore running out an inferior C 3/5 days. Come playoffs Pina should play every game. They should start prepping for that

I think someone has pointed out they're tied to starting pitchers right now. But I'd still like someone to ask management on it. Pina has hit well the second half and he's just a vastly superior defensive catcher. Kratz had his good hitting streak there but is now back to what you'd expect. This should be a 3/5 split or even 4/5 in Pina's favor.

I think the Sox pitcher today has been doing well lately. Their starter Rodon on Sunday has also been very good the second half. Cle got to him earlier this week but overall he's been pretty darn good since coming back. It's not crazy for them to get 2/3 here.

And it is a lot of work fro those 6 months. But besides working out and keeping in shape they have the other 6 months off and freedom to do whatever they want.

Getting this first one would be huge, really takes the pressure off for the weekend games.

At least everything is clear who to root for in all series this weekend.

They generally do have the good weather teams and domes have home the first week. They have to change it up occasionally, but for the most part t hey do go by this. What killed everything this year is the horrible weather came in the 2nd-3rd weeks of the year.

I agree with your main point there about how folks overreact to losing against them, they're not a bad team at all. Quirk for us: We're 14-25 vs CHC, CLE, Pit and 73-41 vs everyone else.

Well that is an interesting quirk to them. You can probably weird things like this in a lot of teams, but this is probably a bit more extreme. As FVD said, it's just randomness in small samples. Early this season the CUbs had our number according to everyone here, since then we've won every series vs them. A few years back we used to tattoo the Pirates, now it's flipped. It's just baseball to me. If I recall, our record in 2011 had some quirks like this with us massively beating up the crappy bottom of our division, tanking Hous, Cubs, and Pirates but a blah record vs everyone else.

Deadspin article on Addison Russell domestic issues with his ex wife. Could prove relevant to the playoffs. Really I don't think they'd lose much other than depth/flex as their best lineups are likely having Baez at SS.

Bring back the UW Make em Believe. should resonate well. But yea they've been using the This is My Crew a lot the last few years so it makes sense.

I don't think anyone thinks the Pirates are a crappy team. They're an above .500 solid mid level, ok, average good team. They can easily beat anyone on any day and win any 3 game series they play. Terms like crappy are reserved the SD, Royals, White Sox, etc.

I actually really don't like how in every sport they make everyone where these same shirts. I know it's marketing and all, but I think it would be better marketing to let each team do their own thing. Basically, why would someone want to buy the same shirts every team has. Maybe MLB is changing that this year though, we'll see

For all the doom and gloom here the last 5-6 days. The only teams in the NL with a better last 10 games record than MKE are Pitt and LAD.