The Pittsburgh Pirates were destroyed by the New York Yankees 16-0 on Wednesday, and Pittsburgh’s TV announcer was absolutely disgusted by the end.
The game was actually a reasonable 5-0 score through seven innings. Then Manny Banuelos entered the game for the eighth and gave up a grand slam to Aaron Judge while being charged with five runs over 0.1 innings.
By the time the ninth came around, the Pirates waved the white flag and had second baseman Josh VanMeter finish out the game. That turned into a disaster.
VanMeter loaded the bases on three singles and then gave up a grand slam to Aaron Hicks.
The next batter was Giancarlo Stanton, who hit an opposite-field home run to make it 15-0. Announcer Greg Brown had seen enough.
This Pirates announcer says it all after the Stanton HR pic.twitter.com/r10KEcDfu1
— Julian Guilarte (@JulianGuilarte1) July 7, 2022
“This is ridiculous,” Brown said.
He’s not wrong.
It was bad enough when a 5-0 game turned into a 10-0 blowout after some poor relief pitching. But that 10-0 score became an utter joke when the Pirates had their second baseman come in to pitch and allow eight hits and a walk, including three home runs.
Position players pitching is horrible for the overall product in MLB and needs to be addressed to avoid the type of embarrassment we saw on Wednesday.
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