DK's Daily Shot of Pirates: Spring (reality) TV

0:00In 2024, a truck crashed into Canaw in Morescu, where I work. 146 of our dogs needed homes fast. We asked for help on Facebook. Our story spread through WhatsApp messages and Instagram reposts, immediately people stepped up. And just six hours later, every dog was fostered. I'll never forget how our community showed up for us. Learn how over 3.5 billion people connect to what matters with meta at meta.com slash community. Few things are as uplifting as the greatest moments in sports. And nothing brings us together quite like Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games. From NBC Universal's iconic storytelling to the innovative technology across Exfinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to America, sharing every moment with millions. When Team USA steps onto the world stage, we're not just watching. We're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team. Comcast, proud partner of Team USA.

1:01Fandool is dropping bonus bets into everyone's account for the tournament. All you have to do is opt in to claim your bonus. But don't wait. These bonus bets are only available for a limited time. Fandool, play your game. 21 plus and present in select states. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire seven days after receipt. Next bonus, $500 and less otherwise specified, restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandool.com, gambling problem called 1-800-Gampler. Honestly, I wish all games were available via streaming, whatever said that everyone could watch, everyone could see this type of ball for themselves. Good morning to you, good Tuesday morning, I'm Dan Kovacovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates, presented by our friends at the North Shore Tavern.

2:02It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you're into football and or hockey, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this Pirates 5 Yankees 3 last night in Tampa, up at George M. Steinbrenner Field, Jose Urquiti started the game and that didn't go too well. Three and two-thirds innings, four hits, a two of them were home runs, Isaac Matson followed him with an inning and a third of perfect relief strikeout in there. That's good to see, Johan Ramirez walked a couple of guys, not good to see. There are things that are more relevant than others in that setting, in Florida or in Arizona than others. For example, Andy Rodriguez-Homard and you think, yeah, Andy, all right, way to go, Andy. Separate yourself a little bit, Andy, get up here, give us a catcher who can actually

3:03hit. Andy popped up to the left field and he sunk his head as if someone had just kicked his dog in moping up the first base because it was such an obvious pop-up, but it just manages to carry over. And I had the Yankees stream on and whoever their broadcaster is, he says, there's a wall scraper for Rodriguez, which was awesome. So the home runs, for the most part, don't matter. If you really, really get into one and you occasionally have a wall scraper but one that goes into the nut-so-floor at a wind coming off the Gulf of Mexico, that's something to tip the cap for. You're looking for things that are translatable to regular season games, regular season environments, regular season stadiums, and even then, you're going to get thrown off.

4:04Here's a small example of that. Orkidi, who's trying to make this team, is trying to make this rotation through the most meatball-ish cutter you've ever seen to Giancarlo Stanton. And it got the treatment that it deserved, Stanton destroyed it, no wall scraping, left center, and still soaring. 424 feet was the official measurement. Exit velocity of 109.5 does Orkidi throw that pitch to Stanton in a real game, probably not. Does he care what happens, results-wise, to that pitch, or is he just trying to see if he can get it over, or if he can get some deception effect, or if he can get some timing to work against Stanton? There's a line there that's difficult to navigate, because on one hand, especially with someone

5:07like Orkidi, who does not have some solidified spot on the 2026 pirates, he's got to at least be mindful of how the results look, what the perception is. I know, you know, they're all digging into deeper metrics and analytics and all that other stuff, but still, you know, the crude line is that he's pitched five innings, he's given up six runs on six hits, a couple of walks. He's only struck out two guys, and he has a 1.6 whip, so which one is it? The last person who's going to tell you that is going to be the athlete himself. His only job in the post-game, or post-start interview setting, there's a difference in spring trading, they actually do interviews when they come out of the game, is to sell himself. He has to sell everything about what just happened.

6:07This was Orkidi last night, after his start in Tampa, to reporters covering the game, including our own Jose Negron of DK Pittsburgh Sports, on the two home runs that he gave up. Yes, I saw a couple of homers trying to attack up and away to them, they take it away, sparse, sparse the game, so he'd be going throwing strikes, I did like 30-something throws, and again, the purpose was to be there for ops, and I finished in the pen, throwing 20 throws, and I did like 55 throws, that was the plan of today. That was the plan, the man said, he even includes the work that he did in the pen, it was just just a day, it wasn't a competition, it wasn't anything serious, it was just a, this was what we set out to do today, and we did it. I don't mean to single out Orkidi, everyone's been doing this forever down there, it's just a way of life.

7:07On the other hand, when they're just blowing the ball past people, and they're making them look silly, and they get off the mound with an extra inning, one that hadn't even been part of the plan, because they were so efficient, believe me, that's what you're going to hear, afterward. How am I related? When you watch Connor Griffin at the plate, and you see him come up with bases loaded and deliver that Tomahawk double down the left field, sighed, yeah, that matters, that matters. It matters just as much as his striking out, and the previous had bat, and just as much as his grounding out in the at bat before that, his first of the night, and then striking out to end his night. He'd end up one for four, with two k's and two ribbies. You can see rather easily what makes him special, you can see rather easily that maybe they're not nuts to want him to spend a little bit of time this spring in Indianapolis.

8:12And then there's the simplest observation of all. Did you make contact? My friends, Henry Davis, who's at bats, I watched closer than anyone's other than Griffin's. He went over three with two strikeouts, he's now over 15 on the spring with three total strikeouts, two walks, and to lay your eyes on him. You see a combination of a couple of things, neither of them good. One is that upper cut is still present. I have not seen this thing that Henry has talked about, that others have talked about inside the organization. I had to talk with Henry myself when I was down there a couple of weeks ago. This leveling out of the swing that keeps it in the zone longer. Maybe it's there in the cage. Maybe it's there if he's taking reps over at Pirate City, which sometimes they do that

9:13are out of sight, but I'm seeing a bat going up at about a 30 degree angle, and I'm seeing pitches come in straight, and that doesn't give you much of a chance to do what you want to do with the barrel. Second thing, I see a lot of heavy, heavy, heavy pool. He was grounding out, bouncing out, one time nearly took out poor Tony Beasley at third base. Actually, it did take him out. Tony went down. Hard of Tony's a tough dude, he bounced back up. Tony will know better next time to the back off when Henry's up the way he's pulling. And that's just, that's not going to do it. It's not. I'm not going to sit here and play hitting coach or whatever, but I'd like to think I've covered the sport long enough to know that hitters who want, who strive, who take real steps toward getting out of slumps. If you want to call this a slump of his, I don't know how else to label it because he could hit like crazy through triple A. He just can't hit at this level.

10:18You've got to be able to use the whole field. If you're going to pull, you'd better pull like here's a name from the past. Steve Pierce used to remember Steve Pierce, those of you who are a little better older. Pierce, he would, he had one trick up his sleeve, but it was a good trick because when he hit the ball and he pulled it, it cleared fences. Henry's got to do that or he's not going to stick. I don't care what kind of teammate he is. I don't care that he's the union rep. I don't care that he's Paul Skins is best bud. He's got to be able to hit, even if it's just a wall scraper when we come back, J1Q. If you're looking for a great dining experience, look no further than North Shore Tavern, located directly across Federal Street from PNC Park next door to Mike's beer bar. North Shore Tavern is Pittsburgh's home for steak on a stone. While your steak finished on a hot lava stone in front of you, where you, in short, each

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14:04Unless Otherwise Specified, Restrictions Apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandal.com, gambling problem called 1-800-Gampler. Today's J1Q comes from Ben who says DK I was listening to a spring training game for the weekend on the radio. I tuned in to the Boston broadcast just for a different perspective, the looming labor issues with the players union came into the conversation and the broadcasters took on the tone that nothing is wrong with the current system saying things like baseball is in as good a place as it's ever been and that everyone is getting paid loads of money and with revenue sharing there's already enough money to go around. I believe it came up because at some point they referenced Bob nutting being cheap. This was incredibly frustrating to hear. How can they say stuff like that when we've all witnessed the good that a salary cap has done for the NFL and the NHL?

15:07A few things to say to this one Ben, first off, Boston being Boston, you're not going to get any sort of ground swell in any market where they're among the top spenders to have that balance out. That's just a fan being a fan. Now when it comes to an announcer, let's remember that announcers are team employees, just like Craig Brown and Joe Block and everybody else that you see in here on the Pirates broadcasts. But to take that a step further, baseball broadcasters are a little bit different because they have to be there on every day, every night, they never, ever, ever stop. It's unbelievable what they do actually for a living. They happen like all the rest of us to appreciate when somebody says something nice about the work that they do. I'm talking about the general public and when it comes to announcers specifically, not reporters,

16:09not journalists, not anything like that, when it comes to announcers, they are seen as being very good at what they do when the team wins. Here's seen as being the worst of the worst when the team loses. That's not fair. That's just life. If the human ear detects the sound of your voice and associates it with something bad, then you are bad at what you do. Whereas if you're feeling really, really good about something like, let's say for example, oh, I don't know, your baseball team winning, then trip, trip, triple sounds really clever and raise the Jolly Roger sounds great. And what amazing sharp insight everyone who is part of your broadcast team bring to us on a nightly basis.

17:10Again, that's not even ripping fans or whatever. That's just normal. That's just how it is. So whoever the broadcasters are for the Red Sox and I wouldn't know or care. These guys have a literal vested interest in the Red Sox being good. Why? Because if the Red Sox are good, they are seen as being good. If they are seen as being good, they'll be around a lot longer. If they're around a lot longer, they have more secure existences and for a select few of them and boy are these guys into this stuff, they can make it into the Hall of Fame. They love that actually. I have forever been of the opinion that there should be precious few exceptions for any announcer, reporter, journalist, anybody who's not directly involved with stuff on the field shouldn't be in any Hall of Fame. But for them, it's another key. It's another way of making that happen.

18:11Generally speaking, you don't have to be great at what you do to make it into the Hall of Fame in these categories. You just have to hang around for a really, really, really long time. Last point on this, Ben, only since you brought it up, you asked how is it that they wouldn't know about the NFL and NHL? You know what? In all honesty, baseball people, and this has nothing to do with broadcasters. This is just baseball in general. It's the most myopic sport. It has to be the most myopic sport on earth. It's 162 games smashed into six months. You don't even have time to think about other things or how they're doing stuff in the NFL or the NHL or anywhere else. It's just baseball, baseball, baseball. That's why one of the more common conversations that's had about the possible changes in the next labor agreement tend to sound like, yeah, but how do you do this?

19:14How do you include Shohei Otoni in the, how do you grant as if every other league hasn't already done this, as if there isn't already not just one roadmap, but multiple roadmaps. Well, you couldn't possibly get the big markets to go along with it. They'd never, they'd never what? You don't think the owners of the big market teams want to get even richer? Which is exactly what happens in these scenarios? Have you read an interview with Hal Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees or Steve Cohen, the owner of the Metz? Have you read what they have to say about this stuff? There is frustrated as anyone right now. I am telling you so much of this is just simple education, just simple understanding, but before long, that's not going to be possible when it comes to the players because they're already being indoctrinated into some really silly, easily disprovable nonsense from the

20:18union leadership, but whatever, we have enough time for that all of next year, I guess. I appreciate the question Ben, I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pires. Don't forget, we have a double shot of Pires coming your way today at 3pm, Eastern Time on our YouTube channel. Bringing your business dreams to life takes heart, and about a thousand decisions a day. That's why Atlantic Union Bank's knowledgeable bankers are here for you. The right guidance and customized solutions to help you reach your business goals, so whether you're planning your next move, upgrading your space, or scaling to meet demand, we make sure your business is ready for what's ahead, because we are big enough to support you, yet small enough to know you. Atlantic Union Bank, anyway, you bank. Few things are as uplifting as the greatest moments in sports, and nothing brings us together quite like Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games.

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