Mark Madden: Picking Paul Skenes was rare, easy win for pitiful Pirates
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When no single topic jumps out, refreshing sports notes are the best option. Just like the Pirates, I made the obvious choice.
• Concluding that 2 + 2 = 4 shouldn’t get you congratulated. But, regardless, be glad that the Pirates drafted pitcher Paul Skenes. They have botched simpler.
• Skenes pitched an intense 122 2/3 innings at LSU. Protecting his arm should be the primary concern for the rest of 2023. But Skenes should be in the Pirates’ rotation next season. There’s no need to “develop” Skenes. He’s big-league ready. The Pirates need to get better ASAP. The future needs to start arriving.
• Henry Davis is 17 for 71 with minimal power since being called up. His slash line is .239/.333/.324. The Pirates are 7-13 in games he’s played. Davis will likely come good. But so much for the promising youngsters being an instant fix.
• Cincinnati rookie outfielder Elly de la Cruz stole second, third and home on two pitches. He’s the kind of phenom prospect the Pirates think they have.
• How is Derek Shelton still the Pirates’ manager? He lost 100 games in each of the previous two seasons. His winning percentage in 2020, the covid season, was .317. (That translates to 111 losses over a full campaign.) The Pirates started 20-8 this year, Shelton got a contract extension via one of those manipulated Pirates feel-good moments, and he has since presided over a monumental collapse that shows no sign of abating. You know who could do a better job? Somebody else.
• Outfielder Jack Suwinski is a free swinger. Yet he has struck out looking 40 times this season, most in MLB. Not sure what that says, but it’s astounding.
• Detroit had a combined no-hitter Saturday. Starter Matt Manning was lifted after 6 2/3 innings and 91 pitches. The Tigers are 11 games under .500. The game was at Detroit. Why not see if Manning can complete the no-no? Try to give the home crowd a special moment in a meaningless season, especially when the Tigers haven’t finished above .500 since 2016. Sports, and especially baseball, stomp all over fun. Manning’s arm wouldn’t have fallen off.
• In that vein, baseball “experts” say that Los Angeles Angels phenom Shohei Ohtani will soon have to choose between pitching and hitting. Which begs the question: Why?
• Still no movement on the Penguins trading for San Jose defenseman Erik Karlsson. Perhaps, given all the needed cap machinations, it’s a deal that just can’t be made.
• Ex-Penguin Tyler Kennedy made a salient point on my radio program when he said that Karlsson and Kris Letang on the same team might equate to too many cooks, adding that it didn’t work when San Jose had Karlsson and Brent Burns, both right-handed offensive defensemen with similar skill sets. (Karlsson and Burns reportedly didn’t get along, either, which makes Karlsson going to Carolina as rumored that much less likely. Burns is currently with the Hurricanes.) That doesn’t mean the Penguins shouldn’t get Karlsson. The potential reward is worth the risk.
• Steelers training camp begins in two weeks. But what’s there to talk about that hasn’t been discussed during the entire offseason? “Gee, Kenny Pickett sure looks great!” That’s going to be said even if he doesn’t. Especially if he doesn’t.
• There are amazingly high expectations for the Steelers despite it being very likely that Pickett will be the worst quarterback in the AFC North.
• Punter Matt Araiza was drafted in the sixth round by Buffalo in 2022. He was accused of rape, then cut by the Bills. But no charges got filed. The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office said, “It is clear the evidence does not support the filing of criminal charges and there is no path to a potential criminal conviction.” But Araiza can’t get a job in the NFL despite once being called the “Punt God.” Is that justice? To be canceled via wrongful accusation?
• I finished watching “Ted Lasso.” It peaked in its first season, but was solid during its three-season run. “Ted Lasso” captured the joy and love of English football, the real bond that exists throughout a club’s network. We don’t have that in America. You think we do, but we don’t. You don’t love the Steelers. You love yourselves.
• Bob Huggins used a homophobic slur in an interview, then got a DUI in Pittsburgh. Now he says he didn’t quit as West Virginia University basketball coach and is suing. Huggins went from eccentric to pathetic in remarkably quick fashion.
• The NBA is trying an in-season tournament, something akin to English football’s FA Cup. Nobody will care. The teams won’t take it seriously. Cue load management.
• There are lots of unnecessary things in sports: The home run derby, the dunk contest, the 3-point contest, all-star games in general, women’s pro hockey, the shootout in hockey … you could go on forever. But topping that list is Wednesday’s ESPY Awards, ESPN’s annual exercise in self-congratulation. The late Norm Macdonald lampooned from within as the event’s host in 1998. He was brilliant. He also never got invited back. Maybe because Macdonald said this about Michael Jordan’s impending induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame: “He wants his plaque to bear his basketball nickname, ‘Air Jordan,’ not his baseball nickname, ‘Senor Crappy.’”
Source: TribLIVE
