A No Football Weekend

No Pitt football yesterday, no Steelers football today.  Talk about a lost weekend, but it prompts some Random Thoughts from The Grandstander.....

At the beginning of the season, you would certainly signed up for a 6-2 first half of the season from the Steelers, although you would have never predicted that those two losses would be to the Bears and the Jaguars.  Still, with five of the remaining games at home, the schedule looks to be much in the Steelers favor, to the extent that a twelve win season looks to be attainable.

One thing that needs to be reversed in this second half is better, and I hate to use this term, Red Zone Production.  How many times have the Steelers been in First and Goal situations and have had to settle for field goals instead of touchdowns?  Seems like about a million times, right?  That trend really needs to change.

I am also concerned about Ben Roethlisberger's performance this year.  It's not that he's been bad (throw out that freak five interception game aberration against Jacksonville), but he has just appeared to be just a bit "off" from his past seasons' capabilities.  One can hope that he can shake it off, but there is a fine line between being great and being ordinary, and perhaps at age 35 and in his 14th NFL season, Ben has come up to that line.  He spoke of retirement after last season, and maybe the end is coming.  Steelers fans can hope that both he and the team can summon in all up over these last eight games and make a run to the Super Bowl, which I predicted and I will stand by that prediction here at the halfway mark.

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Pitt now sits at 4-6 and needs to go 2-1 (North Carolina, @Virginia Tech, Miami) in order to go 6-6 and be bowl eligible.  Personally, at this point in the Narduzzi Era, I was hoping for more than merely scraping to go 6-6 and getting an invitation to some WhoCares Bowl.  I was also disappointed to see that Pat Narduzzi found it necessary to take a shot via Twitter last week after Penn State's loss to Ohio State last week.  Seems that HCPN should be tending to his own team, and at least contending for the championship of his own conference  before engaging in such schoolyard behavior.

As for that bowl eligibility, I see a win over NorthCarolina and loss to Virginia Tech.  It will all come down to that final home game against currently undefeated Miami.  I'm thinking that Pitt does not go bowling this year.  There goes those vitally important 15 extra practice sessions that coached love so much.

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Speaking of boorish behavior among coaches, Penn State got dealt a dose of humility with its second consecutive loss yesterday, this time to Michigan State.  I see in the paper this morning that James Franklin stated that perhaps his team was too concerned with things like national rankings and getting into the College Football Playoffs, and that maybe they weren't "mature enough" to handle things.  Since he, Franklin, was foremost in voicing such opinions, I hope that he was including himself among those not being mature enough to handle it, but he probably wasn't.

Franklin has convinced me that he is a pretty good football coach, but like many such coaches, he's not an easy guy to like, unless he coaches "your" team.  As such, not a lot of people outside of central Pennsylvania are going to feel too bad about this sudden two game losing streak for Franklin's Lions.

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And speaking of unlikeable coaches, how about Urban Meyer and  Ohio State getting pasted in Iowa yesterday?  With this second loss of the season, this should take Ohio State out of any talk of being one of the four teams in the CFP this year.   The Committee seemed to automatically include Ohio State int e Playoff last year, and that was wrong (and, yes, the team that should have been there was Penn State).  It is not Ohio State's birthright to be there, and it looks like they won't be this year.  Although, I guess that the Buckeyes could still win the Big Ten Championship, so who knows?

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Right now it appears that all signs are pointing to the SEC Championship Game, most likely between Alabama and Georgia, as the Game of the Year.  Both are undefeated and are ranked 1 and 2.  Unless that game is a rout for the winner, it is likely that both teams will make the CFP, and a rematch will be possible in the playoffs.  That never usually works out well.

Congratulations, Astros!

Earlier this morning, at 12:27 AM to be precise, I, The Grandstander, went LIVE!! on Facebook (channelling my inner Antonio Brown) to give my immediate thoughts on the Astros 5-1 Game 7 win last night.  You can find it on my Facebook timeline if you missed it and if you are interested.  Having done that, let me just give some final thoughts on the 2017 World Series and MLB Post-Season.

• It was a terrific Series.  Certainly one of the best and most exciting ones in my lifetime.  The Astros victory was well deserved and well earned.
• I was rooting for the Astros in the Series for many reasons, but one reason that I am glad it happened was that it will assure that that crazy and memorable Game 5 extra innings win will remain in memory as perhaps the best and most exciting baseball games ever.  Certainly in the Top Three to Five of such contests.  Ad the Astros lost the Series, it would soon have receded to just an interesting footnote in baseball history.
• For the most part, the Series included spectacular flame outs by the bullpens of both teams, and Houston manager AJ Hinch seemed to lose confidence in most if not all of his relievers.  But you manage a bullpen differently in a Game 7, and Hinch's use of season long relievers early, and starter Charlie Morton late in the game last night worked to perfection.
• Speaking of Hinch, throughout this entire post season, which included two Games Seven, Hinch at all times seemed to be the calmest man in the ball park, and Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts wasn't far behind him.  I can only imagine how many packs of cigarettes Jim Leyland would have gone through in just that fifth game, let alone the entire Series.
• And speaking of Charlie Morton, beginning in that Game Seven against the Yankees in the ALCS, and that four inning relief job in Game Seven of the WS, I found myself  rooting for him and being unbelievably, inexplicably happy for him.

• In seven seasons with the Pirates, Morton went 41-62 with a 4.41 ERA and a 1.427 WHIP.  While he showed signs at times of being a good pitcher, he was a general disappointment, and there was no hue and cry of disappointment when he was traded after the 2015 season to Philadelphia (for David Whitehead, and whatever happened to him?).  However, he always came across as a good guy, and he ran into hard luck (nine trips to the DL over the years), and I confess to being completely unaware to his resurgence with the Astros this season (14-7, 3.62).  When I saw him start Game 7 against the Yankees, I just wanted him to win, and seeing him go four innings and being on the mound to get the 27th out last night, well, it just felt good.  I can't explain it.
• Speaking of relief pitchers and Dave Roberts, I wonder how many people in LA are asking, "Why didn't Clayton Kershaw start Game Seven?"  I know that hindsight is 20/20, but when you saw what Kershaw did in relief last night, and when you know there was no "next game" until next April, and if this guy is supposed to be the "next Koufax", well, it's a question that has to be asked.
• And on the subject of ex-Pirates, it needs to be noted that Tony Watson was the winning pitcher in two of the Dodgers three wins.  And Francisco Liriano also pitched in Game Seven for the winning Astros.
• Jose Altuve is a great player, no question about it, but the ballplayer with whom I was most impressed throughout this Post Season was Astros outfielder George Springer.

• We all know what he did in the Series: five home runs, and every one of them seemed to be critical ones.  He also impressed me as a fabulous outfielder, and, yes, he did make one bad mistake in judgment in that fifth game out there in center field, but, man, do I wish he played for the Pirates.  The Series MVP is my newest baseball Mancrush.
• The television coverage of the WS by Fox was great, and, yes, I am including Joe Buck in that evaluation, despite the fact that at one point he made the serious grammatical error when he said "between the three of them..."  Color analyst John Smoltz was positively terrific,  maybe the best there is right now, and I can even forgive him for reminding us on more that one occasion that during his career he was called upon to start in three different Games Seven.  If I had something like that on my resume, I'd drop it onto the conversation as often as I could.

I will end his post by stealing from pal Joe Risacher an observation that he made on Facebook late last night.  One could - could -  say that in 2015, after winning 98 games, the Pirates and the Astros were in the same relative positions, baseball-wise. After that season, the Pirates elected to, if not blow up, then certainly not build upon that season's success.  The Astros continued to build and when the opportunity came two seasons later to really "go for it", the Astros did, spent money (the Justin Verlander deal being the most obvious example, but there were others), and today they are World Series Champions.  The Pirates are coming off of back-to-back losing seasons.  Too simplistic a comparison?  Perhaps, but it is hard not to draw some very bad conclusions if you are a Bucco fan.

It was a really bad year for the City of Houston, Texas.  I am glad that they now have the chance to celebrate their baseball team.

That Crazy Game 5

If you missed that Game Five of this year's World Series last night, and chances are you did if you live east of the Mississippi and had to get up for work or school on Monday morning, here's how it played out:

• It was 4-0 Dodgers in the top of the fourth inning with Clayton Kershaw pitching.
• It was 4-4 in the bottom of the fourth.
• It was 7-4 Dodgers in the top of the fifth.
• It was 7-7 in the bottom of the fifth.
• It was 8-7 Dodgers in the top of the seventh.
• It was It was 11-8 Astros in the bottom of the seventh.
• It was 11-9 in the top of the eighth.
• It was 12-9 in the bottom of the eighth.
• It was 12-12 in the top of the ninth.
• Astros walk-off 13-12 in the bottom of the tenth.
• The Astros hit five home runs, the Dodgers hit two.
• Perhaps the best player on either team, George Springer, made a bonehead play in the outfield that caused the Dodgers to take the lead in the seventh inning.
• Springer then led off the bottom of the seventh  by hitting the first pitch he saw about nine miles for a home run that tied the game, and sparked a four run rally for the Astros.
• Each team used seven pitchers.  
• Each team started it's best pitcher.  Kershaw was knocked out of the game in the fifth inning.  Dallas Keuchel was knocked out in the fourth.
• Each team's bullpen was abominable.
• The game lasted 5 hours and 17 minutes, and ended at close to 1:30 AM in the East.

It was a game that took too long to play, that featured marginal to awful pitching, that featured some glaring mistakes by the managers, and it just may well have been the most exciting and dramatic sporting event, not just the most exciting and dramatic baseball game, that I have seen in, I don't know, ten years, twenty years?  Name me something comparable.  I'm willing to listen and argue the point with you.  

And this Game Five comes four days after an eleven inning 7-6 Astros win in Game Two that was similarly exciting and almost epic, but Game Five topped it in spades.

Me, I was watching the Steelers game and switching the the baseball game during commercials.  I did see the Jose Altuve three-run homer that tied it at 7-7 in the fifth inning.  The Steelers game ended at around 11:30 or so, and I then switched to the Series game, which by then was only at the end of the sixth inning.  Little did I realize what was to come over the next two or so hours.  As I said, it may have been the most compelling and dramatic baseball game ever, considering what was at stake.

Just how this game will sit in the pantheon of All-Time Great Games will depend on who ends up winning the World Series. If Houston prevails, then this one becomes one of the Top Two to Five games ever.  If the Dodgers win, then Game Five becomes an interesting historical footnote with each passing year.

So, how does it end?  The Series now goes back to LA with Houston up 3-2 and Justin Verlander pitching for them.  You have to like their chances, and given how the Astros bullpen has been, I am guessing that AJ Hinch will make him pitch until his arm falls off.  I like Houston's chances in Game Six, but if it goes to a seventh game, well, I had called for the Dodgers in seven at the outset, so I guess that I will stand by that.

Regardless of how it ends up, these two teams have thus far, given us a World Series for the ages.

The Caring Place Turns 20

Marilyn and I had the honor and pleasure of attending an Event at Penn Avenue Place (the old Horne's Department Store building for all of you old-timers out there) this past Wednesday evening wherein Highmark celebrated the Highmark Caring Place's twentieth anniversary of serving the needs of grieving children and their families in Western Pennsylvania.

Regular readers know of my connection to and feelings about the Caring Place, so I will not restate them here, but it was so nice to be guest at this event and share time with the CP staff members and other volunteers.  The evening was in large part, and most deservedly so, a tribute to the man who started the Caring Foundation back in the late 1980's and also began the Caring Place, Charlie LaVallee.

When I worked at the Blues, it was not a part of my job to interact with Charlie on a regular basis, but when I did, I knew that I was dealing with a man who was truly one of "the good guys".  The Caring Place would not exist without the vision and the efforts of Charlie LaVallee, and the tribute that he received on Wednesday was well earned and deserved.

Charlie serves today as Chairman of Variety, The Children's Charity, and in that role he continues to serve the needs of the less fortunate, particularly children, among us.  I am proud to call him a friend.

On another note, it was kind off strange to go into the building, and actually be on the same floor where I spent the last eleven years of my working career.  Can't quite describe the feeling.  I was also happy to chat that evening with Deb Rice-Johnson.  Today, Deb serves as President of Highmark Health, and, as such, is one of the more prominent women in business in Pennsylvania.  Once upon a time however, she was one of my Directors.  I had not seen Deb in five or six years, and I was delighted to find her to be as gracious as ever to this old co-worker of hers.

Congratulations to the Highmark Caring Place for twenty years of service to this community.  I am so honored to be a small part of its mission.

Movie Review: "Suburbicon"

In terms of pedigree, "Suburbicon" has everything going for it.  Produced and written by the Coen Brothers, directed by George Clooney (who co-produced and co-wrote it as well), and a couple of attractive stars in Matt Damon, Julianne More, and Oscar Isaac, this is a flick that had "I can't wait to see it" written all over it.

Let me get right to the point.  This is one of the most unpleasant movies that I have seen in a long, long time.  And I knew ten minutes into it that it was going to be that way.  If I was watching this on television at home, rather than having spent my own greenbacks at the theater, I'd have quickly grabbed the remote and switched to HGTV.

The movie starts as a satire on suburban conformity in the 1950's, takes a turn as a commentary on racial prejudices of that same era (which sadly, still exist out there today), then takes an even sharper turn into home invasion, infidelity, murder for hire, and insurance fraud.  Any single one of these trails could have produced a good and entertaining flick, but the way this one was put together produced something that was all together completely unpleasant.  Yes, that is the second time that I have used that word to describe this one, but it is the most effective one that I can come up with to summarize this movie.

This movie has produced some advance buzz among the film festival crowd and critics, probably due to that aforementioned pedigree, and while I have seen no reviews as yet, critics will no doubt rave about the acting, writing, cinematography, editing and its other technical aspects, and they may well be correct, but when it all adds up to a totally, and here's that word again, folks, unpleasant viewing experience, that makes it a bad movie in my book.

I'll give this movie one star, solely for the performance of Julianne Moore, and solely for one specific scene when she is being interviewed by insurance investigator Isaac.

Save your money and skip this one, folks.  Don't even spend a buck and a half when this one comes to the Redbox.

Speaking of Sports....

It's been awhile since I've commented on the sporting scene, so let's play a little catch-up, shall we.....

Two weeks ago, the Steelers lost, badly so, to the Jax Jaguars, and were headed on the road to play the undefeated KayCee Chiefs.  It was looking grim, and a poor performance against the Chiefs could have sent the Steelers season in the wrong direction.  

What followed was convincing win against the Chiefs, and that was then followed with an even more convincing win over the Cincinnati Bengals.  Not coincidentally, both wins featured strong performances by this guy...

Le'Veon Bell

....who may very well be the best running back in the NFL.  Bell has shown knucklehead tendencies in the past, but it cannot be disputed just how good he is.

Both of these past two Steelers wins have also been highlighted by strong defensive performances, and now, just two weeks after that woeful game against the Jags, the team appears to be one of the strongest in the NFL.  Of concern, however, is the Steelers mystifying inability to turn First and Goal opportunities into touchdowns and settling for field goals instead.  It hasn't hurt them too much so far, but there will come a time, against a strong opponent, when I fear that that deficiency will bite them in the posterior.  Until then, though, let's enjoy the ride.

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Is there anything that can cure Steelers Sluggishness more that playing against the Cincy Bengals?  Once again, the Bengals turned into the Bungles when playing the Steelers yesterday.  At no time was this more apparent than at the end of the first half.  The Steelers have the ball inside their own twenty-five yard line, under two minutes to play, and only one time out.  What happens? A Bengals penalty for having twelve men on the field gives the Steelers a crucial first down, and that was then followed up by a forty yard pass interference penalty that gave the Steelers the ball on the Bengals five yard line.  And all of that was followed by a Bengal second half where Andy Dalton and his mates redefined the term "hapless".

As I have often said, Death, Taxes, and Unbelievable Screw-ups by the Cincy Bengals.  Three absolutes in life.

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Two weeks ago, I sat in Heinz Field and watched Pitt get thoroughly beaten by North Carolina State and fall to 2-4.  Really, there was nothing positive to take from that game.  Poor line play, which led to no running game and inept quarterback play.  It was discussed among my ticket group that it was possible that the Panthers might not win another game all season.

What happens?  Pitt travels to Duke and lays a beat down on the Blue Devils, a win that featured a 200+ yard rushing performance from Darrin Hall.  Go figure.

Pitt now has to go 3-2 the rest of the way to become bowl eligible.  Can they do it?  I suppose it is possible, but I give it a less than 50/50 chance unless some spark is lit at the quarterback position.  Makes you realize how good a college QB Nate Peterman was.

Anyway, bowl eligibility now becomes the Panther goal, but how good are you really going to feel about a 6-6 season?

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The World Series begins tomorrow night!  Once the premier sporting event in all of America, the World Series is still a pretty big deal to me, and this year's battle between the Dodgers....

Dodgers defeat Cubs

and Astros....

Astros defeat Yankees

certainly has the possibility to be an exciting one.  

Both teams won over 100 games, and the Dodgers, save for an inexplicable 20 for so game stretch game in late August, steamrolled through the regular season and the NL Playoffs.  Likewise, the Astros blew through the AL West in the regular season, and won a thrilling LCS in seven games over the Yankees.

(Before I go on, a word about the Yankees.  They are young and they are good, and unlike Yankees teams from the George Steinbrenner/Billy Martin Era, they are hard not to like. [With the exception of Aroldis Chapman; I can't see myself ever liking him.] With guys like Judge, Bird, Sanchez, and Severino, they have the makings of a team that we shall be seeing in the post-season for years to come.  They also have a really good manager in Joe Girardi. They'll be back.)

The Astros and Dodgers.  Both teams have terrific starting pitching and terrific hitting.  Both have deep benches.  The Dodgers have an absolutely unbelievable bullpen, and that is where I give them a significant edge over the Astros.  The Astros, given the depths that the team was in earlier in the decade, and given what the City of Houston has experienced this past summer, will be the easier team for which to root, but I think that the bullpen will be the edge that will give the Dodgers the ultimate victory.

In my Pirates preview post of April 2, 2017 (you can look it up), I ended with the following sentence:

The Los Angles Dodgers will defeat the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.

Okay, I had the AL team wrong, but I will stay with that original sentiment and call it a Dodgers win in seven games.  As always, watch but don't bet.

Opening Day of the Hot Stove League

We don't yet know who will be playing in this year's World Series, but that is not going to stop The Grandstander with making his first post of the 2017-18 Hot Stove League.

You are probably wondering what or who will be the subject of this initial missive, and if I gave you ten guesses, I'll bet that you will not guess who that subject is going to be.

Are you ready?

Max Moroff.  

Yep, you're reading that correctly.  I am going to write about Max Moroff.

Max gets his first game winning walk off hit in

a game against the Brewers in July.

I was there!!

You can go back through Grandstander posts from this past summer and find me railing against the presence of Moroff and his sub-.100 batting average as a sign of the pathetic nature of the 2017 Pirates.  In fact, Moroff finished the season with a batting average of .200, an OPS of .627, 3 home runs and 21 RBI in 120 at bats.  Pathetic, right?  However, if you slice and dice Moroff's rookie season, a positive pattern emerges, as illustrated below.

	AB	Runs	Hits	Home Runs	RBI	BA	OPS
Season	120	19	24	3	21	0.200	0.627
May	9	0	1	0	1	0.111	0.222
June	22	3	2	0	3	0.091	0.386
July	30	3	5	1	3	0.167	0.509
August	9	2	3	1	2	0.333	1.067
September	47	9	12	1	8	0.255	0.756
October	3	2	1	0	5	0.333	1.267
Pre All Star Break	48	4	4	0	4	0.083	0.301
Post All Star Break	72	15	20	3	17	0.278	0.846

As the season wore on, and as Moroff got more playing time and at bats, there was as steady improvement in his production, and this is even more apparent when you break it down to the periods Before and After the All-Star Break.  Three HR and 17 RBI over 72 AB is pretty significant.  By comparison, a player to whom Moroff might be compared, Adam Frazier, had 6 HR and 53 RBI in 406 AB during the entire season.  If you would project Moroff's post All-Star break numbers over 406 AB, they come out to 17 HR and 96 RBI.  (Even those HR/RBI over 120 AB, projects out to 13 HR and 88 RBI over 500 AB.)  And Moroff's post All-Star break OPS was .846 compared to Frazier's season long .743.

I know, I know - BELIEVE ME, I know - that a 120 AB season simply screams "small sample size", but in a season where the Pirates gave us lots and lots to, justifiably, bitch and moan about, maybe, just maybe there is more to Max Moroff that we first realized.  

We don't know what the Pirates are going to do this off-season, but would anyone be surprised of the Pirates front office decides that both Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer have become too expensive for the penny-pinching Pirates?  In 2017, it seemed that Adam Frazier has earned the right to take the place of Harrison at second base, and a closer look at how Moroff progressed as the season went along shows that he has certainly earned the right to be first in line among whoever Mercer's replacement might be.  No, I am not proclaiming him the to be the next Arky Vaughn, or even the next Gene Alley, Jackie Hernandez, Tim Foli, or Dale Berra, but he has earned the right to not be dismissed out of hand, as many, including Yours Truly, was doing last June and July.