Double jeopardy outings for Pirates and Penguins
Istarted my evening sports entertainment Tuesday night by watching PiratesReds at 6:40. I didn’t expect much from the poor, pathetic Pirates and received a lot less. The Reds led, 5-0, in the second inning. Game over, just like that.
No worries, right? Penguins-Rangers came on at
7. I switched channels and settled in for a good hockey game at Madison Square Garden. I really looked forward to this one, two hot teams going at in the world’s most famous arena, the Penguins fighting for first place in the East Division, the Rangers fighting just to finish fourth and make the playoffs.
The Rangers led, 3-0, by 7:30.
I should have watched “Jeopardy.”
Did you know Aaron Rodgers was the guest host? Say this about him: He is better running the popular game show than the late, great Alex Trebek ever was
throwing a football.
I’m not sure Rodgers couldn’t play baseball better than the Pirates did on this rotten night and hockey better than the Penguins did.
I’m sorry to say I stuck with the hockey game and watched it to the bitter end. Well, that’s not quite true. I did change back to the Pirates game after the second period of hockey, but it was, 14-1, Reds, in the seventh inning. That’s how it ended at Great American Ballpark. The Pirates are 14, well on their way to 100 losses. And they couldn’t even blame Gregory Polanco – he of the $11.6 million salary and the .071 batting average with six strikeouts in 14 at-bats -- for this nightmare. He didn’t play.
The third period of Penguins-Rangers was just as brutal. The Rangers ended up winning, 8-4. The loss followed the Penguins’ 7-5 loss in Boston Sunday afternoon. That’s the first time they gave up 7-plus goals in consecutive games in 27 years.
Damn, why didn’t I switch to “NCIS” at 8?
“It’s unacceptable,” Jared McCann said of the Penguins’ performance. “It just looks like we’re kind of lost.”
Lost and beaten almost beyond recognition in those two games, actually.
Mike Sullivan sounded as if he wished he could have tuned out the hockey and turned on “Hemingway” on PBS.
How can you blame Sullivan after what happened to his team on the Midtown Manhattan ice?
The Rangers scored their eight goals on 25 shots. They needed just 95 seconds to take the lead for good with a goal by Colin Blackwell. Tristan Jarry was benched for Casey DeSmith after the first period. The Penguins gave up three power-play goals, the second with just 17.7 seconds left in the opening period. They also gave up a short-handed goal. As if the Rangers weren’t scoring easily enough, John Marino put a puck in his own net and deflections off Mike Matheson and Kris Letang led to two more goals.
Who saw these past two games coming? The Penguins gave up a total of 15 goals in their nine games before the game Sunday in Boston. And now they give up 15 in two games?
“These are hard ones, you know, because they sting, because we’ve got a proud group,” Sullivan said.
“We’ve got to make sure we grab ahold of this thing as quickly as we can. We’ve got to do a better job at team defense and collective effort. We know we’re capable. We’ve shown it.”
The Penguins’ next game is against the Rangers again Thursday night at the Garden. I expect a pushback from the Penguins. At the very least, I don’t think they’ll give up another touchdown.
The Pirates play the Reds Wednesday afternoon to close out their threegame series. I’m hopeful for a better effort from the Pirates. At the very least, I don’t think they’ll give up two touchdowns again.
Maybe even Polanco will get a hit.