Altoona Mirror, October 1, 2017

The Pirates drop the curtain on a second straight disappointing season today, one that keeps them south of .500 again.
Culprits abound, but the biggest reason the Pirates were a non-factor was their offense.
Some of the young starting pitchers sputtered on fumes at the end, but they weren't the problem. In fact, they offered hope.
The bullpen had to be rebuilt with significant changes made on the fly, but that settled down, too.
Truth be told, though, the young pitching is a significant asset, both for trying to build a contender and to have as trading stock to fill other holes.
As noted here previously in detail, the Pirates got no better than 50 percent production from the projected 2-3-4-5 spots in their batting order. That's going to lead to a lot of dreary nights, and the Pirates had them in abundance.
Starling Marte will be better. Gregory Polanco had better be. There's still some life in Andrew McCutchen, and there's still a year on his contract. If Jung Ho Kang can't make it, the Pirates need to find a legitimate replacement.
This is not a "blow it up and start all over" proposition.
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--THREE THOUGHTS ON THE PIRATES
Three other things on the Pirates:
--Two questions (with answers provided):
1. Should the Pirates pick up McCutchen's 2018 option at $14.5 million?
Yes.
2. Should they sign McCutchen beyond 2018? No.
--Here's how long a baseball season is: Remember when Gift Ngoepe reaching the major leagues was a big deal?
--As AT&T SportsNet searches for a new analyst to replace the retiring Kent Tekulve on Pirates broadcasts, there's one contemporary name who might be interested.
Jason Grilli bought a house in the leafy green northern suburbs with the idea of landing some broadcast work here after his pitching career ended.
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--OFFENSIVE PENALTY
Because there are 800 or so college football games being broadcast by someone every Saturday, the depth of the announcer pool gets tested.
Former NFL player Takeo Spikes was the analyst on the ACC Network's Rice at Pitt. Spikes may not be the biggest name, but he's not as anonymous as some of the guys working the games from the lower part of the barrel.
Thanks to technology, any announcer willing to make the effort can pretty well get caught up on whatever team he might be covering. Then there are those late-week meetings with the coaching staffs, which get constantly referenced throughout the broadcast.
But in one cringe-inducing click-by caught on Saturday, football wasn't the issue with Spikes. English was.
He managed to combine a "has ran" and "have went," a 1-2 that should have gotten him detention in the classroom instead of a job in broadcasting.
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--STEELERS STUMBLE
A lot of people (including my cousin Mike in Texas) took last Sunday's loss in Chicago as more evidence of a Mike Tomlin-coached Steelers team losing to an inferior opponent.
Could be. But three games in, Le'Veon Bell, Martavis Bryant and Ben Roethlisberger have not been playing at levels less than expected from them.
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--SO LONG, TEKE
Enjoy your new life, Kent Tekulve.
When a guy is 70 and a transplanted heart is giving him a precious second chance, he doesn't need to be sitting around a TV studio at midnight waiting out the rain-delayed finish of an 11-2 game that everyone else has abandoned.
(John Mehno can be reached at: johnmehnocolumn@gmail.com)