NESN Red Sox announcer Dennis Eckersley torches Pittsburgh Pirates calling the team ‘pathetic’
Tuesday night’s broadcast of the Boston Red Sox visiting the Pittsburgh Pirates quickly turned into a roast session of the home team.
On the Red Sox broadcast of the game on NESN, color commentator Dennis Eckersley started to lay into the struggling Pirates calling them ‘pathetic’ among other things.
Pittsburgh is bound for their fourth straight losing season and will miss out on the playoffs for the seventh straight season.
Eckersley, a Hall of Famer wrapping up his final season in a broadcast booth, did not hold back when talking about a team that has the third lowest payroll in the league and the fourth worst record in baseball.
‘You talk about a no-name lineup… there’s no team like this,’ Eckersley said in the bottom of the second inning.
‘(You) love to see some of the service time, you add it all up, it’s not much. Ya know (we) just came from Kansas City seeing all those young kids… this is different though. Doesn’t it seem different? They have a lot of prospects they’re playing over there.’
Eckersley’s play-by-play partner Dave O’Brien agreed, saying the Royals were playing, ‘serious prospects… guys who are gonna be in the big leagues.’
‘This is a hodgepodge of nothingness,’ Eckersley said.
The topic of the spending on the roster came up, with O’Brien saying, ‘They have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, last year they were actually 30th.’
A scoffing Eckersley replied, ‘It’s ridiculous. It really is. Pathetic.’
They moved on to talking about the Pirates farm system being rebuilt under former Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington, who built the 2013 team that won Boston its eighth World Series title.
‘Yeah tell me they have a great farm system, tell me they do,’ Eckersley pleaded.
While this may seem ill-spirited, the former World Series, MVP, and Cy Young winner echoed a sentiment shared by many Pirates fans.
So much so that a Pittsburgh-based clothing company already put his ‘hodgepodge’ quote on a t-shirt.
Pirates fans are not happy with the direction of the team these last few seasons
