Johnnyt_27

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

@HawkEmDownChris Doug Gwosdz, former padre

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

@FlyingAsianCard 215 total

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

The Pirates’ last three playoff games (and the opposing starters’ lines in those starts) were:

• October 9, 2013, NLDS Game 5 at St. Louis: Adam Wainwright, complete game (9 innings) in a 6–1 Cardinals win.

• October 1, 2014, NL Wild Card vs. San Francisco: Madison Bumgarner, complete-game shutout (9 innings, 10 strikeouts) in an 8–0 Giants win.

• October 7, 2015, NL Wild Card vs. Chicago: Jake Arrieta, complete-game shutout (9 innings, 11 strikeouts) in a 4–0 Cubs win.

Each opposing starter went 9 innings (27 combined). Those remain the Pirates’ most recent postseason games.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

@TheChadWithrow 7 game series we beat the cubs or giants or at least take them the distance.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

@TheChadWithrow This. Was just watching the nhl. Every round should be seven games and if you can’t do it shrink the field to 4 teams per side and make it 7 games all the way. Can’t play 162 and decide it over 3 games without giving each team a home game.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

@TheChadWithrow I lived it in Pittsburgh with the one game wild card and losing because the other team had an unstoppable force (arietta/bumgarner) pirates won 98 games and had to go to a 1 game playoff against a pitcher with a sub 1 ERA in a one game playoff. @mlb needs to do better

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

This “Update 2” is just EA admitting NHL 27 shipped half-finished. Two weeks after launch and the notes are still crash after crash, desyncs, twitching arms, clipped masks, missing overlays, and a laundry list of HUT menu bugs. Then they pad it with ECHL fourth jerseys and Swiss league unis like that’s what people have been asking for.

Connected Franchise still isn’t a franchise. No draft, no aging, no CPU teams, no real long-term league. Just more commissioner tool band-aids and “Fill Lines put a D-man at wing.” That’s not iteration. That’s mopping up a mode they knew wasn’t ready.

Tuning boarding and charging is fine. Fixing AFK in Ones is fine. None of that changes the fact that the biggest feature of the year still feels like a beta, and the “content” is center-ice logos plus store/auction house cleanup.

If this is the post-launch plan, they’re not building the game. They’re just slowly turning the lights on.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

#Parlay #MNF

This is a 4-leg construction that leans on Philly’s edge vs. a backup QB

• Eagles moneyline
• Under 44.5 (or the listed 41.5 if you want more juice)
• Saquon Barkley anytime touchdown
• Jalen Hurts over 24.5 rushing yards (or the closest current line)

Why these legs fit together:

Keenum hasn’t started a regular-season game since 2023, so many expect Philly to control the game and keep the score relatively modest. Barkley is healthy after last week’s stinger and faces a Bears run defense that has been leaky. Hurts has been used as a runner and often picks up extra yards when the pocket collapses.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

Both.

EA did not secretly nerf defense. They sold the opposite: better stick-on-stick collision, cleaner timed pokes, fewer accidental trips, and a bigger speed tax if you spam L2 pivots. Reviews and a chunk of the player base actually agree that a well-timed poke is more useful than it was last year.

The “puck flies back like it forgot its wallet” bit is the part they did not fix. That is old NHL physics: possession ratings + animation blending + a conservative turnover model. The game would rather look a little cartoonish than turn every successful poke into an odd-man rush. High hands/puck control still acts like a magnet. You knock it loose, the engine decides the carrier “should” still have it, and it snaps home.

The other half of the joke is the community. A lot of people are still mashing R1 from two stick lengths away and calling it IQ. That has never been hockey. A poke is a six-inch stab when the puck is off the blade, after you’ve already won the gap. Spam it and you get beaten, tripped, or watch the puck bounce back because you never actually isolated it.

So: EA buffed the input and left the puck sticky. Players still treat R1 like a panic button. The result is comedy. The fix is the same as real hockey: tighter gap, shorter poke, then finish the play with your body or a teammate instead of hoping the physics department hands you the puck.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

@TheBigWinMike @pritchettdavid @TheClapperton Fair, but let’s be direct. NHL 27 is not a new hockey game. It’s last year’s game with better buildings, a few AI tweaks, and the same movement layer underneath.

Skating, stick work, and the basic animations are still the problem. Strides don’t look right. Stick handling still pops. Players still eat passes on the backhand. Bodies and sticks still pass through each other. That is not a small polish issue. That is the core of the sport looking dated.

Presentation upgrades do not cover that. We deserve better than another year of the same engine doing the same motions. NHL 28 needs a real animation and movement rebuild, not another pass on systems that already feel maxed out.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

@ch4655 Oh and I forgot, fix the OT celebration when the winning goalie comes off of the bench to join the celebration with no stick.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

Brother you said “two things” and then listed four. That’s the most NHL-fan energy possible lol.

Outside arena shots: fair. They used to do them, then quietly dropped them because the models and lighting couldn’t survive a wide shot. 27 just spent a year selling “The Orchestrator” and rebuilt interiors. Don’t hold your breath that they immediately go back outside and show you the parking lot.

Game-day specific scoreboards (Wednesday Hockey Night etc.): also fair. Other sports games have done branded night packages for years. EA will slap a graphic on the jumbotron for 8 teams and call it a feature.

Better Game Faces: this one is the killer. They’ve been bad for a decade. 27’s faces got roasted on release and some star players still look like melted action figures. Until they actually rescan the league instead of stretching last-gen heads, “better faces” is just the annual cope.

New win animation: they’ve been recycling the same handshake/hug/skate-around package since roughly NHL 19. People have been begging for a new one every single year. If they change it in 28 it’ll be two extra fist bumps and they’ll market it like they invented celebration.

All four requests are reasonable. None of them require a new engine. That’s why they’ll probably do one of them poorly and sell you the other three as “coming in a future update.”

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

Delete real-money packs.

Not “make odds better.” Not “add more free packs.” Kill the store.

If you want a 90, you play. You grind. You trade. You lose. That’s it.

HUT isn’t a hockey mode anymore, it’s a slot machine wearing a jersey. The second people can swipe for a better team, matchmaking is fake, “skill” is fake, and every gameplay complaint is just cope for “I didn’t get lucky.”

Servers, goalies, cheese, all of that matters less than this: the game is designed so the guy with the credit card starts 3 goals up.

You get one button. Use it on the actual problem. Everything else is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

Servers.
You didn’t suddenly become elite after 5 wins and you didn’t suddenly become washed after 1 loss. Your connection just decided whether the puck existed that period.

Goalies are a scapegoat. EA is the landlord. The servers are the guy who keeps turning the ice into oatmeal at 2-1 in the third.

Blame that first. Everything else is aight.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

Yep - 82 Ales Hemsky is still on my first line and I’m not moving him.

Meta guys can keep yelling about Forsberg and Modano. Hemsky still glides, still finds the seam, still makes my free Celebrini line actually work. Every time I try to swap him I immediately miss the hands.

Hate it all you want. He’s not leaving.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

Wow. 70 straight games of 7 or fewer in the 1st quarter. The Steelers offense treats the opening 15 minutes like a museum exhibit — look, don’t touch, definitely don’t score. At this point the first quarter is just an expensive warmup for Chris Boswell. Historic incompetence has never been this consistent. #HereWeGoNowhere

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

Survivors
Konnor Griffin, 20, was the brightest light — called up April 2, then a four-hit game Friday that helped Pittsburgh claw back to .500. Brandon Lowe has 32 homers and has said he’s “all ears” about returning as a free agent. Bryan Reynolds remained a steady presence. The young core is still here. The winning season, if it happens, would be the first in eight years. That is the kindest possible last line.

In lieu of flowers, the organization is accepting another offseason of “we’re close.” Services will be held at PNC Park through Sept. 27, then in the usual places: talk radio, comment sections, and next spring’s press conferences.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

The 2026 Pirates season just ended its playoff hopes. I’ll pull the key results and storylines so the recap matches what actually happened.

Obituary: The 2026 Pittsburgh Pirates season

The 2026 Pittsburgh Pirates season died of familiar causes on Sept. 18, when the Padres beat the Marlins and officially eliminated Pittsburgh from National League wild-card contention with eight games still to play.

[Johnnyt_27 @TwaddlingAlong]

Cause of death
The bullpen was the main killer. Early blown leads and lost winnable games left the team with no margin when the summer got hard. Injuries then piled on: rookie shortstop Konnor Griffin and Oneil Cruz each missed about two months; Spencer Horwitz, Ryan O’Hearn, Endy Rodríguez, and starters including Mitch Keller and Jared Jones also spent significant time on the IL.

Paul Skenes, the 2025 NL Cy Young winner, was not the same pitcher. He is 10-11 with a 3.91 ERA in 168 innings and 192 strikeouts — still useful, but a clear step down from 1.97 ERA the year before. Velocity and command both slipped. The team lost a stretch of his starts in a row at one point.

A midseason slump dropped them as far as six games under .500. They recovered enough to get back to .500 and set a club homer record (172), but the hole was already too deep. Deadline bullpen additions arrived after a 5-15 stretch. Trade-deadline choices are already being second-guessed.