Gotta love a good ol' sweep. Brings back memories of all the other interleague road sweeps the Pirates have had over the last 17 years since interleague play began. (There have been none.)
Let's get down to it!
21 June - Pirates 5 Angels 2 - This was Cole's 3rd career start. His first two, while both wins, were slightly shaky affairs. In his first 12 IP in the big leagues he gave up 14 hits, and only struck out 3. His BABIP (small sample size warning!) was somewhere around 0.290, which on the surface was heartening, showing that he's not just gotten lucky on balls in play, but at the same time his reliance on the fastball and middling control were big points of concern. His most positive showing was honestly that he walked no one in his first couple starts. Also he didn't give up a HR. Pretty unusual for a young fireballer.
The Angels have hardly been tearing it up this year, but even still their Team OPS is 6th in the MLB, so they're no offensive cupcake. It was an interesting test for the youngster, especially seeing as it was set not too far from his hometown. Cue: Grandma Cole interviews! I wonder what my grandmother would say on TV about me if I was starting a major league ballgame. Probably something embarrassing. Love you grandma!
Now, Cole was a flamethrower as soon as he came up, hanging around 97 routinely and occasionally dialing it up to 98 or 99. But the speed he was displaying in Anaheim was insane. He topped 100 eight times. http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=28244817&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_top_50 Including a pitch at 102! What.
He did walk a batter. He did give up a HR. But this was his best start so far. At 6.1 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 5 K. Cole dominated, save a couple singles in the 3rd and being unable to get out of the 7th, he was actually perfect. Of course, you can't actually ignore those innings, but it did give us the best glimpse so far of what a dominating Cole would look like. Those 1-2-3 innings were beautiful.
In non-Cole news, Pedro launched another HR (17 on the year), Mercer went deep (production from SS is such a bonus for the Bucs, even if it comes at the expense of some defense), Marte hit a 3B, and Cutch went 2 of 5 with an insurance run RBI 2B in the 9th. One thing I haven't mentioned yet is that Cutch still really hasn't broken out so far this year. In one sense that is kinda insane to say because he's 3rd in WAR so far this year among all NL OFs. But at the same time his production so far this year has been nowhere near last year levels yet. A big part of that is that his 0.375 BABIP from 2012 is nigh-unreproducable. (He's around 0.320 so far this year, which is high for most people, but might be about what we should expect from a guy who hits the ball as hard as McCutchen) It's a good thing that the Bucs have shown they can win with "just" an All-Star in CF. Because if they needed the superhero they saw last year, they'd be in for a harsh awakening.
After Cole exited in the 7th. Mazzaro cleaned up his mess and then bridged the gap all the way to Grilli, who closed it out in the 9th without allowing a baserunner. Quality win.
22 June - Pirates 6 Angels 1 - If you're into the ESPN Game Score thingy for pitchers, it's worth looking at that in Liriano's last start, a loss to the Reds, he had a Game Score of 58. On this night in Anaheim his Game Score was 59. Instead of giving up 2 runs, he gave up 1, and he gave up a few more hits this time around, but all in all is was a start of the same general quality as last time. Good enough to give the Bucs a good chance to win. This time they pulled it off. Behind Pedro's HR, a Mercer RBI single, a Martin RBI BB, a Snider RBI single, and two more HRs, one from Cutch and one from Gaby Sanchez. It was nice to see the Pirates offense take it to a struggling pitcher like Jerome Williams.
Morris and Wilson closed out the deal in the pen. Another win in the bag.
23 June - Pirates 10 Angels 9 F/10 - Landmark game here! Seriously though. What the fuck was this game.
I didn't watch this game from beginning to end, I confess, but I did see the majority of the big moments live, and wow, what a crazy game. It all started with some nice offense, Pedro Alvarez's HR, his 4th in as many days. And a weirdo ground rule double from Tony Sanchez in his first MLB AB, that got wedged in the Angels right field wall scoreboard somehow and ended up costing the Bucs a run, as ground rule doubles often do.
Charlie Morton seemed to pitch okay, but he was nickled and dimed around in the 2nd as the Angels tagged him for 5 runs on the back of some infield hits, errors, and seeing-eye singles. Ah, the plight of the sinkerballer.
It was nice to see him bounce back though, he only gave up one more run in the outing, and somehow made it through 5 2/3 innings, giving the Pirates some nice depth on an unlucky day.
Things got weird in the top of the 9th. Down 6-3, the Pirates rallied back from the dead against Ernesto Frieri, including RBI 2Bs and 1Bs when they were down to their final strike by Martin and Marte respectively (Martin originally had the day off in favor of Michael McKenry, and pinch hitting Martin in that spot meant that Hurdle had used all his catchers in the game - Martin, McKenry, and T. Sanchez).
Tied 6-6, the Bucs piled on in the 10th for 4 more against Kevin Jepsen, with help from a J.B. Shuck error.
So, we're done here right? No, no, no.
They say bringing in closers in non-save situations can backfire on occasion, as the closer doesn't have the "intensity" they would otherwise have in a save situation. Now, I'm not gonna get into how I feel about the MLB-wide strategy to base their bullpen around a made-up stat called saves, which wasn't recorded officially until 1969. But I was perfectly 100% behind the idea to bring in Grilli in that spot.
Grilli was terrible. The worst he's been all year. He allowed 3 runs, and the tying run was standing at 3rd when Grilli struck out Mike Trout to end the game. Wow. Not how I saw that game ending that's for sure.
That's four wins in a row. That's four games of Pedro HRs in a row. The Bucs are 46-30. They are 2nd in the NL Central. 2nd in the MLB. 1st in our hearts.
Next stop, Seattle for a quick 2-game set in this weirdo year full of 2-game sets.
I'll be in the seats at Safeco on Tuesday, likely the only time I'll be able to see them in person this year. You can bet I sprung a bit extra for some nice seats. Would love to see a win. Let's go Bucs!
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