Just as last series was a bit retro, so was this one. The good ol' Pirates I know from around May would get their wins with exceptional pitching and just enough offense to get by. But along with that pattern always came stretches of "god, are we ever gonna score again?"
These valleys of offense would always seem to crop up at terrible times too. Like when the Bucs faced a division rival. I remember the Pirates going through this against the Reds way back in late May.
And here it is again. Not against a division rival, but these games are pretty damn meaningful and this is not the time you want your offense to go south. Honestly, the bats had been floundering for a few games now, but we didn't really start complaining about it until the L's showed up. At this point in the season, it's all about results.
16 September - Padres 2 Pirates 0 - Now the bats were struggling, I get that. But sometimes you just run up against a pitcher who's just on his game for whatever reason. It's tough to tell how much is them being awesome and you sucking, but there are some clues.
On Monday, Andrew Cashner was on his game. Over the course of 9 innings he 1-hit the Bucs. He threw 97 pitches. He struck out 7.
The Pirates only saving grace was Tabata's single to lead off the 7th which broke up the perfect game.
A.J. Burnett bounced back from 2 straight rough starts and had a good start of his own, but his 2 run 6 2/3 IP was nothing compared to Cashner.
At this point I am getting very worried about the Pirates' bats, but I'm willing to grant them one game to get their act together offensively. This is their 5th straight game scoring 4 runs or fewer, but with regard to tonight I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just Cashner just had a great game.
At least we avoided a Homer Bailey type situation.
The Cards lost to the Rockies so the division is still tied.
17 September - Padres 5 Pirates 2 - After returning to the rotation after his rest/hiatus/minor league time, Jeff Locke had one serviceable start followed by a phenomenal one. Unfortunately his third start was a step backward from both of those.
Jeff gave up 4 runs in 5 innings. He walked 3 and gave up 7 hits. He struggled with command, and his curve was getting swatted all over the place, very reminiscent of his struggles in July and August.
As I've mentioned before, Locke needs all his pitches working for him to be effective. His fastball looked not great but okay, his change was very good (as usual), but his curve was not good. It's hard to tell what's the cause and effect here. It seemed to me that he was falling behind when he couldn't get swings and misses on his curve, and he would either lay his fastball in there to get hit, or his curve for an even worse result. Was his fastball command off, making him try to get more done with his curve than he could manage? Or was his fastball okay, just that he couldn't get guys out with his curve? In most cases I would say the former, since Locke was falling behind a lot, and guy who fall behind don't have trouble finishing batters off because they aren't even getting to two strikes! Yet I'm not sure I can say that since the Pirate catchers, I've noticed, often have Locke "pitch backwards", establishing his off-speed early in the at-bat. This is reasonable, since you don't want to lay in Locke's average fastball to get hammered on the first pitch, but it makes analyzing which pitch is screwing him up all the tougher.
One thing I can say for sure is that Locke has an awesome changeup. Even on days he's not going well he gets swings and misses on that. I've done in depth looks at Locke in the past, but maybe in the off season I'll have the time to do a pitch type kind of analysis on him. Could be interesting. He's a very interesting pitcher and probably my second favorite Pirate starter to watch after Cole. Liriano's great too, he's just not quite as intriguing to me as Locke is, in a geekery sort of way.
Anyway, let's come off that tangent.
The big blow to Locke was a 3-run home run he allowed to Jedd Gyorko. And from that the Pirates could never recover, why?
Because their offense was gone. Again.
The only guys who had decent nights were McCutchen - 2 hits, Gaby Sanchez - 2 hits (facing a lefty, so no surprise there), and Locke, actually, who was 1 for 1.
Marte, who started for the first time since his hand injury, got a hit, and so did Marlon Byrd (a 2 RBI double that really should've been caught, but right fielder Kyle Blanks tripped and fell), that was it. 7 scattered hits, one was a complete gift. Lots of 0fers.
Locke's start was troubling, and I'm a bit worried for him some his next start against the Reds, but I think he stands a good chance of bouncing back.
However, the real issue continues to be the offense. Getting nothing but 2 gift runs off of Eric Stults is not acceptable. There is too much on the line.
The Cards slaughtered the Rockies 11-4 and took a one game lead in the Central. The Reds beat up on the Astros too, can't be surprised about that, and they continue to inch up in the standings.
18 September - Padres 3 Pirates 2 - One of the more heartbreaking games in recent memory. After the game was over I was hearing the announcers say it was the worst loss of the year. I guess people have really short memories because there were quite a few losses earlier in the season that were way worse than this one. I know this is a little different since it's the last two weeks and the Bucs are fighting for playoff positioning, but the thing is that closers sometimes blow saves, even Melancon, and that's just the way it goes sometimes. Melancon has earned our respect 10-fold and the Bucs don't sniff 87 wins without him. I also get that the Pirates clawed their way from underneath a 1-0 deficit when their offense looked like a pile of bones, but honestly, while a 2-1 win would've been great, and it was a huge missed opportunity to win it, it wouldn't have been an Earth-shattering thing to beat the Pads by a run.
Andrew McCutchen came up in the 7th and hit a 2 run homer to put the Bucs up 2-1. Melancon gave up a bunch of dinky hits to right field, none of them hit hard, and gave up 2 runs to relinquish the lead.
Morton was fantastic. It was tough to see his great start go to waste. 8 IP 1 ER 2 H 3 BB 9 K's.
The Cards and Reds won again, so now the Bucs are 2 games back of the Cards and only a half-game above the Reds for 2nd. The bats are still in the freezer. These 3 games have almost entirely sapped the Pirates chances for the division. Not that a 2 game deficit is impossible to come back from in 10 games, but the Pirates are playing 6 games against the Reds while the Cards over the next week and a half, while the Cards play the Brewers and the Nats. Both teams have a 3 game series against the Cubs. I know for a fact that Reds + Reds >>>> Brewers + Nats. Although, the Nats have been turning it on lately, I still don't think they're as good as the Reds.
(Aside: On this day I wrote this Reddit post trying to explain why the Pirates have been more of an average team in the 2nd half vs. the 1st half)
Signs are starting to point to the dreaded Wild Card game. This is not the time to give up though.
19 September - Padres 1 Pirates 10 - If you would've told me Cole would have an electric start and win the game, I would've believed you. If you had told me the Pirates would score 10 runs and obliterate Ian Kennedy, I wouldn't have.
Both of those happened. And it was glorious.
It's hard for me to celebrate this win, since I mostly look at it as a salvaging of the series. You hear people talk about it as a "momentum shift", but of course momentum doesn't exist in baseball.
But that was a very fun game to watch. Cole was lights-out. 12 K's in 6 frames. He got pulled because of his pitch count and the Bucs were up 6-1 at the time.
The big outburst happened in the 4th, when Pedro Alvarez turned a 1-1 tie (the Pirates got their first run in some not so impressive fashion like a fielder's choice that I don't care enough about to look up) into a lead with a blast to center. Ian Kennedy, who the Pirates battled hard in the early innings (Morneau had a 12 or 13 pitch at-bat against him early), couldn't recover and when the Pirates put runners on 2nd and 3rd he struck out Cole (Cole has a cool moment when he gave a nod to Jay Bell I believe after he gave him a tip to take the next pitch cause it was gonna be a curve, and it was), but gave up a 2-run double to Jose Tabata, who earned my complete respect with that clutch 2-out hit.
Walker also had a two run homer later that inning, and Kennedy was done.
In the 6th Cole continued to cruise despite his pitch count getting up there. The was a funny moment where Tony Sanchez tried to catch a ball that bounced off the limestone but sort of fell over and Cole smiled from the mound, which you almost never see.
Cole struck out the final batter of the 6th for his 12 K and was pumped.
Hurdle's been good lately, but there was a questionable call by him to have Tony Watson relieve Cole for the 7th in a 6-1 game. I would've much rather seen Kris Johnson or Bryan Morris there and saved Watson, since he's really our #2 reliever at this point. Oh well, a minor complaint I suppose.
Tony Sanchez made the highlight reels with a daring catch where he grabbed a foul pop before tumbling hard into the Padres' dugout. It was scary for a moment, as it looked like he might have hurt his head, but he was okay. Love to see a player playing hard, even if it was a 9-1 game. Love the intensity there.
Watson, Grill, and Pimentel were all fine in relief. The Bucs win #88.
The best news of the day though came out of Denver, where the Rockies defeated the Cards after 15 tough innings. The Cards blew the lead in the 9th when Todd Helton, who is retiring at the end of the year, and also is pretty clearly injured, hit a game tying homer.
The Rox won it in the 15th on a triple, and a weirdish play at the plate where Molina couldn't come up with a throw from the outfield that beat DJ LeMahieu by a mile. LeMahieu didn't even touch the plate on his way by! But he quickly tapped the corner of the plate before the Cards (who looked almost comatose on that play, who could blame them) reacted.
The Pirates had the easier draw. I'd rather play the Pads at home than the Rox in Coors. But the Cards went 2-2 and we only snagged 1. Just the kind of result you didn't want to see, since it only gets tougher from here.
But as Thursday's game will show you, anything is possible in a small enough sample size. Even a seemingly non-existent offense getting 10 runs. So why not a team making up a game in the last 9 games when the schedules are stacked against them?
The Pirates have worked hard to get to this point. They're a good team, and when you get this far and the division leads get this close, the tiniest thing can make the difference. The Pirates might not win the division, indeed, the odds are against them doing it, but they're within striking distance. And who knows what's in store for us these last 3 series.
The Bucs are a game back in the standings, a game up on the Reds. And now I think we can finally say it. Here comes the BIGGEST SERIES IN PNC PARK HISTORY. Seriously, though. This one's pretty damn important.
Let's do this. Bring on the Redlegs.
No comments:
Post a Comment