Difficult series to stomach. I think it portends good things for the Bucs in the future. The won one game definitively, and lost the other two on what amounted to a couple of plays (Game 1: Marte dropped fly OR McCutchen baserunning blunder at 3rd in the 13th - the latter being a play that I changed my mind on since I first saw, he definitely could've taken more space at 3rd and run home on Kozma's throw. Game 3: Marte getting called to bunt instead of swinging away in the 7th, taking an at bat from Cutch who was IBBed OR Questionable strike calls going against the Bucs all day).
The second game was a thing to behold though. Liriano's CG near-shutout (Cardinals scored their only run on a fielder's choice in the 9th) was fantastic. Efficient, too. The Cardinals struggle to hit anything hard all night even though Franky was pounding the zone (painting is probably a more accurate term, he was pitching quality strikes).
Nice little offensive showing in that game too, nice to see Pedro and Jones pick things up with homers, if only for a night. Jones has been struggling for the better part of the season, and Pedro has hit a very rough patch recently. It's not the dearth of HRs that worries me, it's the complete lack of contact. His strikeout rate is through the roof, even for him, and it seems like forever since I've seen him go to left field. I think he'll work things out, but it does worry me.
As mentioned above the Pirates had numerous opportunities to take Game 3 but nothing really went their way. Another good showing from the pen, especially Tony Watson who managed 3 innings of one hit ball, very helpful in a game where A.J. couldn't make it out of the fifth.
This series exhausted me, and definitely exhausted the Pirate players. Alas, no time to rest. The Bucs immediate fly back to host the Diamondbacks for 3 games and then go on their last west coast swing of the year (at San Diego then at San Fran).
No game is a must win at this point, but it would portend very well for the future if the Pirates can pick themselves up and win 2 of 3 at home against a medium-to-good team in the Diamondbacks.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
13 August 2013 - It wasn't 19 innings, but it had that feel to it
Pirates 3 Cardinals 4 F/14
Man.
Just wow. I'm speechless.
But at the same time I need to post this while the wound is still fresh.
First, let me be clear. Even though the Pirates have lost 4 in a row, they are still in fantastic shape. 2 games up on the Cards, and they have the 3rd best record in baseball (Atlanta 73-47; Boston 72-49; Pittsburgh 70-48).
But did that loss ever hurt. Not in a standings sort of way but it was an emotional blow.
Pirates never trailed until the end, but you could sense it teetering on the edge of disaster even in the early going.
It's hard to remember all the way back to Morton and Wainwright, but both starting pitchers were alright. It would've been nice to see Morton go deeper than 6 innings, but I don't have too many complaints about his line: 6 IP, 2 ER, 7H, 2 BB, 3 K's. Especially considering that those two runs were both on ground balls the snuck through the holes in the 6th, so at least Morton was playing his own game.
After the McCutchen and Mercer HRs made it 3-0, it seemed like the top halves of the innings were in fast forward. Granted there were a couple good at bats and some batters did work some counts (Mercer started off the game great in the batter's box), but it seemed like every time there was a runner on they'd be erased by a double play or it wouldn't matter because the batter would hit a weak grounder at the second baseman.
The Bucs hung by a thread heading into the 8th, up 3-2. John Jay hit a 2 out single off Bryan Morris to put runners at the corners. Then on one of the most unbelievable plays I've ever seen, Matt Adams hit a hard liner to right. The instant he hit it, your heart dropped, you knew the game was tied and you had little hope of the Pirates getting a fourth run.
Then the camera switches and you see Neil Walker leap up. Your brain tries to process why he's so far back on the outfield grass and before you know it there's 3 outs and the Pirates are running toward the dugout.
A brilliant shift. Hurdle placed Walker perfectly. And with Mark Melancon readying for the 9th, you were confident.
The top of the 9th went by so fucking fast you'd barely know it ever happened if you weren't paying close attention.
Melancon's in. Pete Kozma, the soft hitting SS is up. Two pitches, ground out to second baseman Walker (again, in the right spot, haha).
Then the turning point. A 1-0 pitch to Daniel Descalso was skied to left. A soft fly ball. Marte, who always catches balls with one hand (as does McCutchen and so many other OFs) booted it. The ball bounded off the heel of his glove, and Descalso advanced to 2nd.
You're in awe of that, for sure. But Melancon's on the mound. Melancon is so calm and cool, he had no reaction to that at all. I love that about him. He just goes about his business.
Matt Carpenter swings and misses at a 2-2 pitch. Two out. Melancon was painting. Seriously, go back and look at this at bat. 5 pitches, all low and in if I recall. It was a thing of beauty.
Now, the real problem with the Marte error was that he allowed the tying run to get into scoring position, but another horrible result of it was it meant that Melancon would have to face either Carlos Beltran (who's killed the Bucs in the past and is just a flat out good hitter) or Allen Craig (who is an absolute beast with RISP - whether you buy into stats with RISP as a valuable metric for predictive purposes - 0.464 BA w/ RISP this year is pretty incredible).
On a 1-1 pitch, a finely placed pitch low and away off the plate, Craig hits a single to right, tying the game. 3-3. It's a brand new ballgame. Beltran gets caught between 2nd and 3rd to immediately send the game to extras.
Now these extra innings, one after the other, holy crap were they rollercoasters. Made that much more extreme by the events leading up to extras and the relative placements of the Bucs and Cards in the standings.
Top of the 10th - Bucs get G. Sanchez to 3rd with 2 outs. (Marte bunted him over, on a well executed play that I can't agree with, even though 9/10 managers call the bunt in that situation - though I wonder if it had been more of a fair fight whether to bunt or not I wonder if Marte's emotional state after the dropped fly ball would've played a part - you could see him visibly stewing in left after the play) Unfortunately, we can't knock him in.
Bottom of the 10th - Mazzaro walks Holliday. Rob Johnson bunts a ball hard at Gaby Sanchez, who makes the brave choice to throw to second base. Unfortunately the throw is wide and pulls Mercer off the bag. 2 on no out. Jay sacrifices to make it 2nd and 3rd 1 out. After an IBB (there would be many more of these), Mazarro strikes out Kozma and gets Descalso to fly out to left center, a ball that McCutchen loudly calls for. You could see Cutch rib Marte a bit as they ran to the dugout. Nice to see Marte's spirit lifted. I love this team.
Top of the 11th - Bucs get runners on 1st and 2nd with 2 outs. But fail to cash in when Mercer strikes out. Barmes was the pinch hitter for the pitcher's spot this inning which didn't help things.
Bottom of the 11th - Gomez relieves Mazzaro. A single then a wild pitch made a runner on 2nd with no out. Then a ground out, and a IBB to get to the pitcher Maness. I didn't realize this until after the game but Harrison was pulled in from right to act as a 5th infielder in this situation. Gomez induced the ground ball to Barmes, who was apparently a bit confused (as I was) who was covering 2nd. Harrison - the RF - covered and took a poor feed from Barmes for the double play to end the inning. A 6-9-3 double play. Wow, crazy crazy.
Top of the 12th - G. Sanchez, Marte, Walker out 1-2-3.
Bottom of the 12th - Gomez replied with a 1-2-3 of his own. First such bottom inning since the 5th.
Top of the 13th - The most heartbreaking inning of the bunch. By a wide margin too. Cutch single. Wild Pitch. Alvarez infield single. 1st and 3rd nobody out. Alright, this is our chance. Russell Martin (who has got to be exhausted by the way, though no excuses) grounds to short. Kozma makes a nice play and McCutchen holds at 3rd. I don't think McCutchen could have scored on that play, Kozma was too shallow. Barmes was intentionally walked. Then on an 0-1 pitch Harrison grounded to Descalso at third (he replaced Freese) who stepped on 3rd for the force and threw to 1st, inning over.
At first I was happy because I didn't see Descalso step on 3rd, so I thought the run scored, but I quickly realized what really happened. Man, what a let down that whole thing was.
Bottom of the 13th - With 2 outs Matt Carpenter hit a double. And then something I don't think I've ever seen before occurred. Two straight intentional walks to load the bases and get to the pitcher Sean Maness. Maness struck out. Great job by Gomez.
Top of the 14th - Groundout, flyout, walk, K.
Bottom of the 14th - Jared Hughes enters, who still has not regained my trust since last year when he and Chris Resop (who I will never speak ill of, despite his struggles he bailed the Bucs out of some tough times during his tenure) were manning the middle relief situations in the pen. After striking out Rob Johnson, Hughes gave up a single to John Jay. Jay stole second, and then scored on a surpisingly close play at the plate on the single by Adron Chambers. (The play itself looked startlingly similar to the Sid Bream play, but that's not something I'm gonna say out loud.)
Bucs lose 4-3.
A tough loss. That's an understatement. But the war is still raging and we're still on the winning side, for now.
I want the Pirates to win this division so badly. I think they can do it.
Let's go Bucs!
Man.
Just wow. I'm speechless.
But at the same time I need to post this while the wound is still fresh.
First, let me be clear. Even though the Pirates have lost 4 in a row, they are still in fantastic shape. 2 games up on the Cards, and they have the 3rd best record in baseball (Atlanta 73-47; Boston 72-49; Pittsburgh 70-48).
But did that loss ever hurt. Not in a standings sort of way but it was an emotional blow.
Pirates never trailed until the end, but you could sense it teetering on the edge of disaster even in the early going.
It's hard to remember all the way back to Morton and Wainwright, but both starting pitchers were alright. It would've been nice to see Morton go deeper than 6 innings, but I don't have too many complaints about his line: 6 IP, 2 ER, 7H, 2 BB, 3 K's. Especially considering that those two runs were both on ground balls the snuck through the holes in the 6th, so at least Morton was playing his own game.
After the McCutchen and Mercer HRs made it 3-0, it seemed like the top halves of the innings were in fast forward. Granted there were a couple good at bats and some batters did work some counts (Mercer started off the game great in the batter's box), but it seemed like every time there was a runner on they'd be erased by a double play or it wouldn't matter because the batter would hit a weak grounder at the second baseman.
The Bucs hung by a thread heading into the 8th, up 3-2. John Jay hit a 2 out single off Bryan Morris to put runners at the corners. Then on one of the most unbelievable plays I've ever seen, Matt Adams hit a hard liner to right. The instant he hit it, your heart dropped, you knew the game was tied and you had little hope of the Pirates getting a fourth run.
Then the camera switches and you see Neil Walker leap up. Your brain tries to process why he's so far back on the outfield grass and before you know it there's 3 outs and the Pirates are running toward the dugout.
A brilliant shift. Hurdle placed Walker perfectly. And with Mark Melancon readying for the 9th, you were confident.
The top of the 9th went by so fucking fast you'd barely know it ever happened if you weren't paying close attention.
Melancon's in. Pete Kozma, the soft hitting SS is up. Two pitches, ground out to second baseman Walker (again, in the right spot, haha).
Then the turning point. A 1-0 pitch to Daniel Descalso was skied to left. A soft fly ball. Marte, who always catches balls with one hand (as does McCutchen and so many other OFs) booted it. The ball bounded off the heel of his glove, and Descalso advanced to 2nd.
You're in awe of that, for sure. But Melancon's on the mound. Melancon is so calm and cool, he had no reaction to that at all. I love that about him. He just goes about his business.
Matt Carpenter swings and misses at a 2-2 pitch. Two out. Melancon was painting. Seriously, go back and look at this at bat. 5 pitches, all low and in if I recall. It was a thing of beauty.
Now, the real problem with the Marte error was that he allowed the tying run to get into scoring position, but another horrible result of it was it meant that Melancon would have to face either Carlos Beltran (who's killed the Bucs in the past and is just a flat out good hitter) or Allen Craig (who is an absolute beast with RISP - whether you buy into stats with RISP as a valuable metric for predictive purposes - 0.464 BA w/ RISP this year is pretty incredible).
On a 1-1 pitch, a finely placed pitch low and away off the plate, Craig hits a single to right, tying the game. 3-3. It's a brand new ballgame. Beltran gets caught between 2nd and 3rd to immediately send the game to extras.
Now these extra innings, one after the other, holy crap were they rollercoasters. Made that much more extreme by the events leading up to extras and the relative placements of the Bucs and Cards in the standings.
Top of the 10th - Bucs get G. Sanchez to 3rd with 2 outs. (Marte bunted him over, on a well executed play that I can't agree with, even though 9/10 managers call the bunt in that situation - though I wonder if it had been more of a fair fight whether to bunt or not I wonder if Marte's emotional state after the dropped fly ball would've played a part - you could see him visibly stewing in left after the play) Unfortunately, we can't knock him in.
Bottom of the 10th - Mazzaro walks Holliday. Rob Johnson bunts a ball hard at Gaby Sanchez, who makes the brave choice to throw to second base. Unfortunately the throw is wide and pulls Mercer off the bag. 2 on no out. Jay sacrifices to make it 2nd and 3rd 1 out. After an IBB (there would be many more of these), Mazarro strikes out Kozma and gets Descalso to fly out to left center, a ball that McCutchen loudly calls for. You could see Cutch rib Marte a bit as they ran to the dugout. Nice to see Marte's spirit lifted. I love this team.
Top of the 11th - Bucs get runners on 1st and 2nd with 2 outs. But fail to cash in when Mercer strikes out. Barmes was the pinch hitter for the pitcher's spot this inning which didn't help things.
Bottom of the 11th - Gomez relieves Mazzaro. A single then a wild pitch made a runner on 2nd with no out. Then a ground out, and a IBB to get to the pitcher Maness. I didn't realize this until after the game but Harrison was pulled in from right to act as a 5th infielder in this situation. Gomez induced the ground ball to Barmes, who was apparently a bit confused (as I was) who was covering 2nd. Harrison - the RF - covered and took a poor feed from Barmes for the double play to end the inning. A 6-9-3 double play. Wow, crazy crazy.
Top of the 12th - G. Sanchez, Marte, Walker out 1-2-3.
Bottom of the 12th - Gomez replied with a 1-2-3 of his own. First such bottom inning since the 5th.
Top of the 13th - The most heartbreaking inning of the bunch. By a wide margin too. Cutch single. Wild Pitch. Alvarez infield single. 1st and 3rd nobody out. Alright, this is our chance. Russell Martin (who has got to be exhausted by the way, though no excuses) grounds to short. Kozma makes a nice play and McCutchen holds at 3rd. I don't think McCutchen could have scored on that play, Kozma was too shallow. Barmes was intentionally walked. Then on an 0-1 pitch Harrison grounded to Descalso at third (he replaced Freese) who stepped on 3rd for the force and threw to 1st, inning over.
At first I was happy because I didn't see Descalso step on 3rd, so I thought the run scored, but I quickly realized what really happened. Man, what a let down that whole thing was.
Bottom of the 13th - With 2 outs Matt Carpenter hit a double. And then something I don't think I've ever seen before occurred. Two straight intentional walks to load the bases and get to the pitcher Sean Maness. Maness struck out. Great job by Gomez.
Top of the 14th - Groundout, flyout, walk, K.
Bottom of the 14th - Jared Hughes enters, who still has not regained my trust since last year when he and Chris Resop (who I will never speak ill of, despite his struggles he bailed the Bucs out of some tough times during his tenure) were manning the middle relief situations in the pen. After striking out Rob Johnson, Hughes gave up a single to John Jay. Jay stole second, and then scored on a surpisingly close play at the plate on the single by Adron Chambers. (The play itself looked startlingly similar to the Sid Bream play, but that's not something I'm gonna say out loud.)
Bucs lose 4-3.
A tough loss. That's an understatement. But the war is still raging and we're still on the winning side, for now.
I want the Pirates to win this division so badly. I think they can do it.
Let's go Bucs!
Sunday, August 11, 2013
I hope you like playing the Marlins and Rockies! (Cause we play them a lot)
We're in the middle of a very strange stretch of opponent matchups (the bold ones covered in this post):
@ Marlins (1-2)
vs. Cardinals (4-1)
vs. Rockies (2-1)
vs. Marlins (3-0)
@ Marlins (1-2)
vs. Cardinals (4-1)
vs. Rockies (2-1)
vs. Marlins (3-0)
@ Rockies (0-3)
@ Cardinals (???)
I know don't know if I've ever seen a schedule bunch up the opponents like that (especially considering that those series against the Rockies and Marlins are the only ones all year).
After taking 4 of 5 in the big Cards series, the Pirates had the pleasure of hosting 2 not-so-great teams. I'm not gonna say terrible (the Marlins especially have come on of late, I think they're playing over .500 ball in their past 2 months or something) but these teams are certainly beatable, and it'd be great to put as much separation between us and the Cards before we head to Busch Stadium.
The Bucs ended up going 5-4 in this stretch, while the Cards went 4-6 against the likes of the Reds, the red-hot Dodgers, and the Cubs. Fine by me.
The Burnett compete game Sunday 4 August was pretty great. As were the 2 walk-off wins that bookended the Marlins series (Harrison's HR and Martin's RBI single). And let's not forget Charlie Morton's good start in the middle. That was a good series for the Bucs for sure, all comeback wins too!
Landmark Game: 8 August - Marlins 4 Pirates 5 F/10 Man, that game was awesome! To be down 4-0 and to comeback for the 3rd straight game was really cool. Martin seems to be some kind of walk-off machine.
On the tail of 5 straight wins the Bucs head to Coors Field. Now, let's just say that stadium does not play to the Bucs' strengths, which are pitching and defense. That was never more evident than during this series sweep at the hands of the Rox. In game one Liriano got obliterated. And how. Hit after hit after hit, the Pirates just could not get any outs at the beginning of that game.
It was really weird too, not just because the hits were all falling, but Liriano honestly didn't look that bad from the get go. I mean he obviously wore down as any pitcher would when no outs are gotten behind him, but when he was getting hit at the start he didn't look that bad. Once he gave up that HR then things were out of hand anyway.
Offensively, the Pirates got so close to breaking out but just could get anything done, leaving that bases loaded in both of the first two innings, only getting 1 run on a sacrifice fly in the 2nd. And not only we're they getting on base early, but they were tatooing the balls to left (and when I say to left, I mean only to left, one weird thing was that every single the Bucs hit in those first two inning was a line drive to left field - just when they would load the bases the offense would lock up though).
Oh well.
The 2nd game. Another loss, but the bigger story was that Marte was removed from the game with and injury to his left hand. Ouch. Marte's had his ups an downs, but there is no question the Pirates are way better when he's in the lineup and playing well.
Burnett was pitching well until the 6th, when he just couldn't get out of the inning. The Rockies scored 5 and the Bucs were done after that.
Game 3 was the most heartbreaking of the lot. Locke, who's struggled in his past 3ish starts got things mostly back on track, though he was a bit wild. 5 2/3 IP, 1 ER (2 R), 3 H, 4 BB, 3 K's.
Locke was called for a balk on a questionable call in the 3rd, which allowed Charlie Blackmon to advance from 2nd to 3rd with 1 out. He would score on a sac fly, making the score 2-1. In the 6th, the Rockies tied it on Pedro Alvarez's throwing error (but he hit a solo jack earlier in the game so at worst he was a neutral effect on the game). Then the big blow, a 2 out double in the 7th by Arenado to score Rosario from 1st. 3-2 Rockies.
As if the way they lost the lead wasn't tough enough. The Pirates clawed back to the brink in the 9th. Walker led off with a single. Martin struck out. Then Tony Sanchez hit a double. If there had been two outs, Walker scores no problem, but with 1 out he had to hold up to see if the ball was caught before he could run, and he advanced to 3rd on the play. The Pirates then failed to knock him in that last 90ft, Mercer lining out to third and Presley popping out to third. Damn.
The Bucs head to St. Louis and hope to get the wind back in their sails after a slightly deflating trip. You gotta keep looking at the big picture though! The Bucs are 3 games up on the Cards, and at worst will emerge from this series tied for 1st in the division. Let's hope that's not the actual result. I'm crossing my fingers for 2 of 3. Let's go Bucs!
I know don't know if I've ever seen a schedule bunch up the opponents like that (especially considering that those series against the Rockies and Marlins are the only ones all year).
After taking 4 of 5 in the big Cards series, the Pirates had the pleasure of hosting 2 not-so-great teams. I'm not gonna say terrible (the Marlins especially have come on of late, I think they're playing over .500 ball in their past 2 months or something) but these teams are certainly beatable, and it'd be great to put as much separation between us and the Cards before we head to Busch Stadium.
The Bucs ended up going 5-4 in this stretch, while the Cards went 4-6 against the likes of the Reds, the red-hot Dodgers, and the Cubs. Fine by me.
The Burnett compete game Sunday 4 August was pretty great. As were the 2 walk-off wins that bookended the Marlins series (Harrison's HR and Martin's RBI single). And let's not forget Charlie Morton's good start in the middle. That was a good series for the Bucs for sure, all comeback wins too!
Landmark Game: 8 August - Marlins 4 Pirates 5 F/10 Man, that game was awesome! To be down 4-0 and to comeback for the 3rd straight game was really cool. Martin seems to be some kind of walk-off machine.
On the tail of 5 straight wins the Bucs head to Coors Field. Now, let's just say that stadium does not play to the Bucs' strengths, which are pitching and defense. That was never more evident than during this series sweep at the hands of the Rox. In game one Liriano got obliterated. And how. Hit after hit after hit, the Pirates just could not get any outs at the beginning of that game.
It was really weird too, not just because the hits were all falling, but Liriano honestly didn't look that bad from the get go. I mean he obviously wore down as any pitcher would when no outs are gotten behind him, but when he was getting hit at the start he didn't look that bad. Once he gave up that HR then things were out of hand anyway.
Offensively, the Pirates got so close to breaking out but just could get anything done, leaving that bases loaded in both of the first two innings, only getting 1 run on a sacrifice fly in the 2nd. And not only we're they getting on base early, but they were tatooing the balls to left (and when I say to left, I mean only to left, one weird thing was that every single the Bucs hit in those first two inning was a line drive to left field - just when they would load the bases the offense would lock up though).
Oh well.
The 2nd game. Another loss, but the bigger story was that Marte was removed from the game with and injury to his left hand. Ouch. Marte's had his ups an downs, but there is no question the Pirates are way better when he's in the lineup and playing well.
Burnett was pitching well until the 6th, when he just couldn't get out of the inning. The Rockies scored 5 and the Bucs were done after that.
Game 3 was the most heartbreaking of the lot. Locke, who's struggled in his past 3ish starts got things mostly back on track, though he was a bit wild. 5 2/3 IP, 1 ER (2 R), 3 H, 4 BB, 3 K's.
Locke was called for a balk on a questionable call in the 3rd, which allowed Charlie Blackmon to advance from 2nd to 3rd with 1 out. He would score on a sac fly, making the score 2-1. In the 6th, the Rockies tied it on Pedro Alvarez's throwing error (but he hit a solo jack earlier in the game so at worst he was a neutral effect on the game). Then the big blow, a 2 out double in the 7th by Arenado to score Rosario from 1st. 3-2 Rockies.
As if the way they lost the lead wasn't tough enough. The Pirates clawed back to the brink in the 9th. Walker led off with a single. Martin struck out. Then Tony Sanchez hit a double. If there had been two outs, Walker scores no problem, but with 1 out he had to hold up to see if the ball was caught before he could run, and he advanced to 3rd on the play. The Pirates then failed to knock him in that last 90ft, Mercer lining out to third and Presley popping out to third. Damn.
The Bucs head to St. Louis and hope to get the wind back in their sails after a slightly deflating trip. You gotta keep looking at the big picture though! The Bucs are 3 games up on the Cards, and at worst will emerge from this series tied for 1st in the division. Let's hope that's not the actual result. I'm crossing my fingers for 2 of 3. Let's go Bucs!
Saturday, August 3, 2013
5-gamer at home vs. the Cards (a.k.a. The Biggest Series in Pirates History™)
Wow, what a ride that series was. There's a lot of stuff surrounding this series that I want to talk about, including the games themselves, the trade deadline, and the dreaded month of August.
First the games. The great thing about this series was that each of these games was very different, they all had there own little feel to them. In fact I gave them all names!
1. Statement Game
2. Classic Game
3. Dominance Game
4. Regression Game
5. What Game?
29 July - Cardinals 2 Pirates 9 - "Statement Game." The Pirates returned back from their long road trip to host an even longer homestand (their first homestand since the All-Star Break) to face the team they were looking up at in the division. The question remained, how would the Bucs hold up against one of the best teams in the majors? Would they be struggling to hang on? I mean, they just dropped a series to the Marlins. Or would they stand tall at home? How would their offense fare against an extremely talented pitching staff?
This was the statement game because, while it obviously didn't decide anything, it was a signal that these Pirates damn well could hold their own against the best of the best. It was a big series, a big opponent, and a big spot, and the Pirates came through with flying colors. Also, for the Pirates to jump out ahead to a 4 run lead in the 1st the way they did, on an Alvarez 3 run bomb, that was cool. And it mirrored the 4 run lead they lost in the rain out against the Cards earlier this season that caused this to become a 5 game series, which was a neat coincidence.
Liriano was brilliant. Which is becoming the norm for him. He's only had a tiny hiccup or two and overall he's been excellent this year, far surpassing all expectations I had for him. Tonight his line was 7 IP 1 ER 4 H 2 BB 8 Ks.
And just when it looked like the Cards might start to creep back into it, the Cards run in the 6th was blown out of the water by a 5 run Bucco 7th. And they did it with all the things they were struggling with in recent months! There was a sacrifice fly (the broadcasts loved to mention how we haven't had a SF since June or whatever, and apparently that SF was to an infielder in foul ground, so they liked to mention that the last SF to an outfielder was in late May - sure a sacrifice fly is a fine way to score a run, but it did not need to be mentioned as often as it was - so thank you Gaby Sanchez for ending that), there were hits with runners in scoring position and 2 outs (another stat that gets quoted a bit too much for my liking - I mean, I don't mind it as a general fact being mentioned, but it was used to imply that the Pirates were a weak hitting offense in the "clutch", when a much more reasonable conclusion from that fact is that the Pirates bats would probably regress up in those situations).
It was great to see because all this stuff that was talked about so much never happening for the Bucs suddenly happened all at once.
Victor Black came in in the 9th to finish the job. He gave up a run but sealed the deal. Being a young pitcher on the mound in that atmosphere - the game really felt like a playoff game the way the fans and the players were in to it - must have been pretty cool for Vic.
And that was just game 1. There's a double header tomorrow, don't cha know?
30 July Game 1 - Cardinals 1 Pirates 2 - "Classic Game." Of the 4 Bucco wins this series I have to say this one was my favorite. It was a classic old fashioned pitcher's duel between A.J. Burnett and Lance Lynn, and later, the bullpens. In my 5 years of Pirates fandom this is how I've gotten accustomed to Pirate wins. Tough, grind-it-out, low scoring affairs that are decided late. That's why this is the classic game. This is the game that most represents my favorite memories watching the Pirates.
Burnett pitched great, 7 IP 1 ER 3 H 3 BB 9 Ks. Lynn pitched similarly great, 6 IP 1 ER 3 H 2 BB 7 Ks. There were a couple weird things in here that made this a bit of an unusual and special duel.
First things first. In the 1st inning, McCutchen decided to be superman. With 2 outs Burnett was trying to work out of a 1st and 2nd base jam, Carlos Beltran tatooed a ball to center-right-center. McCutchen had to fly to get to this ball, and pulled off a great diving catch, followed by the astute awareness to get up and throw the ball to first base, doubling up Matt Holliday.
In the bottom half, Cutch stepped up with 2 out and no one on and hit a hard double to left. Alvarez came up next and promptly hit a double to right. A quick 1-0 lead, in big part thanks to our best player.
The Pirates would not score for ten more innings.
The top of the 3rd got a little weird with St. Louis's worst hitting position player doubling to lead off the inning. Lynn was up, and everyone knew to expect a bunt. Lynn bunted it firmly to the third base side of the mound. It was clearly with in Burnett's reach, but he took an odd route around it, almost as if he expected Alvarez to charge in and get it. But Pedro wasn't there, as he was covering 3rd. So now instead of a runner on 3rd and 1 out, we were facing a runners on the corners no out situation.
Matt Carpenter, who is having an exceptional year, walked to load the bases. Then Burnett managed a strike out, a ground out scoring a run, and then a line out to retire Beltran ending the inning. Pretty tough stuff there.
The Pirates got a knock here and there and a couple walks but couldn't much more against Lynn. Then the top of the 6th happened.
The wildness that was the top of the 6th in this game will not show up in the box score. Here's what happened. John Jay led off the inning, and with an 0-2 count he swung and missed at a big sweeping curve that ended up bouncing off his back foot. The ball bounced away toward the 3rd base dugout and Jay started running to first.
Now the correct ruling there is a strike and a dead ball since Jay was hit by the pitch he missed. But the umpire, I assume, didn't see the ball bounce off Jay's foot and assumed the ball hit the ground and got away from Martin.
While Jay was trotting to first, Martin started to argue with Home Plate Umpire Eric Cooper even though, according to the umpire anyway, the ball was still in play! Jay alertly turned toward second and made it in easily, beating a late throw by Martin, which was only late because he was Chuck Knoblauching with the umpire.
The call was wrong, but it stood. Runner on 2nd, nobody out. Cards heart of the lineup (2-3-4, Holliday-Beltran-Adams) coming up.
On the very next pitch, a fastball near the low-away corner, Cooper called a ball, and Burnett, frustrated and justifiably so, raised his arms to question to call.
Well, to say Cooper took exception to that would be an understatement, since he immediately got up out of his umpire stance and started pointing and marching toward the mound, yelling. Martin pressed his glove against the umpire to separate the two. Burnett barked back.
Somehow, and I'm not quite sure how, nobody was ejected there.
One of the greatest pleasures as a Pirate fan these last couple years has been to watch Burnett mow people down when he's angry. Burnett just looks mean normally, but when he's actually angry, he's practically frothing. And somehow, he still pitches well like that! It's like he has an angry super power that gets unleashed occasionally.
Super-Bunett appears and he means business. After one more ball, Burnett goes, strike, strike, strike, and Holliday is out.
Beltran flies out. And on an 0-2 pitch Adams hits a bouncer that Burnett knocks down by swinging his left arm back around his body. He throws to first to end the inning.
Crazy, crazy stuff.
Burnett would come out after 7 innings, and the bullpen kept the score even. Again, a classic kind of Pirate game with the bullpen holding it down until maybe, just maybe the Bucs can squeak across a run.
And squeak they did. In the 11th, with young Kevin Siegrist pitching, Alex Presley came up to the plate after 2 straight walks and hit a ball, startlingly similar to the ball Adams hit, into the ground and bouncing off Siegrist's glove. Only instead of dropping down in front of the pitcher like it did with Burnett, it bounded to the 3rd base side, squeaking through the 5.5 hole.
Martin came around to score. Incredible game. I need a nap.
Oh man, there's another game in 30 minutes!
30 July Game 2 - Cardinals 0 Pirates 6 - "Dominance Game." I wasn't able to watch most of this game live, but it was a solid and certain victory. Brandon Cumpton exceeded all expectations by pitching 7 scoreless innings.
This was the dominant game because unlike the statement game where we did all the things we weren't supposed to be doing, here we seemed to beat our chest a bit. Shut out the opponent, and do so confidently and brashly.
For me, watching the hightlights and replays, the moment of this game was McCutchen's 2 run HR to left, which bounded off of Holliday's wrist on its way into the stands. I think the ball was going out anyway, but Holliday missed his chance to grab it, and the crowd was on his back the rest of the night, screaming "HOLL-I-DAY" at him when he batted.
And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention this gif. Besides being hilarious (he didn't even try to go after the ball, he just wanted to out-bro Holliday), it sort of represented how Bucco fans felt then. It was like, look, we are the only team who has never won this division, but that doesn't mean we can't be as cocky as any of you other guys.
Also of note, the 6th run of this night's game was scored on Tony Sanchez's sacrifice fly, extending the Pirates no-sacrifice-flies-by-a-player-not-name-Sanchez streak to a jillion games.
31 July - Cardinals 4 Pirates 5 - "Regression Game." This was the most exhausting game to watch/listen to. It was slow, there were tons of hits.
The Cardinals came into this game with an extremely low BABIP on the series. Locke came into this game with an extremely low BABIP on the season.
Regression bit hard in this one. The Cards tagged Locke for 10 hits and a walk and knocked him out after only 4 innings. He gave up 4 runs. Though he did K 6 batters. Honestly, I don't think Locke was particularly bad, a bit worse than usual, but I'd say the vast majority of this start was due to the fact that none of the batted balls were turning into outs for Locke - the error in there certainly didn't help and the balls were leaking through. Sometimes you just have one of those nights. Locke's been rolling dice all season, and I think he's good enough to bias toward 5's and 6's, but tonight he just got slammed with a bunch of snake eyes. It happens.
On the other side, the Pirates were nickeling and diming Adam Wainwright all night. A run here, a run there. Waino managed to escape the 7th having given up 4 runs. The teams were trading 1-spots all night. But it was great to see the Bucs claw their way back from a 4-2 deficit to tie it at 4.
Hard throwing Trevor Rosenthal was brought in to pitch the bottom of the 8th. Walker led off with a single. Cutch flew out.
Then with 1 out Pedro hit a deep fly ball to left. Holliday faded back to make the catch, but the ball was so deep that Walker was able to tag up and advance to 2nd base.
On a 0-1 pitch, Russell Martin hit a sharp grounder to the left of 2nd base. Walker skipped past the ball and dashed home to score the fifth Pirate run.
In the 9th, Mark Melancon did that Melancon thing he does when he pitches a 1-2-3 inning. I like when he does that.
Fuck you, regression. 4 straight wins.
1 August - Cardinals 13 Pirates 0 - "What Game?" I don't remember what happened in this game. I don't think anyone does.
It was a bad night obviously, but who cares if we lost 1-0, 13-0, or 26-0. A loss is a loss. We took 4 of 5 from highest-esteemed team in the National League. That's something to write home about.
I know this post is already the War and Peace of GOXN blog posts, but I want to say a few things about the trade deadline and the upcoming month.
The 31st of July was the trade deadline. Now, the Pirates could still get an addition through waivers after that day, but it's not the easiest thing to do. I would've really liked to have seen the Pirates add a bat. I would've been very happy with a Hunter Pence or a Nate Schierholtz. I wasn't as high on Alex Rios, who was spoken about a lot and never ended up going anywhere, but I admit he would've probably been a fine addition as well.
This Pirates team is in a fantastic position, it would've been fantastic to cement one of our most glaring weaknesses, the fact that we don't have a reliable bat in right field (or at first base, really).
I feel like this is a missed opportunity. I know Neal Huntington and the Pirates tried to make some moves, they definitely inquired about Giancarlo Stanton (who would've rightfully required a king's ransom to get - and apparently Jeffrey Loria wouldn't even take that, since he turned down every offer) and Mark Trumbo (another great bat, but would've been expensive as well).
My personal feelings are that the Bucs tried to make the big Blockbuster deal, but the other teams wanted too much, and all the deals fell through. I feel they could've gone after some good bats without breaking the bank, and still come out with a decent upgrade. And I'm not talking Derrick Lee/Ryan Ludwick marginal upgrade like they've done in the past (although, to be fair, those players did actually perform okay once they joined the Bucs, but they weren't really that different than the players we had at the time), I'm talking like 4 or 5 WAR/season difference between what we're getting at a certain position and what we could be getting. Schierholtz in RF would've done that. Oh well.
I obviously don't know what the trade talks were like - I wasn't there. As a bystander though, I came out of the deadline disappointed.
Finally, a word about August.
Here is an artists depiction of what the Pirate's record looked like last August:
Basically the Pirates were struggling a long, losing a few games here and there and nothing crazy for the first week or two. Then they won a marathon 19-inning game (not to be confused with the Jerry Meals disaster in Atlanta from 2011 that also ended in 19 inning), and followed it up by losing pretty much everything afterward. Some of it was regression, some of it was fatigue. A lot of it was terrible, terrible luck.
Why mention this? Well a couple reasons: 1) It's August now. The season is approximately 2/3 done. This may be a better team than last year and this team may be in a better position than last year at the same time. But it's not over. I've seen collapses of teams I love, and the team that collapsed didn't look all that different than the one right now. I'm not saying this 2013 Pirate team will collapse. What I am saying is that being in first place and winning game after game in late July/early August like you're the '27 Yankees is no guarantee of a playoff spot or a 0.500 record.
So when you hear commentators or sports anchors say, the Pirates are definitely making the playoffs. Don't believe them. Cause they might be right, but they're not definitely right.
Stay strong Buccos. The hardest part is not yet over. It's along season. And we're gonna have to make it through August to make this season famous instead of infamous.
Your 1st place Pirates, ladies and gentleman. Cherish it, but don't take anything for granted.
Let's go Bucs!
First the games. The great thing about this series was that each of these games was very different, they all had there own little feel to them. In fact I gave them all names!
1. Statement Game
2. Classic Game
3. Dominance Game
4. Regression Game
5. What Game?
29 July - Cardinals 2 Pirates 9 - "Statement Game." The Pirates returned back from their long road trip to host an even longer homestand (their first homestand since the All-Star Break) to face the team they were looking up at in the division. The question remained, how would the Bucs hold up against one of the best teams in the majors? Would they be struggling to hang on? I mean, they just dropped a series to the Marlins. Or would they stand tall at home? How would their offense fare against an extremely talented pitching staff?
This was the statement game because, while it obviously didn't decide anything, it was a signal that these Pirates damn well could hold their own against the best of the best. It was a big series, a big opponent, and a big spot, and the Pirates came through with flying colors. Also, for the Pirates to jump out ahead to a 4 run lead in the 1st the way they did, on an Alvarez 3 run bomb, that was cool. And it mirrored the 4 run lead they lost in the rain out against the Cards earlier this season that caused this to become a 5 game series, which was a neat coincidence.
Liriano was brilliant. Which is becoming the norm for him. He's only had a tiny hiccup or two and overall he's been excellent this year, far surpassing all expectations I had for him. Tonight his line was 7 IP 1 ER 4 H 2 BB 8 Ks.
And just when it looked like the Cards might start to creep back into it, the Cards run in the 6th was blown out of the water by a 5 run Bucco 7th. And they did it with all the things they were struggling with in recent months! There was a sacrifice fly (the broadcasts loved to mention how we haven't had a SF since June or whatever, and apparently that SF was to an infielder in foul ground, so they liked to mention that the last SF to an outfielder was in late May - sure a sacrifice fly is a fine way to score a run, but it did not need to be mentioned as often as it was - so thank you Gaby Sanchez for ending that), there were hits with runners in scoring position and 2 outs (another stat that gets quoted a bit too much for my liking - I mean, I don't mind it as a general fact being mentioned, but it was used to imply that the Pirates were a weak hitting offense in the "clutch", when a much more reasonable conclusion from that fact is that the Pirates bats would probably regress up in those situations).
It was great to see because all this stuff that was talked about so much never happening for the Bucs suddenly happened all at once.
Victor Black came in in the 9th to finish the job. He gave up a run but sealed the deal. Being a young pitcher on the mound in that atmosphere - the game really felt like a playoff game the way the fans and the players were in to it - must have been pretty cool for Vic.
And that was just game 1. There's a double header tomorrow, don't cha know?
30 July Game 1 - Cardinals 1 Pirates 2 - "Classic Game." Of the 4 Bucco wins this series I have to say this one was my favorite. It was a classic old fashioned pitcher's duel between A.J. Burnett and Lance Lynn, and later, the bullpens. In my 5 years of Pirates fandom this is how I've gotten accustomed to Pirate wins. Tough, grind-it-out, low scoring affairs that are decided late. That's why this is the classic game. This is the game that most represents my favorite memories watching the Pirates.
Burnett pitched great, 7 IP 1 ER 3 H 3 BB 9 Ks. Lynn pitched similarly great, 6 IP 1 ER 3 H 2 BB 7 Ks. There were a couple weird things in here that made this a bit of an unusual and special duel.
First things first. In the 1st inning, McCutchen decided to be superman. With 2 outs Burnett was trying to work out of a 1st and 2nd base jam, Carlos Beltran tatooed a ball to center-right-center. McCutchen had to fly to get to this ball, and pulled off a great diving catch, followed by the astute awareness to get up and throw the ball to first base, doubling up Matt Holliday.
In the bottom half, Cutch stepped up with 2 out and no one on and hit a hard double to left. Alvarez came up next and promptly hit a double to right. A quick 1-0 lead, in big part thanks to our best player.
The Pirates would not score for ten more innings.
The top of the 3rd got a little weird with St. Louis's worst hitting position player doubling to lead off the inning. Lynn was up, and everyone knew to expect a bunt. Lynn bunted it firmly to the third base side of the mound. It was clearly with in Burnett's reach, but he took an odd route around it, almost as if he expected Alvarez to charge in and get it. But Pedro wasn't there, as he was covering 3rd. So now instead of a runner on 3rd and 1 out, we were facing a runners on the corners no out situation.
Matt Carpenter, who is having an exceptional year, walked to load the bases. Then Burnett managed a strike out, a ground out scoring a run, and then a line out to retire Beltran ending the inning. Pretty tough stuff there.
The Pirates got a knock here and there and a couple walks but couldn't much more against Lynn. Then the top of the 6th happened.
The wildness that was the top of the 6th in this game will not show up in the box score. Here's what happened. John Jay led off the inning, and with an 0-2 count he swung and missed at a big sweeping curve that ended up bouncing off his back foot. The ball bounced away toward the 3rd base dugout and Jay started running to first.
Now the correct ruling there is a strike and a dead ball since Jay was hit by the pitch he missed. But the umpire, I assume, didn't see the ball bounce off Jay's foot and assumed the ball hit the ground and got away from Martin.
While Jay was trotting to first, Martin started to argue with Home Plate Umpire Eric Cooper even though, according to the umpire anyway, the ball was still in play! Jay alertly turned toward second and made it in easily, beating a late throw by Martin, which was only late because he was Chuck Knoblauching with the umpire.
The call was wrong, but it stood. Runner on 2nd, nobody out. Cards heart of the lineup (2-3-4, Holliday-Beltran-Adams) coming up.
On the very next pitch, a fastball near the low-away corner, Cooper called a ball, and Burnett, frustrated and justifiably so, raised his arms to question to call.
Well, to say Cooper took exception to that would be an understatement, since he immediately got up out of his umpire stance and started pointing and marching toward the mound, yelling. Martin pressed his glove against the umpire to separate the two. Burnett barked back.
Somehow, and I'm not quite sure how, nobody was ejected there.
One of the greatest pleasures as a Pirate fan these last couple years has been to watch Burnett mow people down when he's angry. Burnett just looks mean normally, but when he's actually angry, he's practically frothing. And somehow, he still pitches well like that! It's like he has an angry super power that gets unleashed occasionally.
Super-Bunett appears and he means business. After one more ball, Burnett goes, strike, strike, strike, and Holliday is out.
Beltran flies out. And on an 0-2 pitch Adams hits a bouncer that Burnett knocks down by swinging his left arm back around his body. He throws to first to end the inning.
Crazy, crazy stuff.
Burnett would come out after 7 innings, and the bullpen kept the score even. Again, a classic kind of Pirate game with the bullpen holding it down until maybe, just maybe the Bucs can squeak across a run.
And squeak they did. In the 11th, with young Kevin Siegrist pitching, Alex Presley came up to the plate after 2 straight walks and hit a ball, startlingly similar to the ball Adams hit, into the ground and bouncing off Siegrist's glove. Only instead of dropping down in front of the pitcher like it did with Burnett, it bounded to the 3rd base side, squeaking through the 5.5 hole.
Martin came around to score. Incredible game. I need a nap.
Oh man, there's another game in 30 minutes!
30 July Game 2 - Cardinals 0 Pirates 6 - "Dominance Game." I wasn't able to watch most of this game live, but it was a solid and certain victory. Brandon Cumpton exceeded all expectations by pitching 7 scoreless innings.
This was the dominant game because unlike the statement game where we did all the things we weren't supposed to be doing, here we seemed to beat our chest a bit. Shut out the opponent, and do so confidently and brashly.
For me, watching the hightlights and replays, the moment of this game was McCutchen's 2 run HR to left, which bounded off of Holliday's wrist on its way into the stands. I think the ball was going out anyway, but Holliday missed his chance to grab it, and the crowd was on his back the rest of the night, screaming "HOLL-I-DAY" at him when he batted.
And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention this gif. Besides being hilarious (he didn't even try to go after the ball, he just wanted to out-bro Holliday), it sort of represented how Bucco fans felt then. It was like, look, we are the only team who has never won this division, but that doesn't mean we can't be as cocky as any of you other guys.
Also of note, the 6th run of this night's game was scored on Tony Sanchez's sacrifice fly, extending the Pirates no-sacrifice-flies-by-a-player-not-name-Sanchez streak to a jillion games.
31 July - Cardinals 4 Pirates 5 - "Regression Game." This was the most exhausting game to watch/listen to. It was slow, there were tons of hits.
The Cardinals came into this game with an extremely low BABIP on the series. Locke came into this game with an extremely low BABIP on the season.
Regression bit hard in this one. The Cards tagged Locke for 10 hits and a walk and knocked him out after only 4 innings. He gave up 4 runs. Though he did K 6 batters. Honestly, I don't think Locke was particularly bad, a bit worse than usual, but I'd say the vast majority of this start was due to the fact that none of the batted balls were turning into outs for Locke - the error in there certainly didn't help and the balls were leaking through. Sometimes you just have one of those nights. Locke's been rolling dice all season, and I think he's good enough to bias toward 5's and 6's, but tonight he just got slammed with a bunch of snake eyes. It happens.
On the other side, the Pirates were nickeling and diming Adam Wainwright all night. A run here, a run there. Waino managed to escape the 7th having given up 4 runs. The teams were trading 1-spots all night. But it was great to see the Bucs claw their way back from a 4-2 deficit to tie it at 4.
Hard throwing Trevor Rosenthal was brought in to pitch the bottom of the 8th. Walker led off with a single. Cutch flew out.
Then with 1 out Pedro hit a deep fly ball to left. Holliday faded back to make the catch, but the ball was so deep that Walker was able to tag up and advance to 2nd base.
On a 0-1 pitch, Russell Martin hit a sharp grounder to the left of 2nd base. Walker skipped past the ball and dashed home to score the fifth Pirate run.
In the 9th, Mark Melancon did that Melancon thing he does when he pitches a 1-2-3 inning. I like when he does that.
Fuck you, regression. 4 straight wins.
1 August - Cardinals 13 Pirates 0 - "What Game?" I don't remember what happened in this game. I don't think anyone does.
It was a bad night obviously, but who cares if we lost 1-0, 13-0, or 26-0. A loss is a loss. We took 4 of 5 from highest-esteemed team in the National League. That's something to write home about.
I know this post is already the War and Peace of GOXN blog posts, but I want to say a few things about the trade deadline and the upcoming month.
The 31st of July was the trade deadline. Now, the Pirates could still get an addition through waivers after that day, but it's not the easiest thing to do. I would've really liked to have seen the Pirates add a bat. I would've been very happy with a Hunter Pence or a Nate Schierholtz. I wasn't as high on Alex Rios, who was spoken about a lot and never ended up going anywhere, but I admit he would've probably been a fine addition as well.
This Pirates team is in a fantastic position, it would've been fantastic to cement one of our most glaring weaknesses, the fact that we don't have a reliable bat in right field (or at first base, really).
I feel like this is a missed opportunity. I know Neal Huntington and the Pirates tried to make some moves, they definitely inquired about Giancarlo Stanton (who would've rightfully required a king's ransom to get - and apparently Jeffrey Loria wouldn't even take that, since he turned down every offer) and Mark Trumbo (another great bat, but would've been expensive as well).
My personal feelings are that the Bucs tried to make the big Blockbuster deal, but the other teams wanted too much, and all the deals fell through. I feel they could've gone after some good bats without breaking the bank, and still come out with a decent upgrade. And I'm not talking Derrick Lee/Ryan Ludwick marginal upgrade like they've done in the past (although, to be fair, those players did actually perform okay once they joined the Bucs, but they weren't really that different than the players we had at the time), I'm talking like 4 or 5 WAR/season difference between what we're getting at a certain position and what we could be getting. Schierholtz in RF would've done that. Oh well.
I obviously don't know what the trade talks were like - I wasn't there. As a bystander though, I came out of the deadline disappointed.
Finally, a word about August.
Here is an artists depiction of what the Pirate's record looked like last August:
Basically the Pirates were struggling a long, losing a few games here and there and nothing crazy for the first week or two. Then they won a marathon 19-inning game (not to be confused with the Jerry Meals disaster in Atlanta from 2011 that also ended in 19 inning), and followed it up by losing pretty much everything afterward. Some of it was regression, some of it was fatigue. A lot of it was terrible, terrible luck.
Why mention this? Well a couple reasons: 1) It's August now. The season is approximately 2/3 done. This may be a better team than last year and this team may be in a better position than last year at the same time. But it's not over. I've seen collapses of teams I love, and the team that collapsed didn't look all that different than the one right now. I'm not saying this 2013 Pirate team will collapse. What I am saying is that being in first place and winning game after game in late July/early August like you're the '27 Yankees is no guarantee of a playoff spot or a 0.500 record.
So when you hear commentators or sports anchors say, the Pirates are definitely making the playoffs. Don't believe them. Cause they might be right, but they're not definitely right.
Stay strong Buccos. The hardest part is not yet over. It's along season. And we're gonna have to make it through August to make this season famous instead of infamous.
Your 1st place Pirates, ladies and gentleman. Cherish it, but don't take anything for granted.
Let's go Bucs!
Monday, July 29, 2013
Man... I'm behind. Quick jump to the present
3 series I haven't properly posted. There were a few interesting games in there, I think I'll just focus on those and give the general feeling as we enter our big series with the Cards.
Lost 2 of 3 in Cincy. Lost the first two games, the second in heart breaking fashion (not just the 9th, but the whole game was heartbreaking). Salvaged the 3rd game thanks to a nice start from Locke coming back from his back injury which kept him from pitching in the All-Star game.
Landmark game: 20 July - Pirates 4 Reds 5
Won 3 of 4 in D.C. Morton pitched OK, we won 6-5 (and Grilli got hurt and eventually went to the DL - good win, but a costly one, hopefully we can manage until he's back - thank god for Mr. Melancon). Next day Cole pitched amazing, we won 5-1. Then Liriano pitched even more amazing, we won 4-2.
Then probably the most topsy-turvy crazy insane game happened. There were errors, ejections, a crazy comeback by the Bucs, but in the end it was an L thanks to a Bryce Harper walk-off HR.
Landmark game: 25 July - Pirates 7 Nationals 9
Lost 2 of 3 in Miami. I know Miami's been playing better of late and by all reasonable measures I should be more mad about the Cincy series but this series really grated. Lost the first game due to a missing offense with no excuses. Won the second. Then lost the third after an offensive outburst followed by offensive silence (which is a bit more excusable than the 1st game because in this one the very talented 20-year old phenom Jose Fernandez started opposite Cole, but still). The only consolation I take from this series is that while the Bucs lost 2 of 3 to the Fish, the Cards were being swept by the Braves, and the Reds lost 3 of 4 to the red hot Dodgers. No harm no foul I guess, but a nice little opportunity missed.
Coming out of the break the Pirates went 5-5 on their 10 game road trip. At that level, absolutely nothing to complain about. The Pirates' job right now is to stay competitive in the division, and playing 0.500 ball on the road is a great step toward that.
Now if the Pirates really want to make some strides toward a division title, well that's gonna take a bit more. Like winning more than they lose against the Cards and Reds the rest of the way.
Welcome to PNC, STL. We're 1.5 games back, and we're waiting for ya.
Lost 2 of 3 in Cincy. Lost the first two games, the second in heart breaking fashion (not just the 9th, but the whole game was heartbreaking). Salvaged the 3rd game thanks to a nice start from Locke coming back from his back injury which kept him from pitching in the All-Star game.
Landmark game: 20 July - Pirates 4 Reds 5
Won 3 of 4 in D.C. Morton pitched OK, we won 6-5 (and Grilli got hurt and eventually went to the DL - good win, but a costly one, hopefully we can manage until he's back - thank god for Mr. Melancon). Next day Cole pitched amazing, we won 5-1. Then Liriano pitched even more amazing, we won 4-2.
Then probably the most topsy-turvy crazy insane game happened. There were errors, ejections, a crazy comeback by the Bucs, but in the end it was an L thanks to a Bryce Harper walk-off HR.
Landmark game: 25 July - Pirates 7 Nationals 9
Lost 2 of 3 in Miami. I know Miami's been playing better of late and by all reasonable measures I should be more mad about the Cincy series but this series really grated. Lost the first game due to a missing offense with no excuses. Won the second. Then lost the third after an offensive outburst followed by offensive silence (which is a bit more excusable than the 1st game because in this one the very talented 20-year old phenom Jose Fernandez started opposite Cole, but still). The only consolation I take from this series is that while the Bucs lost 2 of 3 to the Fish, the Cards were being swept by the Braves, and the Reds lost 3 of 4 to the red hot Dodgers. No harm no foul I guess, but a nice little opportunity missed.
Coming out of the break the Pirates went 5-5 on their 10 game road trip. At that level, absolutely nothing to complain about. The Pirates' job right now is to stay competitive in the division, and playing 0.500 ball on the road is a great step toward that.
Now if the Pirates really want to make some strides toward a division title, well that's gonna take a bit more. Like winning more than they lose against the Cards and Reds the rest of the way.
Welcome to PNC, STL. We're 1.5 games back, and we're waiting for ya.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
The horror... the horror - 20 July 2013
Normally I'd wait until the end of the series to post, but damn. I need to get this off my chest.
That was one of the most horrificly terrible endings to a baseball game I've ever heard. Thank god, I was only listening on the radio. If I were watching I'd probably want to gouge my ears and eyes out.
Things were going wrong right and left all night. But never mind that, we can talk about the rest of the game tomorrow. All I want to talk about is the last 3 at bats of the game.
Here's the situation: Top of the 9th. Down by 1 run. Runners at 1st and 3rd. None out.
Russell Martin is up. He's been struggling mightily lately, but there's almost nothing he could do to fail to get the run in from 3rd. The Reds had their middle infield playing back. So pretty much any ground ball scores a run, even if it were a double play. Just have to avoid a strike out or popup.
1-1 pitch. Pop out to the second baseman. Grrr. That's frustrating. Would've loved to see him draw a deeper count in that situation too. But we still have two more cracks at this baby. Runner on 3rd and 1 out is still very good.
Here's the problem though. Jones is up. Jones has not been great for us this year. And he's facing a fellow lefty, Chapman. Harrison (ugh) and Snider (erm) both alrerady entered the game off the bench. This leaves us with three choices:
1) Leave in Jones.
2) Sub in McKenry.
3) Sub in Inge.
Jones has been miserable in his few at bats against lefties this year. 17 plate appearances. 1 hit. 9 strikeouts.
McKenry has been bad against lefties too even though he's a righty. I guess that's the price you pay as a backup catcher, fewer at bats to get in a groove, and as a result many fewer opportunities against lefties.
27 plate appearances. 4 hits (including a double). 6 strikeouts. 1 walk. 0.377 OPS (you read that right, that's his OPS against lefties this year).
Inge. Oh god Inge. Inge is not the guy you want up in this situation. But his numbers are actually the best (?!) of your options against lefties. This year: 36 plate appearances. 6 hits (including a double and a home run). 12 strikeouts. 0.457 OPS.
Not a lot to work with there as a manager.
Hurdle opts for McKenry, which is... fine. Given the other options, I don't know if it matters.
McKenry falls behind 1-2. Fouls off a pitch. Then he strikes out.
This makes everyone very unhappy.
Now our odds of winning this game have dropped dramatically. Needing a hit (or an error, or a couple walks, or something even more unlikely) to tie the game.
Mercer, who's had a good night, and an okay but not so great past couple weeks, is up.
Mercer strikes out. Chapman gets the save. The Reds win.
Chapman's a good pitcher. The Reds are a good team. This is in Cincy. This is only one game of 162. I get all that.
But what just transpired can't happen. I'm leaving the analysis for another time.
That was one of the most horrificly terrible endings to a baseball game I've ever heard. Thank god, I was only listening on the radio. If I were watching I'd probably want to gouge my ears and eyes out.
Things were going wrong right and left all night. But never mind that, we can talk about the rest of the game tomorrow. All I want to talk about is the last 3 at bats of the game.
Here's the situation: Top of the 9th. Down by 1 run. Runners at 1st and 3rd. None out.
Russell Martin is up. He's been struggling mightily lately, but there's almost nothing he could do to fail to get the run in from 3rd. The Reds had their middle infield playing back. So pretty much any ground ball scores a run, even if it were a double play. Just have to avoid a strike out or popup.
1-1 pitch. Pop out to the second baseman. Grrr. That's frustrating. Would've loved to see him draw a deeper count in that situation too. But we still have two more cracks at this baby. Runner on 3rd and 1 out is still very good.
Here's the problem though. Jones is up. Jones has not been great for us this year. And he's facing a fellow lefty, Chapman. Harrison (ugh) and Snider (erm) both alrerady entered the game off the bench. This leaves us with three choices:
1) Leave in Jones.
2) Sub in McKenry.
3) Sub in Inge.
Jones has been miserable in his few at bats against lefties this year. 17 plate appearances. 1 hit. 9 strikeouts.
McKenry has been bad against lefties too even though he's a righty. I guess that's the price you pay as a backup catcher, fewer at bats to get in a groove, and as a result many fewer opportunities against lefties.
27 plate appearances. 4 hits (including a double). 6 strikeouts. 1 walk. 0.377 OPS (you read that right, that's his OPS against lefties this year).
Inge. Oh god Inge. Inge is not the guy you want up in this situation. But his numbers are actually the best (?!) of your options against lefties. This year: 36 plate appearances. 6 hits (including a double and a home run). 12 strikeouts. 0.457 OPS.
Not a lot to work with there as a manager.
Hurdle opts for McKenry, which is... fine. Given the other options, I don't know if it matters.
McKenry falls behind 1-2. Fouls off a pitch. Then he strikes out.
This makes everyone very unhappy.
Now our odds of winning this game have dropped dramatically. Needing a hit (or an error, or a couple walks, or something even more unlikely) to tie the game.
Mercer, who's had a good night, and an okay but not so great past couple weeks, is up.
Mercer strikes out. Chapman gets the save. The Reds win.
Chapman's a good pitcher. The Reds are a good team. This is in Cincy. This is only one game of 162. I get all that.
But what just transpired can't happen. I'm leaving the analysis for another time.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Taking 2 of 3 from the Mets
And just like that we're heading into the All-Star Break. Representing the Bucs are 2 hitters: Pedro Alvarez and Andrew McCutchen and 3 pitchers: Jeff Lock, Mark Melancon, and Jason Grilli.
Mets 2 Pirates 3 F/11 - There was some trepidation about Morton starting this game. He was shaky his last time out against a bad Cubs team. I credited that mostly due to bad luck and thought he might do better next time around. I mean the Mets are not powerhouses either, right?
Morton went 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 H, 1 BB, 4 K's. Good enough to keep the Pirates in the game for sure. Melancon, Grilli, Watson, Morris, and Mazzaro combined for 4 innings of shutout ball to keep the game tied at 2 through the 11th.
After two walks, one intentional, one unintentional, Mercer singled in Cutch to win the game. One of the more exciting games of the past couple weeks for sure.
One more thing, Pedro homered. Kinda nice retribution for not being picked by David Wright dontchthink?
Mets 2 Pirates 4 - Burnett didn't pitch great, giving up 11 combined Hs and BBs. But he did record 8 Ks and kept the Bucs in the game, which is all you can ask for really.
Cutch was the offensive star of this one, which is great to see, because although he has been very good this year, we haven't seen "Cutch levels" of production thus far, and thus when nights like this become more frequent, you gotta be thinking that he's gonna explode sometime soon.
I don't believe in "momentum" when it comes to players and teams. However I do believe in the streakiness of hitting (or any other kind of probability - if you flip a coin that has a 3 in 10 chance of coming up heads, flip it long enough you're gonna get a significant streak of heads) and also in the psychology behind "seeing the ball well" and "feeling good" as a hitter. Sometimes things are just clicking as a hitter for whatever reason (could be that you're totally healthy, that the sun is in just the right place, that you've gotten a nice new pair of batting gloves, whatever, it doesn't matter).
The point is production tends to bunch up, and it's exciting to see if this is when it actually begins.
Cutch went 2-4, including a HR and an RBI single which gave the Bucs a 3-2 lead in the 7th.
Grilli held on and closed the door for the save.
Mets 4 Pirates 2 - Too bad we didn't sweep this one, would've been nice going into the break and a bit of a make up for the recent shortcomings. But with this loss the Bucs enter the break having lost 6 of their last 10. The Pirates are 1 game back of the Cards in the Central.
About the game: Cole gave up 3 runs in the 1st but settled down enough to make it through 5 innings. Cole showed improvement last start but this was a step back. Nice to see him show that poise and hang in there though.
Cole took the first loss of his career as the Bucs weren't able to mount much offensively again. This time being held to a run by the likes of starter Dillon Gee.
The Pirates are 56-37. That's over 60%. This is pretty much the best case scenario for our record at the break if you asked me at the beginning of the year.
Keep it up Bucs.
Mets 2 Pirates 3 F/11 - There was some trepidation about Morton starting this game. He was shaky his last time out against a bad Cubs team. I credited that mostly due to bad luck and thought he might do better next time around. I mean the Mets are not powerhouses either, right?
Morton went 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 H, 1 BB, 4 K's. Good enough to keep the Pirates in the game for sure. Melancon, Grilli, Watson, Morris, and Mazzaro combined for 4 innings of shutout ball to keep the game tied at 2 through the 11th.
After two walks, one intentional, one unintentional, Mercer singled in Cutch to win the game. One of the more exciting games of the past couple weeks for sure.
One more thing, Pedro homered. Kinda nice retribution for not being picked by David Wright dontchthink?
Mets 2 Pirates 4 - Burnett didn't pitch great, giving up 11 combined Hs and BBs. But he did record 8 Ks and kept the Bucs in the game, which is all you can ask for really.
Cutch was the offensive star of this one, which is great to see, because although he has been very good this year, we haven't seen "Cutch levels" of production thus far, and thus when nights like this become more frequent, you gotta be thinking that he's gonna explode sometime soon.
I don't believe in "momentum" when it comes to players and teams. However I do believe in the streakiness of hitting (or any other kind of probability - if you flip a coin that has a 3 in 10 chance of coming up heads, flip it long enough you're gonna get a significant streak of heads) and also in the psychology behind "seeing the ball well" and "feeling good" as a hitter. Sometimes things are just clicking as a hitter for whatever reason (could be that you're totally healthy, that the sun is in just the right place, that you've gotten a nice new pair of batting gloves, whatever, it doesn't matter).
The point is production tends to bunch up, and it's exciting to see if this is when it actually begins.
Cutch went 2-4, including a HR and an RBI single which gave the Bucs a 3-2 lead in the 7th.
Grilli held on and closed the door for the save.
Mets 4 Pirates 2 - Too bad we didn't sweep this one, would've been nice going into the break and a bit of a make up for the recent shortcomings. But with this loss the Bucs enter the break having lost 6 of their last 10. The Pirates are 1 game back of the Cards in the Central.
About the game: Cole gave up 3 runs in the 1st but settled down enough to make it through 5 innings. Cole showed improvement last start but this was a step back. Nice to see him show that poise and hang in there though.
Cole took the first loss of his career as the Bucs weren't able to mount much offensively again. This time being held to a run by the likes of starter Dillon Gee.
The Pirates are 56-37. That's over 60%. This is pretty much the best case scenario for our record at the break if you asked me at the beginning of the year.
Keep it up Bucs.
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