The Pirates got a much needed win today in walk off style as Ryan Doumit's 10th inning blast beat the Braves and improved the Pirates record to 18-23 on the season. It was very nice to see the Pirates pitch well and get enough timely hits to get a victory and stop that mini losing streak. The next 7 games are gonna be pretty important for the Pirates, they are 6 games under .500 now and if they don't play well on this road trip they are going to be a lot worse off than that. The Reds and Braves are 2 of the hotter teams in the major leagues right now, so nothing is going to be easy this week, but if the Pirates can keep pitching and getting some well timed hits they could be looking at their 2nd straight winning road trip.
For now we'll take a quick look at the Cincinnati Reds, who have won 6 of their last 9 and 11 of their last 15. In that stretch they have scored 89 runs and given up 49. That's almost 6 runs a game. They have hit 21 home runs in that time, which is almost 1.5 homers per game. The big-name bats in the Reds lineup are Brandon Phillips, Joey Votto, Scott Rolen, and Jay Bruce. Phillips and Bruce have been inconsistent, but really good at times, Votto has been solid all year, and Rolen has been hitting the ball well lately (4 homers and 12 RBI in his last 7 games). Besides the big name guys, they have been getting some real solid performance from guys like Laynce Nix (8 hits, 3 homers, and 7 RBI in last 4 games) and Jonny Gomes (.342 AVG last 10 games).
The hitting has been good, but the pitching has put them over the top. The Reds have given up only 3.27 runs per game in their last 15 games, which works out to a team ERA of 3.05. In that same stretch the pitchers have struck out around 6.5 batters per game and walked only 2.6 per game (and the 7 they gave up in Sunday's loss to the Indians significantly raised that number). While the Reds pitchers are doing a good job in almost every facet of the game, they have been giving up a surprising amount of home runs. There have been 14 home runs hit against them in the last 15 games.
Unfortunately for the Pirates, we don't have too many threats in the home run department. Ryan Doumit hit the ball well today and his 10th inning walk off might be cause for hope of a little power surge, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. Garrett Jones has done well this year with runners in scoring position and he has a good number of RBI's, but he just isn't hitting the ball over the fence like we expected him to. He has 5 home runs this year, 3 of which came in the first 2 games of the season.
Bottom line is, if the Pirates are going to win or split this series, they are going to have to play very well on both sides of the ball. I don't believe the Reds are really as good as they have been lately, but they definitely aren't far from it. They have a lot of young talent that has been clicking well this year, and that teamed with some experienced veterans performing well is a great recipe for success. Here are the probable pitching matchups:
Monday: Brian Burres (2-1, 4.91) vs. Aaron Harang (2-5, 6.02)
Tuesday: Paul Maholm (3-4, 4.50) vs. Mike Leake (4-0, 2.91)
Wednesday: Ross Ohlendorf (0-2, 5.30) vs. Bronson Arroyo (4-2, 4.85)
Thursday: Charlie Morton (1-8, 8.72) vs. Johnny Cueto (4-1, 3.60)
Should be a fun series to watch, lots of young talent and familiar competition should make for some good baseball. Let's Go Bucs!