The Pirates have forgotten how to hit the ball. Actually, they never really figured it out in the first place.
The Pirates have been having offensive woes all season long, but they have just recently hit an all-time low. The last two nights the Pirates have been shut out by 2 average-at-best pitchers.
First, Johnny Cueto threw a complete game, 1 hit, shut out while throwing only 103 pitches. Now today Homer Bailey threw a complete game, 4 hit, shut out while throwing a ridiculously (and I mean ridiculously) low 90 pitches.
First of all, I suppose Homer Bailey deserves some credit. I don't care who you are facing, a complete game shut out is nothing to take lightly, the guy threw 73 strikes out of 90 pitches today, you normally don't see anything close to that percentage, he pitched great and congratulations to him on his first win of the season.
Okay, now that the nice crap is done with...
The Pirates should be embarrassed with themselves. Sure, Bailey was throwing good, but he threw 73 strikes! 73 strikes, and only 4 of them resulted in hits? You're a major league baseball team, you should be able to get SOMETHING going offensively when a pitcher throws you that many pitches in the strikezone, especially when the pitcher's stuff is miles (well, maybe a couple thousand feet) short of dominating.
This isn't a new thing either, while the Pirates had only been shut out 3 times prior to these last two games, they are scoring only 3.45 runs per game. Management really was never expecting this team to compete this year, but at some point something has to be done.
Today is May 12th, and we are now under 3 weeks away from June 1st. That's significant because June begins the time where minor league players can start making their major league debuts and save enough time on their major league clock to have their contracts and financial situations optimal for the organization. It would hurt the team financially to bring up guys like Pedro Alvarez, Jose Tabata, and Brad Lincoln now, but it will hurt them a lot less on June 1st.
Therefore, unless something drastic happens to the offense in these next 3 weeks, I think the Pirates have very little choice but to shake up the roster in June. Alvarez appears almost ready for the bigs, he has been crushing the ball in AAA this month. Tabata has also been extremely successful down there and he seems fine tuned enough to come up and hit at the top of the order for the Pirates. The power that some people think he could have hasn't developed yet, and it might develop faster in the minor leagues, but I see no reason why the Pirates shouldn't bring him up this year and let it try and develop in the bigs. There's a fairly good chance that it will never come anyway, so what's the point of playing him in the minors when he's ready to help the big league team? Lincoln is the most obvious choice to be called up in June. The rotation is in need of another starter (assuming Brian Burres isn't the real deal, which FYI - he's not!) and Lincoln has been in the minors long enough and now is the perfect time for him to make his debut.
Here are those 3 guys numbers in AAA so far this season:
Alvarez: 125 AB, 19 R, 5 2B, 8 HR, 32 RBI, .256 AVG, .343 OBP, .504 SLG
Tabata: 132 AB, 25 R, 12 2B, 1 3B, 2 HR, 17 SB, .326 AVG, .388 OBP, .605 SLG
Lincoln: 7 GS, 4-1, 3.83 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 29 K, 11 BB, 6.24 K/9
You got a phenomenal power bat in Alvarez, a high average speedster in Tabata, and a very solid pitching option in Lincoln, all right there ready to make their debuts. There is no doubt that these 3 guys can come up in June and make an instant impact on the major league team.
Now that the Penguins have been eliminated, a lot of Pittsburgh sports fans are looking ahead to Steelers training camp. However, there is still a lot to be excited about watching this 2010 Pirates team play, and it starts with Alvarez, Tabata, and Lincoln.
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