Alvarez went 0/2 with a walk and a run scored. His first at bat ended in a strike out after Pedro got the count full. He swung hard and missed on an inside fastball, and it appeared to me that he pulled his head a little bit, I'm sure the nerves didn't help there. His third at bat ended in a fly out that was hit pretty well. He did a nice job going to left field on a 2-strike pitch and almost beat Juan Pierre on it, but he made a nice catch. Good to see Pedro able to go to the opposite field, especially off the lefty.
The big thing tonight was just Pedro getting acclimated. You can never really take anything from a debut, because things are moving 10 times faster to the player than usual. There is too much going in their heads to really focus on the game. Sometimes, that has good results, as we have seen with almost every other big prospect that has come up this year, but tonight with Pedro he couldn't get much done. He only recorded 2 outs, and one was hit very well, so all-in-all it wasn't a bad night for Pedro, at least offensively.
The defense was terrible tonight, the Pirates committed 6 errors and looked more like a little league team than a major league team. Really embarrassing stuff out there, hopefully they can clean that up soon. Pedro didn't look good at third, he recorded one out on a routine double play, and committed one error when he couldn't handle Ryan Doumit's throw trying to catch a runner stealing. There were a couple well hit balls near Pedro that he couldn't make plays on. One was hit to his right that he didn't get near, a ball that a good big league shortstop probably could have ranged and laid out to get, and another one was chopped down the line and Pedro couldn't quite get to it. The range isn't really there, he is a big framed third baseman that doesn't move as well as the better defenders in the league. Some work with Carlos Garcia and company can only do him some good, I would expect him to get better and better over there every day.
The story with Pedro is all about the offense, so that's what I want to take a specific focus on for the rest of the season. All-in-all I think the offense is going to be above average for the rest of the year, they shouldn't have near the trouble they have had scoring runs with all the new bats in the lineup. There is way too much raw talent in that lineup for it not to put up some runs and be competitive in games. You can't say the same for the pitching and defense, however.
As of today, the Pirates are scoring 3.3 runs per game, which is the worst in the National League. The only other team under 4.0 RPG is the Astros, so they are quite a ways behind the rest of the league. The Pirates are hitting .237 (including pitchers), which is also the worst in the National League. As I said, I expect the offense to greatly improve starting today, so we're gonna start tracking it to see if I'm right.
I started this spreadsheet and I will be filling it out and posting it on here every couple days. So here it is, the first installment of the PIRATES WITH PEDRO OFFENSIVE IMPROVEMENT REPORT, click it to view it in Microsoft Excel:
