McShutout | Pirates 2 Giants 0

Tonight, James McDonald was finally the pitcher we expected him to be this year. McDonald went 6+ innings, giving up only 4 hits and striking out 3 while shutting out the Giants. He walked 4 batters and threw 98 pitches in those 6+ innings, but he was very, very effective, as you can tell from all the 0's he put up. I didn't get to watch the game since the Penguins were on ROOT Sports, so I can't say too much about his stuff tonight. His velocity wasn't any different than his other starts (according to mlb.com's gameday), but there was certainly something about McDonald tonight that made him so effective tonight. My guess is that some of his bad luck turned to good luck and he made better decisions with his pitches and his location was better. McDonald certainly has the stuff to be a good major league starter, and he is certainly much better than he has shown early on this year. I don't think McDonald is going to be shutting out teams very often, but he can certainly win the Pirates a good amount of ballgames.

This was especially encouraging after Charlie Morton's great start last night. Both of these guys got roughed up a little bit in their previous starts, but bounced back very nicely and put up extremely impressive outings. The bullpen couldn't hold the lead for Charlie, but they did the job for McDonald tonight and now they have a chance to win their 2nd straight series tomorrow.

The offense didn't do much tonight despite facing a struggling Madison Bumgarner.Chris Snyder drove in a run in the 2nd and Jose Tabata brought one in in the 7th, and that was 1 more run than the Pirates needed for the victory tonight.

It was the Pirates first shutout win of the year and brought their starting pitchers ERA down to 4.65 for the year. The Pirates team batting average still stands at any ugly .235 as Pedro Alvarez continues to struggle and a lot of the other offensive mainstays have been watching their batting averages drop lately.

Here's a quick look at the Pirates main players and their batting averages so far this year, it's not a pretty list:

Andrew McCutchen: .212
Jose Tabata: .267
Garrett Jones: .241
Matt Diaz: .227
Neil Walker: .286
Pedro Alvarez: .210

You figure that guys like McCutchen, Tabata, and Alvarez have to raise those batting averages eventually, and if they do it at the same time the Pirates should start scoring a good amount of runs. They're only 2 games away from .500 so there's definitely still hope for this 2011 season.

We'll try to win the series against the defending World Series Champions tomorrow at 12:35 as Jeff Karstens faces former Pirate Ryan Vogelsong.