It was a tough loss for sure, but there were a lot of good things to take from it. The Pirates got some more clutch hitting, it was good to see Alvarez get his first hit and drive in a run in the first inning. They collected only 5 hits off some subpar pitching from the Cubs, but it really should have been enough to get the win thanks to a really good start from Paul Maholm.
Maholm had his normal stuff today, nothing impressive, but he got the job done. There were a handful of balls hit hard off him, but he did a nice job locating his pitches, for the most part. Luck was on Maholm's side today, I think on a normal day he would have allowed a run or two, but certainly a positive start to Maholm's season.
Lyle Overbay's play was pretty disappointing today. He was 0/3 with a walk and an ugly strikeout, a long with a costly error in that 8th inning that could have possibly cost the Pirates the game. There was only 1 out when he made the error, so we can't be completely sure what would have happened if he would've made the play, but it certainly played a factor. Overbay is going to have to play better if the Pirates want to be productive this year.
Strikeouts were a big issue throughout spring training and they proved to be one again today. The Pirates struck out 10 times today, that's out of the 35 batters that came to the plate. Pretty poor effort there. Granted, 3 of those were against one of the nastiest pitchers in the league in Marmol, but the Pirates are going to have to do a better job of putting the ball in play.
So for this 2011 season, I am going to be keeping track of the offensive performance and the starting pitching performance for myself. A couple of times a week I'll post the updated spreadsheet of what I'm about to post right now. Here's what it looks like, for now:
You can see that the Pirates have left a lot of guys on base in these first two games and are not hitting for a good batting average. Of course, a good day tomorrow could bring that number way up.
There's really not much you can say after only 2 games, but most of the things we have seen so far are positive. Good pitching, and the ability to score some runs, we'll take it.
The Pirates will try to win their first series of the year tomorrow as they take on the Cubs again at 2:20. Check back here at game time for another liveblog.