The Pittsburgh Pirates won the type of game they don't typically win Tuesday night, winning only their 2nd game of the year in which they allowed more than 5 runs. They followed that up Wednesday by losing a game they typically win, by falling to the Toronto Blue Jays 2-1.
Paul Maholm was brilliant once again, going 7 innings and giving up just 2 earned runs, but taking his 9th loss of the year. Just unfair.
I'm not going to recap the game anymore than that, I want to look at how these Pirates have performed in 3 semi-overlapping categories this year: one-run games (games that are decided by 1 run), low scoring games (games with less than 6 total runs scored), and games when they hold the opponent under 4 runs. Here's the data (click for a larger image):
The Pirates have been pretty good in one run games and are 5 games over .500 in such circumstances. They've been especially good lately, they had won 7 in a row prior to last night.
There have been quite a few "low scoring games", which isn't surprising knowing this team. They are 11-11 in games when less than 6 total runs are scored, you would probably want that win total to be higher since this team is for sure going to have a losing record in high-scoring games at seasons end, and then let the middle ground go either way.
Their record in games when they allow less than 4 runs looks very good, but you would expect that number to be similar for any team. Paul Maholm has started 9 games in which the opponents didn't score more than 3 runs, and the Pirates are 5-4 in those games when you would expect them to be more like 7-2, or at least 6-3. Paul has certainly been the bearer of much bad luck this year and is now tied for 2nd in all of baseball in losses (Fausto Carmona paces the group with 10).
Scoring runs has been a major issue for these 2011 Pittsburgh Pirates, and it seems like every time we see signs of them improving, they get shut-out and look awful for a series of games. Let's hope that's not the case this time and last night was just a matter of Brandon Morrow being as dominant as it stuff shows that he can be.
It'll be a good test tomorrow to see if this team can win another road series and head to DC 2 games above .500, it's Jeff Karstens vs. Brett Cecil at 7:07. Canada is weird. Let's Go Bucs!
Pittsburgh Pirates (40-38) vs. Toronto Blue Jays (39-41)
7:07 at The Rogers Centre
Paul Maholm (4-8, 3.21)
vs.
Brandon Morrow (3-4, 4.90)
Lineups:
Pirates Lineup:
1. Alex Presley (L) LF
2. Chase d'Arnaud (R) 3B
3. Garrett Jones (L) DH
4. Andrew McCutchen (R) CF
5. Neil Walker (S) 2B
6. Lyle Overbay (L) 1B
7. Xavier Paul (L) RF
8. Ronny Cedeno (R) SS
9. Eric Fryer (R) C
Blue Jays Lineup:
1. Yunel Escobar (R) SS
2. Eric Thames (L) RF
3. Jose Bautista (R) 3B
4. Adam Lind (L) 1B
5. Edwin Encarnacion (R) DH
6. Aaron Hill (R) 2B
7. Juan Rivera (R) LF
8. Jose Molina (R) C
9. Rajai Davis (R) CF
Notes:
Xavier Paul is making the start tonight in right field for the Bucs against the right-handed Brandon Morrow. Paul has hit .297 off righties thus far in 2011.
Chase d'Arnaud went 0/4 last night for his first career hitless major league game, he is now 3/16 (.188) after 4 starts at third base.
Eric Fryer will make his 2nd big league start and look for his first major league hit tonight.
There are only 3 players on the roster that have faced Morrow before: Lyle Overbay (0/3 with BB), Brandon Wood (1/3), and Garrett Jones (0/1).
Edwin Encarnacion is 13/33 (.394) career off Maholm and Yunel Escobar is 4/10 (.400) off of him.
You know what else sucks about Pedro Alvarez being terrible early on in the year and then spending more than a month on the DL? He could have easily been an all-star candidate if he had stayed healthy and hit the ball how he's capable of hitting it.
National League Third Basemen have been awful this year. Here are 5 best, statistically:
Seriously, that's ugly. Alvarez could easily have surpassed all of those guys if he would have performed how we saw him perform at the end of last year. Disappointing.
Wanna hear something interesting? Before tonight, the Pittsburgh Pirates had won just 1 game in 2011 when allowing the opponent to score more than 5 runs (4/17 vs. Cincinnati). One game. They got their 2nd such win tonight as they bested the Toronto Blue Jays 7-6.
This was the Pirates first road interleague win since June 17, 2009, when Andrew McCutchen hit his first big league home run against the Minnesota Twins in a stadium that no longer exists. The streak stopper didn't come without some major drama however, and it turned out being quite a ballgame.
The theme of the night was home runs. The Blue Jays have been known to hit a bunch of balls over the fence (they have the 6th most dingers in the major leagues this year), and they certainly didn't disappoint in that regard tonight, hitting 4 bombs. Edwin Encarnacion led the charge with 2 longballs, and Jose Bautista and Corey Patterson also joined the party with round trippers. The Pirates hit 2 balls out of the yard, one of which came from Alex Presley who was making his highly anticipated 2011 debut, and the other came from the bat of the aforementioned Andrew McCutchen. If you're counting, I used 6 different words/expressions to mean "home run" in this paragraph, and I didn't even use a thesaurus.
As you can tell it wasn't a great night to be a starting pitcher. Kevin Correia made the most of his offense and picked up 10th win of the season by pitching 6 innings and giving up 4 earned runs while striking out 3 and walking just 1. Jo-Jo Reyes wasn't so good, giving up 6 earned runs on 9 hits in 3.2 innings for his 7th loss of the year. Correia is well on his way to 15 wins and could flirt with 20, which would be quite an accomplishment for a Pirates pitcher.
The play of the game undoubtably came in the 7th inning. After Tony Watson had given up back-to-back home runs, the Blue Jays got a walk and a double to put the tying run on 3rd and the go-ahead runner on 2nd. Chris Resop had his hands full. He started his houdini routine by striking out Eric Thames swinging. After that he intentionally walked Bautista to load the bases for Adam Lind, who roped a line drive right at Lyle Overbay, who promptly snared it and walked over to touch first to complete an inning ending double play. Very bad luck for the Blue Jays, but the Pirates will take it every time. After that it was bullpen domination time. Jose Veras sat down 3 Blue Jays in a row in the 8th and Joel Hanrahan notched 23rd save of the year by getting 2 groundouts, allowing a high-bouncing infield single, and striking out Thames on a 98 mile per hour fastball to slam the door. Heckuva game.
The Pirates offense came alive tonight, and they don't seem to be look nearly as negligent as before. They have their season batting average up to .242 and they have hit .250 in their last 10 games against some pretty solid pitchers. The starters ERA remains solid but has climbed a bit in the last couple series, it currently sits at 3.70, here are the rest of the season stats:
So the Pirates are 40-38 and things are looking up despite being bit majorly by the injury bug. Jose Tabata is on the DL but Alex Presley relaxed us quite a bit with his 2 hit 3 RBI performance tonight. Matt Diaz even looked competent at the plate and has hit very well this month (hitting .319). They are getting some help from the long ball (4 in the last 4 games) and have a lot of speed in the lineup. These can only be good things and it's exciting to watch this team compete every night.
So check back tomorrow, I'll have a preview of tomorrow's game and maybe even some bonus stuff. Also, be sure to listen to my sports show on TribLive Radio tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5:00.
Pittsburgh Pirates (39-38) vs. Toronto Blue Jays (39-40)
7:07 at The Rogers Centre
Kevin Correia (9-6, 3.65)
vs.
Jo-Jo Reyes (3-6, 4.34)
Lineups:
Pirates Lineup:
1. Alex Presley LF
2. Chase d'Arnaud 3B
3. Neil Walker 2B
4. Andrew McCutchen CF
5. Lyle Overbay 1B
6. Matt Diaz DH
7. Garrett Jones RF
8. Ronny Cedeno SS
9. Michael McKenry C
Blue Jays Lineup:
1. Yunel Escobar SS
2. Eric Thames RF
3. Jose Bautista 3B
4. Adam Lind 1B
5. Juan Rivera LF
6. Aaron Hill 2B
7. Corey Patterson CF
8. Edwin Encarnacion DH
9. J.P. Arencibia C
Notes:
Tonight is Alex Presley's 2011 debut. He hit .336/.389/.500 with 8 home runs and 18 stolen bases in AAA this year. If he can bring even some of that success to the major league level, the Pirates won't miss Jose Tabata much while he's on the DL.
With Presley up and Tabata down, that leaves the Pirates with one less right-handed batter and one more left-handed batter, which might hurt them tonight as Jo-Jo Reyes is a southpaw.
The Blue Jays are 39-40 in the toughest division in baseball but have a high-powered offense. They are 6th in baseball in home runs and 8th in runs scored. They are also 7th in stolen bases, so the Pirates pitchers are going to have to be on their games these next 3 games.
The Pirates haven't won an interleague road game since June 17, 2009 against the Minnesota Twins when Andrew McCutchen hit his first big league home run. Yeah, it's been that long.
Here at The "Mc" Effect, I like to give my Pittsburgh Pirate fan readers a different view of the team and their performance. To help me do that, I rely heavily on sabermetrics. What's that? You don't know what sabermetrics is? Here's a definition:
Sabermetrics is the analysis of baseball through objective, empirical evidence, especially baseball statistics that measure in-game activity.
For this particular post, I am going to focus on 8 specific sabermetric statistics. Chances are you have heard of some if not all of these, but I will define them for those of you who haven't.
Batting Average On Balls In Play (BABIP): a statistic measuring the percentage of plate appearances ending with a batted ball in play (excluding home runs) for which the batter is credited with a hit. We use this statistic to try and determine how much luck has gone into a player's batting average. If a player has a high BABIP (well over .300), you can say that the player has been fortunate and chances are that more of the balls he puts in play are going to start turning into outs, and his batting average will dip. The opposite is also true. It's certainly not a sure thing, but it's a pretty good way to gauge luck and predict batting average change.
Line Drive Percentage (LD%): the percent of batted balls that are line drives. Pretty self-explanatory. Basically this shows you how often a player is squaring up the ball and hitting it well. A line drive will go for a hit about 75% of the time.
Ground Ball Percentage (GB%): the percent of batted balls that are ground balls.
Fly Ball Percentage (FB%): the percent of batted balls that are fly balls.
Strikeout Percentage (K%): the percent of a player's at-bats that result in a strikeout.
Isolated Power (ISO): measures the “true power” of a batter. The formula is Slugging Percentage minus Batting Average. This stat helps up see how much power a batter is hitting for without just looking strictly at home runs.
Win Probability Added (WPA): a system in which each player is given credit toward helping his team win, based on play-by-play data and the impact each specific play has on the team's probability of winning. This one is a lot of fun. It tries to pinpoint exactly how much each individual player has added to his team's chance of winning. If that's not enough explanation for you, you can read more about it here.
Clutch: measures how a player performs in high leverage situations. Every situation a batter faces is a certain level of "leverage", meaning importance in terms of winning the game. If a player comes up with "big hits" and contributes in high-importance situation, his clutch number will be high, and vice versa.
Now that we have the statistics defined, let's take a look at the numbers for your 2011 Pittsburgh Pirates.
Summary:
Andrew McCutchen has been the Pirates best player by far and has the highest WPA of the bunch. That's not much of a surprise. Keep in mind this is an offense-only study; if you throw in the defensive numbers, McCutchen's lead would be much greater.
A surprising second place on the WPA scale is Garrett Jones. He is hitting just .251/.342/.338 with 8 homers, but has come up with some big hits (he has the team's highest CLUTCH rating) and has helped this team win some ball games.
The trio of catchers is basically atop the list in LD%. Unfortunately, Ryan Doumit and Chris Snyder are on the DL (Snyder probably won't be returning), and Michael McKenry has a very small sample of at-bats, so we can't take anything from that number for him. Xavier Paul has squared the ball up quite a bit with a nice LD% of 26.3, and Ronny Cedeno, Neil Walker, and McCutchen all have pretty good numbers there as well.
Strikeouts have been a big problem for the Pirates this year. Pedro Alvarez, Paul, Jones and Snyder all have big strikeout problems, and McCutchen, Walker, and Lyle Overbay certainly don't have encouraging numbers there either.
The power is also very discouraging. McCutchen, Doumit, and Jones are the only ones with respectable numbers there. Alvarez's .096 is probably the most sickening number in that table.
Jose Tabata has been bad at the plate. His -1.08 WPA is one of the worst on the team and he's hitting for basically no power. He can't keep the ball off the ground, which isn't a terrible thing with the good speed he has, but it hasn't worked out for him thus far as he is hitting for an ugly .265 batting average when we expected him to be flirting with .300 this year.
So there you go, more sabermetrics than you probably wanted to read about. Just another good deed The "Mc" Effect is doing for the community! Let's go Bucs!
The Pittsburgh Pirates couldn't quite finish the sweep of the Boston Red Sox Sunday afternoon as they were beaten 4-2. The story of this game was defensive mishaps.
The first Red Sox run came on a Josh Reddick flyout. Jarrod Saltalamacchia had just doubled to lead off the inning, and tagged up and went to third on Reddick's flyout. Andrew McCutchen loaded up and gunned towards third but airmailed it and the ball floated towards the stands. Chase d'Arnaud went over towards the fence to catch it, but the ball hit the edge of his glove and popped up and out of play, allowing Reddick to score.
The second run of the day for Boston came because of a James McDonald throwing error. After Kevin Youkilis lead off the inning with a walk, Darnell McDonald hit a little dribbler to McDonald, who hopped off the mound, grabbed it, and threw it into centerfield past Ronny Cedeno, allowing Youkilis to go to third. He would score on a sacrifice fly later in the inning.
The Red Sox got the go-ahead and eventual game-winning run in the 7th after 2 walks and another error on pitcher Danny Moskos loaded the bases. Dustin Pedroia drove in the 3rd run of the game on a groundout, and Youkilis added an insurance run with a sacrifice fly.
The Pirates couldn't get enough offense going to put up the runs they needed to win this ballgame. The team got only 5 hits off the combination of Andrew Miller, Alfredo Aceves, Daniel Bard, and Jonathan Papelbon. Nobody collected more than one hit and the Pirates left 17 men on base.
It was a disappointing loss for the Pirates, but still a very good homestand, going 4-2 and taking 2 of 3 from arguably the best team in the major leagues.
There were a couple things that really made a lot of Pirates fans lose a lot of respect for the Red Sox in today's game. First of all, Andrew Miller decided to throw right at the legs of Eric Fryer, who was making his big league debut, twice in one at bat innings after the Pirates had almost hit Pedroia for the 3rd time in the game. There was no intent from Pittsburgh to hit Pedroia, and they didn't actually hit him. The Red Sox took it personally, which is fine, but there reply was incredibly late, directed at the wrong player, and they tried it one more time than they should have. Classless.
Also, a story came out today on the Red Sox Official Website that has Youkilis saying he thinks American League teams should be allowed to use their designated hitter in National League parks, check out this quite:
"We built our team around the designated hitter, and when they come to our park, they get to use their position players and pitchers don't have to hit... Hopefully [Commissioner] Bud Selig at some point will review it. For us we're at a disadvantage a lot, and hopefully in Interleague we can use the DH in National League parks and in the World Series, too."
You have got to be kidding me. There are so many things wrong with this statement. How in the world does an American League team have a disadvantage playing without their DH? The other team is doing the same thing. It's not like NL pitchers are good hitters that can actually hurt you, they may be a little bit better just because of the opportunities they get, but it really isn't enough to change the outcome of more than like... 1 in 50 baseball games. If they were allowed to use their DH in an NL game, the NL would have a much larger disadvantage than the AL has with how it is now. You play like 9 games a year without your DH, so suck it up and stop complaining.
Maybe Youkilis should focus more on actually catching a ball in the field than criticizing the rules of a game that is 5 times older than he is.
Anyways, the Pirates are done with the Red Sox and have an off-day tomorrow. Good news is that the Reds and Cardinals both lost today, although the Brewers won and extended their division lead to 3 games over St. Louis. The Pirates are tied with the Reds, 1 behind the Cardinals, and 4 behind the Brewers.
Tuesday through Thursday the Pirates face Jose Bautista and the Blue Jays before heading to Washington DC for a 4-game set (with a double header on Saturday) with the Nationals.
The Pirates have had some trouble hitting the long ball this year, but they used two of them to propel themselves to a second consecutive victory over the Boston Red Sox last night. Here's the updated home run log (click the image to enlarge it):
The Pirates have hit 50 home runs, the majority of which have come in the 7th inning. They have also hit a lot of their bombs in the 6th and 1st innings. More than half of the 50 homers have been solo shots, and there have been only 8 home runs that drove in more than 2 runs. With Pedro Alvarez slowly making his way back to the big leagues, and Lyle Overbay and Garrett JOnes heating up, this home run log could look a lot better in a month or so.
Boston Red Sox (44-32) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (39-37)
1:35 at PNC Park
Andrew Miller (0-0, 4.76)
vs.
Jeff Karstens (5-4, 4.86)
Lineups:
Red Sox Lineup:
1. Jacoby Ellsbury CF
2. Dustin Pedroia 2B
3. Adrian Gonzalez 1B
4. Kevin Youkilis 3B
5. J.D. Drew RF
6. Jarrod SaltalamacchiaC
7. Josh Reddick LF
8. Marco Scutaro SS
9. Andrew Miller SP
Pirates Lineup:
1. Jose Tabata LF
2. Chase d'Arnaud 3B
3. Andrew McCutchen CF
4. Neil Walker 2B
5. Matt Diaz RF
6. Lyle Overbay 1B
7. Ronny Cedeno SS
8. Eric Fryer C
9. James McDonald SP
Notes:
Matt Diaz is in the starting lineup, and has hit .308/.357/.333 this month, not as bad as you thought eh?
Eric Fryer will make his first big league start today after being called up from Indianapolis yesterday. Fryer was in A+ Bradenton just last year. He has a career triple slash line of .287/.376/.438 in his minor league career, and has hit 15 home runs in his last 2 years (107 games) in the system.
James McDonald has been throwing a lot of pitches recently and hasn't been going deep into games. Last start he threw 104 pitches in 4.2 innings and in his start before that he threw 109 pitches and went only 5.2 innings. He gave up 3 earned runs in both of those starts and the Pirates won both games. Control has been an issue as well, McDonald has walked 16 batters in his last 4 starts (20.1 innings).
The Pittsburgh Pirates have defeated the Boston Red Sox for the 2nd straight night. The offense came from Lyle Overbay and Garrett Jones tonight, both of whom hit home runs (Overbay's was a 3-run homer that put the Pirates up in the 4th, and Jones hit a solo blast in the 7th).
Jeff Karstens got his 5th win of the year as he pitched 6.2 innings and gave up 3 earned runs while walking 3 and giving up 3 solo home runs. He didn't have his best stuff or control tonight but battled as he has all year and got enough run support to push his record above .500 and lower his season ERA to 2.66, you just can't say enough about how good Karstens has been.
The bullpen did another marvelous job and shut out the Red Sox for a second straight night. Daniel McCutchen came in in the 7th to try and get the last out but gave up a hit and then was lifted for Danny Moskos, who got the out the Pirates needed to escape the 7th. After that it was Tim Wood, Tony Watson, and Joel Hanrahan for the win. Hanrahan's hitless streak ended tonight as Dustin Pedroia doubled in the 9th (Hanrahan had retired 29 batters without giving up a hit), but he notched his 22nd save of the season and lowered his ERA to 1.24. Here's a video I took of the final out:
Watson's ERA is even better than that, as his scoreless inning lowered the number to 0.93 for him. This bullpen has been absolutely spectacular recently and is helping out their starters greatly.
The Pirates are playing fantastic baseball and are now just a game out of 2nd place in the National League Central. You can imagine that this team has taken a bunch of people by surprise, so I want to start gathering some reactions from the team's we beat. I'm going to take a look at what some of the opponent's bloggers write after the game and put it here. So here's the first installment, let me know if you like it:
Extra Bases - Red Sox Blog: "Clint Hurdle has done a nice job in this series, using his bullpen to get six scoreless innings. He has his pitchers exploiting the thinned out Red Sox lineup by pitching around certain hitters."
Really? A "thinned out" lineup with Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Adrian Gonzalez, and Kevin Youkilis all in it? That lineup would probably the best in the National League any day of the week. Get out of here. Also from this site:
"The post-game entertainment began prematurely early as fireworks went off as the operator must have thought right fielder Garrett Jones caught Pedroia's drive. Oops."
That's fine to say, except Garrett Jones wasn't in right field on the play, Xavier Paul was. I know the Pirates roster isn't full of notable names, but at least get the name right.
Over The Monster:
This blog spends a good amount of time whining about the Red Sox recent losing streak:
"I, for one, am tired.
I'm tired of losing streaks. This is the third time the Red Sox have lost four or more this year. I'm tired of watching the Rays creep closer in the standings and of this see-saw for first with the Yankees. Right now, though, I'm most tired of watching the Sox put man after man on base, bringing a big-offense lineup to the National League, and somehow coming away with far less than they should."
Are you also tired of winning 60% of your games and having the best lineup in baseball along with one of the best pitching rotations as well? Good teams' fans/bloggers seem to have very, very little patience for losing. On a more positive note, this blog writes:
"Actually, I should amend. that, because the Red Sox were by-and-large outplayed today." Fenway Faithful Report states that "Theo Epstein needs to acquire a right-handed hitter". Oh yeah? Your lineup NEEDS something else? This post says that Mike Cameron and Darnell McDonald "leave a lot to be desired". FYI Red Sox fans, you don't have to have sluggers at every position. Stop being greedy.
Okay, so I probably shouldn't make it a theme of just attacking other bloggers' for saying things I disagree with, and looking at a team in a situation that is pretty much the complete opposite of the Pirates situation is probably unfair as well. It's a lot different to be a fan of big-market team that competes for the playoffs every single year, and I can't say that I have ever been a fan of a team that is competing, so I may just be embarrassing myself with this post, but it's my blog and I'll do what I want with it.
At the end of the day, the jokes on the Red Sox, because they've just lost 2 in a row to a resurgent Pittsburgh Pirates team that is now 2 games over .500. I guess at the real end of the day, the jokes on us because the Red Sox have the 2nd best record in their league and are pretty much a lock for the playoffs, while the Pirates would be unbelievably fortunate to even be in contention in August/September. That said, I don't think there's a better team in the league to be a fan of right now.
Boston Red Sox (44-31) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (38-37)
7:05 at PNC Park
Tim Wakefield (4-2, 4.26)
vs.
Jeff Karstens (4-4, 2.54)
Lineups:
Orioles Lineup:
1. Jacoby Ellsbury CF
2. Dustin Pedroia 2B
3. Adrian Gonzalez 1B
4. Kevin Youkilis 3B
5. J.D. Drew RF
6. Jarrod SaltalamacchiaC
7. Josh Reddick LF
8. Marco Scutaro SS
9. Tim Wakefield SP
Pirates Lineup:
1. Jose Tabata LF
2. Chase d'Arnaud 3B
3. Garrett Jones RF
4. Andrew McCutchen CF
5. Neil Walker 2B
6. Lyle Overbay 1B
7. Ronny Cedeno SS
8. Michael McKenry C
9. Jeff Karstens SP
The last hit that Joel Hanrahan gave up was on June 4th against the Philadelphia Phillies. He came into a game that was well in hand for the Pirates already and gave up a meaningless run on 3 hits and then left the bases loaded to get the Pirates another victory. Since then, Hanrahan has gone 9 innings without surrendering a hit. He has allowed just 1 walk in those 9 innings and has struck out 7. Let's check it out, batter-by-batter:
That's 28 batters faced and 27 retired. His lone blip was a walk to Mark Reynolds last Monday in a game the Pirates had basically already lost anyways. This isn't going to get any national recognition, but I think this is a pretty big deal. He has got 27 straight outs without allowing a hit, if he did that all in one game, his name would be in the hall of fame. Obviously, it's a lot easier to do when you have days of rest between innings, but this just doesn't happen. He's not doing it against cupcake hitters either, look at the names on that list. Chase Utley, Justin Upton, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Jason Bay, Hunter Pence, Carlos Lee, Vladimir Guerrero, Nick Markakis, Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Adrian Gonzalez... these are some of the league's best hitters.
In 2007, Bobby Jenks retired 41 straight batters in a row, which was a major league record for a reliever. In 2009, Mark Buehrle broke that record for any pitcher, by retiring 45 straight batters. Unfortunately, the walk Hanrahan surrendered keeps his name out of this discussion, but this streak certainly has to be one of the best we have seen by a reliever in a long time, and it's not over yet.
Hanrahan has taken the mound 9 times in a row without allowing a hit, and has recorded 7 saves in those 9 appearances. He is currently the only closer in baseball with double-digit saves that has not blown a save. His ERA is an astounding 1.27 and there is very little argument that he has been the best reliever in the National League this year, if not all of baseball.
If Hanrahan would have performed this streak all in one game, I certainly wouldn't be the only blogger writing about it. But a couple more weeks like this and Hanrahan will be the closer for the National League All-Star team, and people won't have a choice but to write about him.
The Pittsburgh Pirates won a baseball game tonight at PNC Park. Although it counted for only 1 win in the standings, it was certainly bigger than that.
Tonight's win over the Boston Red Sox was one of the biggest wins the Pirates have had in PNC Park history. First of all, it put them over the .500 mark, which is pretty significant for the Pirates even though they've been over it a couple other times this year. Secondly, it was against the Boston Red Sox, and not just the Boston Red Sox, this is a Sox team that has one of the best offenses we have seen in the league for awhile. Although they were without Carl Crawford, it was still a heck of a lineup to go out and beat.
John Lester made the start for the Red Sox facing Paul Maholm, who has been great all year long. Maholm labored tonight however, making it through only 5.1 innings and throwing 103 pitches. He gave up 6 hits and walked 3 but only allowed 1 run and earning his 4th win of the year. The real story of this game was the bullpen. The combination of Chris Resop, Tony Watson, Daniel McCutchen, Jose Veras, and Joel Hanrahan went 4.2 scoreless innings and gave up only 3 hits and walked 1 while striking out 2.
The big threat came in the 8th inning when Veras started his inning off by giving up 2 straight singles to Darnell McDonald and J.D. Drew. The runners were moved over by a Jason Varitek sacrifice bunt and the Red Sox had the tying run in scoring position. Veras really got locked in after the bunt and struck out Marco Scutaro with a beautiful curveball that froze him. David Ortiz came in to pinch hit after that, which brought quite an ovation from the many Boston fans there, but Veras got him to ground out to shortstop and the Pirates fans trumped the Red Sox fans ovation and we went to the 9th. The Pirates couldn't add any more insurance, but it didn't matter because Hanrahan had just another easy 1-2-3 inning for his 21st save of the season. I'll have a post up tomorrow about Hanrahan's ridiculous performance of late.
The Pirates collected 9 hits on the day but runs were still hard to come by. They were helped greatly by some poor defense from the Bo Sox. The first run was set up by Mike Cameron going for a catch on a ball that he shouldn't have which led to Michael McKenry getting to 2nd as the ball trickled behind Cameron. McKenry would come around to score on a ball off the bat of Jose Tabata that hit the 3rd base bag. After that Chase d'Arnaud grounded into a double play which scored another run from 3rd and put the Pirates up 2-1 in the 3rd. An insurance run was added in the 6th as Lyle Overbay singled home Neil Walker after a couple of misplays from Kevin Youkilis (one of which was scored as an error). Chase d'Arnaud also collected his first major league hit with an impressive triple in the 5th that nobody really expected him to get a triple out of. That's more than what the Pirates needed as the pitching had just another great night.
The huge win moves the Pirates to 38-37 on the year and extends their winning streak to 3 after a tough 4 game skid. They just keep responding to adversity in positive ways and keep floating around .500, and in this case they are above it again. Tomorrow it's Jeff Karstens and Tim Wakefield, should be a great pitching matchup and a packed house. Let's Go Bucs.
When the 2011 Pittsburgh Pirates schedule was announced, the series at PNC Park against the Red Sox was probably the most highlighted one on the calendar. 74 games have come and gone and now it's time for the 3 huge ones against one of the best teams in the game. It's hard to argue that anybody is playing better than the Boston Red Sox right now, which gives this series even more appeal.
The last time the Pirates played the Red Sox was in 2005. The teams played a 3-game weekend set in Fenway from June 17th through the 19th. The Pirates took a game from the Sox on Saturday by winning 2-0 on the back of Dave Williams, who pitched 6 scoreless innings. Tim Wakefield one-upped him however and went 7 scoreless innings, but the Pirates got a run in the 8th of Alan Embree and that's all they would need as Rick White and Jose Mesa teamed up to complete the shut out.
The Pirates are sitting at 37-37 and have generated quite a buzz in Pittsburgh this year. It would be pretty wild to hear the Pirates talk around Pittsburgh if the Pirates would find a way to win this series. Here are the pitching probables for this series:
The Red Sox have some interesting decisions to make every time they play in a National League park. David Ortiz is the face of their team and has been on fire this year (.313/.391/.977 with 17 homers and 48 RBI), but doesn't play defense well at all. However, the Red Sox don't want to hold his bat out of the lineup for long. This is the first of 3 straight NL series for the Sox, and there is no way that they will bench Ortiz for 9 straight games, so I would expect him to see starting at first in at least one of these games. With that said, their lineup looks something like this:
A ridiculously stacked lineup. The Pirates are going to have pitch extremely well if they hope to win any of these 3 games.
Regardless of the outcome, it's going to be a heck of a weekend at the ballpark. Friday and Saturday night are almost sure to be sold out, and I have a feeling the record the Pirates set earlier this year for largest crowd in PNC Park history will be broken Saturday night. If you can find a ticket, get down here and check out your hometown Pittsburgh Pirates facing one of the most storied franchises in all of sports.
First things first: It is pronounced "Dar-no" with the stress on the second syllable.
Chase d'Arnaud has been called up to the big leagues for the first time in his career. He was drafted by the Pirates in the 4th round of the 2008 draft and did not disappoint in the early years of his minor league career.
In his first year with State College, he hit .286/.333/.423 in 43 games, getting off on the right foot. He was promoted the next year and has progressed through the system performing well at every level. Here are his career minor league numbers:
2010 wasn't a great year for d'Arnaud, hitting .247/.331/.377 in 132 games at the AA level. This was especially hard to see for Pirates fans because of the big year he had in 2009. Chase is basically the only serious shortstop prospect the Pirates have in their system, so he has had a lot of eyes on him during his career. Now we will get to see what this kid has at the big league level, as he will be up for the Red Sox series.
From what we have seen in the minors, it appears that d'Arnaud has the ability to play good defense in the major leagues. That's never a sure thing though, and with Ronny Cedeno showing a good glove this year the Pirates will be hesitant to make him the every day shortstop. It will certainly be interesting to see what the Pirates do with him once they start playing games with him on the 25-man roster and if they keep him around for long.
At this point he is certainly a better option than Pedro Ciriaco, but it might not be in the team's best interest to take his every day playing time away in favor a bench spot in the bigs, so I would expect to see him starting a good amount of games.
The call up of Chase d'Arnaud was probably one of the biggest things we were looking for this year, because it means a lot to the future of the Pirates. After last year's call-ups of Jose Tabata, Pedro Alvarez, and Neil Walker, the farm system looked quite unimpressive. d'Arnaud is one of the few guys in the upper levels of the minors that have a good chance at being good big league players, and with the system especially thin at shortstop, d'Arnaud has a lot of pressure on him to perform well. Should be interesting to see.
For all of you readers out there that are early and immature in your baseball fanhood, here's a secret - when your team scored 9 runs in a game, there's a really good chance they are going to win that game.
The Pittsburgh Pirates did just that tonight and broke out of their 4-game losing streak in a big way. They collected 15 hits en route to a 9-3 victory over the same Baltimore Orioles team that handed them a tough 8-3 loss last night.
Jose Tabata, Josh Harrison, Garrett Jones, Andrew McCutchen, and Neil Walker got things off on the right foot in the first inning, as they combined to bring in 3 runs for the Pirates. The big hit was Jones 2-RBI double that nearly cleared the right center field fence. They would add 1 run in the 3rd and another in the 4th before being shut out the 5th and 6th. The offense wasn't satisfied with 5 however and scored 1 more in the 7th and 3 more in the eighth. Xavier Paul and Walker had RBI hits in that 8th inning.
Hits came from all over tonight. Mike McKenry and Ronny Cedeno were the 4th and 5th Pirates players to collect 2 hits tonight (Tabata, Harrison, and Walker also did it). Other hits were added by Brandon Wood, Jones, McCutchen, Paul, and Matt Diaz.
James McDonald had another solid yet short outing. He allowed 2 home runs and threw a lot of pitches through 4 innings and was taken out in the 5th inning. His final line was 4.2 IP, 7 hits, 3 earned runs, 4 walks and 3 strikeouts. The bullpen did a fantastic job preserving the lead, pitching 4.1 shutout innings. Chris Resop, Tony Watson, Jose Veras, and Tim Wood all pitched scoreless innings (1.1 innings in Resop's casee), and Resop was the only one to surrender a hit. Good stuff from the bullpen locking down this much needed victory.
The Pirates are now 36-37 and will gain a game on St. Louis but stay 4 games behind Milwaukee, who is now in sole possession of first place after a win tonight over the Tampa Bay Rays. The Cardinals have been struggling mightily lately and things are not looking up with the recent loss of Albert Pujols for 4-6 weeks. If the Brewers hit a rough patch and the Reds continue to be inconsistent, it won't take much for the Pirates to get near the top of this division. However, the Brew Crew looks very strong and a bad stretch of losing doesn't look likely right now.
The Pirates will finish up the series with the Baltimore Orioles tomorrow with an afternoon game that starts at 12:35.
