Pirates vs. Rockies, Game 27

Paul Maholm vs. Jason Hammel
Let's Go Bucs

Pirates vs. Rockies, Game 26

Pittsburgh Pirates (11-14) vs. Colorado Rockies (16-7)
8:40 at Coors Field

Kevin Correia (3-2, 3.48) vs. Jhoulys Chacin (3-1, 2.67)

Lineups:

Pirates Lineup: 1. Andrew McCutchen CF 2. Jose Tabata 2B 3. Garrett Jones RF 4. Neil Walker 2B 5. Lyle Overbay 1B 6. Chris Snyder C 7. Pedro Alvarez 3B 8. Ronny Cedeno SS 9. Kevin Correia SP

Rockies Lineup: 1. Dexter Fowler CF 2. Jonathan Herrera 2B 3. Carlos Gonzalez LF 4. Troy Tulowitzki SS 5. Todd Helton 1B 6. Seth Smith LF 7. Jose Lopez 3B 8. Chris Iannetta C 9. Jhoulys Chacin SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

Pirates vs. Giants, Game 25

San Francisco Giants (11-12) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (11-13)
12:35 at PNC Park

Ryan Vogelsong (0-0, 0.00) vs. Jeff Karstens (2-0, 3.94)

Lineups:

Giants Lineup: 1. Aaron Rowand CF 2. Emmanuel Burriss 2B 3. Aubrey Huff 1B 4. Pablo Sandoval 3B 5. Pat Burrell LF 6. Cody Ross RF 7. Mike Fontenot SS 8. Eli Whiteside C 9. Madison Bumgarner SP

Piates Lineup: 1. Andrew McCutchen CF 2. Jose Tabata LF 3. Lyle Overbay 1B 4. Neil Walker 2B 5. Garrett Jones RF 6. Ryan Doumit C 7. Pedro Alvarez 3B 8. Brandon Wood SS 9. Jeff Karstens SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

John Bowker vs. Xavier Paul

The Pirates claimed Xavier Paul earlier this week, and because of the fact that Paul has no options left, the Pirates needed to get him on the 25-man roster to keep him. We have now found out that the Pirates are DFA'ing John Bowker to make room.

The problem with this is that Bowker is also out of options. So we are now faced with the scenario that if Bowker is claimed by another team, the Pirates essentially swapped him for Paul. If he is not claimed, the Pirates added Paul without losing anything. I don't know if this move was worth the risk of losing Bowker. Let's compare the two players.

Bowker MLB Career (4 seasons, 227 games): .238/.289/.391, 17 HR, 2 SB, 129 K, 39 BB
Paul MLB Career (3 seasons, 62 games): .233/.280/.329, 1 HR, 3 SB, 33 K, 10 BB

The story is this. Bowker has decent power but really has never had an extended chance to start in the majors. He's never really shown enough in the minors to suggest that he could be a big league starter, but the power is certainly enticing. He hasn't been good in his time in the majors, but the power he brings is what keeps him around. He doesn't play great defense, and he can only play the corner spots (and pretty much only right field in PNC Park).

Paul is almost the opposite. He doesn't have much power (although he does have a little more than his 1 career HR suggests, he's hit 10+ HR 3 different times) but has some speed and can play good defense at any spot in the outfield. He is also 2 years younger than Bowker (he's 26).

The decision came down to what the Pirates wanted for their bench. A decent power bat with limited defensive versatility, or a more athletic guy with better defense and base running ability. They've chosen the latter, and Paul will be on the bench tomorrow.

Bowker now has to clear waivers for the Pirates to retain him. If you're asking me, I don't think Bowker makes it. Power hitting outfielders aren't easy to come by in today's MLB, and although Bowker certainly is a huge question mark and probably not a big league starter, he's enticing enough for some team to give him a chance.

If Bowker makes it through waivers and the Pirates get to keep him, I'll like the move. If he doesn't make it through, I don't like it. To me, Bowker has more upside than Paul. I do agree that with the outfield the Pirates have, Paul is a better fit for the bench, I just don't think he's worth risking possession of Bowker for.

All that said, neither of these guys is going to have any real effect on the big league team, unless there are injury issues down the road. We'll see how Paul performs in a Pirate uniform, he'll probably be the primary pinch hitter against right-handed pitching, much like Bowker was, and I doubt we see him making any starts unless somebody gets injured.

Maybe I can convince Xavier to add a "Mc" to the front of his last name, then I'll like him a little bit more.

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.

Giants vs. Pirates, Game 23

San Francisco Giants (11-11) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (10-13)
7:05 at PNC Park

Madison Bumgarner (0-3, 7.79) vs. James McDonald (0-1, 10.13)

Lineups:

Giants Lineup: 1. Aaron Rowand CF 2. Freddy Sanchez 2B 3. Aubrey Huff 1B 4. Buster Posey C 5. Pablo Sandoval 3B 6. Pat Burrell LF 7. Cody Ross C 8. Miguel Tejada SS 9. Madison Bumgarner SP

Piates Lineup: 1. Andrew McCutchen CF 2. Jose Tabata LF 3. Matt Diaz RF 4. Neil Walker 2B 5. Steve Pearce 1B 6. Chris Snyder C 7. Pedro Alvarez 3B 8. Brandon Wood SS 9. James McDonald SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

Pirates vs. Giants, Game 23 Liveblog

Pirates 4 Brandon Wood 3 Nationals 2

Brandon Wood made his Pirates debut in style on Monday night as he knocked in 2 of the Pittsburgh Pirates 4 runs to beat the Washington Nationals behind a solid pitching outing from Paul Maholm.

The game didn't start off great, as Maholm gave up 2 runs in the first on three straight hits before he settled down and pounded out 7 innings to record his first win of the season.

That's quite enough about Maholm, let's talk about WOOD.

Wood lashed the ball today, driving it well in his first two at bats. His first at bat in a Pirates uniform ended with a long fly out, but his second one caused a splash. He took a low fastball and drove into deep right center field to drive in 2 runs and give the Pirates lead for good. He would score in that inning to get his 3rd run created of the game. After that he would reach on an error and ground out, making him 1/4 in his Pirate debut.

It was a great performance from the Pirates, and really shows you how much easier it is to win a game when you have a good pitching performance.

The road gets tougher for the Pirates as they try to improve their 3-6 home record against the San Francisco Giants. The starters for the Giants will be Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, and former Pirate Ryan Vogelsong. More on Vogelsong will certainly be coming as we approach his start, so check back for that.

Here's the updated offensive and starting pitching stats. The starters ERA has inflated to 5.02 and they are allowing 6 hits per outing, not very good numbers there. The offense is still struggling overall with a .239 average and scoring 3.7 runs per game. I have a feeling the offensive numbers will rise, but I can't make any promises for the pitching.

Nationals vs. Pirates, Game 21 - Brandon's Wood Debut

Washington Nationals (10-10) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (9-12)
7:05 at PNC Park

John Lannan (2-1, 3.43) vs. Paul Maholm (0-3, 4.30)


Liveblog:

Gameday:

Can't String Em Together | Nationals 6 Pirates 3

The Pittsburgh Pirates lost their 12th game of the 2011 season today as they fell to the Nationals in the 2nd game of the 3 game series.

First of all, let me put my 2 cents in about the last place of the game. Andrew McCutchen was on third with 1 out and the Pirates were down by 3. Jose Tabata hit a marginal fly ball to right field, and McCutchen was thrown out at home trying to tag. As any reasonably intelligent basball fan will say, the play was unbelievably stupid on McCutchen and/or the third base coach's part. There is absolutely no reason to try and tag up when you're down by 3 in the 9th. McCutchen's run meant nothing, the tying run was in the on-deck circle, so why risk getting thrown out? Even if McCutchen would've been called safe (which he easily could have been), the Pirates would have been no better off. A bonehead play that took away the small chance the Pirates had to win today's game. After the game, Clint Hurdle was defensive of the call, saying that it wasn't necessarily a bad decision and it is important to be aggressive on the basepaths. He might have just been saying this to protect his players and coaches, but he was incredibly wrong and sounded pretty unintelligent for the first time in his Pirates career.

Anyways, the point of this post was to look at how the Pirates have had trouble stringing wins together in recent years. Let's take a look at it:

This year, the Pirates have won no more than 2 games in a row, they've done that twice. They have lost as many as 4 in a row.

In 2010, the Pirates won a maximum of 4 consecutive games, which they did only one time. The Pirates won 3 games in a row on 3 occasions, all in the first 3 months of the season. The team also suffered through 2 different 7 game losing streaks.

The Pirates had 2 5-game winning streaks in 2009, but had 7 streaks of 5 or more consecutive losses, including a 9-game skid late in the season.

We could look at 2008 and beyond, but it would mean pretty much nothing since there are only 2 relevant players left from 2008 (Ryan Doumit and Paul Maholm... plus a little bit of Jeff Karstens and Ross Ohlendorf).

None of this information should be a surprise to any Pirate fan. This team has shown us all too many streaks of putrid baseball, and not enough stretches of good ball, which have resulted in these really ugly records the last few years. It's really hard to be a winning team when you have this much trouble stringing together wins. It's shown to be a problem already this year, although it's still extremely early in the year.

The main reason the Pirates haven't been able to string together wins is the pitching staff. They just haven't had 5 guys that can go out and give you a really good chance to win the game. Each pitcher will have some good stretches mixed in with some bad stretches, and most of the time there are more bad stretches than good ones, so it becomes that much harder to get all the guys clicking together, which eliminates the real chance of stringing together 5 or more wins.

If the Pirates want to be a .500 team this year, they're going to have to find some consistency and find a way to get hot and stay hot for awhile, so they can go on some serious winning stretches. They've been falling further and further below .500 ever since the first road trip, and things certainly don't look to be getting much better as pitchers like Kevin Correia and Charlie Morton come back down to earth.

Nationals vs. Pirates, Game 20

Washington Nationals (9-9) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (8-11)
7:05 at PNC Park

Livan Hernandez (2-1, 2.86) vs. Jeff Karstens (1-0, 4.50)


Liveblog:

Gameday:

Pirates Claim Brandon Wood?

The Pittsburgh Pirates have an opportunity to add to their major league roster today. The Angels DFA'd Brandon Wood, a former top prospect, a couple of days ago. We're heading towards the 12:00 deadline for the Pirates to put a claim on him, and all signs are pointing to the Pirates doing so.

Wood was an immensely hyped up prospect in 2007, and made his big league debut that same year. Despite his big time status, Wood has been awful in the major leagues since then. He has 494 career plate appearances and has hit .168/.197/.259 with 11 home runs. Those numbers are very far from what any level of major league player should be doing.

These last 4+ years have been enough for the Angels to give up on him and pass him on to another team. The Pirates are the first team that gets a chance to grab him, and they have a decision to make.

Wood is primarily a third baseman, but can play shortstop as well. He has played a decent amount of games at shortstop in his major league career (63 to be exact) and hasn't done great there with a -8.6 UZR in his career. When you compare that to Ronny Cedeno's career -11.5 UZR at shortstop, it starts to look a little more positive.

Getting Wood is not a risk at all, the Pirates would probably just part with Josh Rodriguez to give him a shot. Despite the lack of risk, it's pretty much a longshot that he will actually turn into something. In his time in the majors, he has struck out in 30.9% of the plate appearances. He has a minute 2.6% walk rate, there are major issues with his approach and vision at the plate.

So what should the Pirates do? I don't think they have much of a choice. The fans have been calling for Cedeno's head for a couple years now, but the Pirates have never had a real chance to replace him. You can't say that the Pirates have some blind allegiance to Cedeno because of that fact, but if they pass on Wood and keep Cedeno the every day starter, that will certainly raise some eyebrows.

In my opinion, the Pirates would be foolish to not sign Wood. Not only should they sign him, they should make him the every day starter. Wood isn't exactly a prospect that has never been given a real chance, but he could certainly benefit in a big way from job security. The Pirates know what they have in Cedeno, and it's not pretty. Wood could continue to play terrible, like he has in his career thus far, and he wouldn't be that much of a downgrade from Cedeno. The Pirates really have nothing to lose in this situation, and the possibility that Wood figures it out and becomes a legitimate big leaguer is more than worth benching Cedeno.

We'll see what happens, the deadline to claim Wood is at noon today (Friday). Cross your fingers, Ronny.

Pittsburgh Pirates (8-10) vs. Florida Marlins (10-6)
7:10

James McDonald (0-1, 7.47) vs. Chris Volstad (0-1, 5.59)



Gameday:

Pirates vs. Marlins, Game 18

Pittsburgh Pirates (8-9) vs. Florida Marlins (9-6)
7:10

Charlie Morton (2-0, 1.64) vs. Ricky Nolasco (1-0, 4.05)

Lineups:

Pirates Lineup: 1. Jose Tabata CF 2. Matt Diaz LF 3. Lyle Overbay 1B 4. Neil Walker 2B 5. Garrett Jones RF 6. Pedro Alvarez 3B 7. Chris Snyder C 8. Ronny Cedeno SS 9. Charlie Morton SP

Marlins Lineup: 1. Chris Coghlan CF 2. Omar Infante 2B 3. Hanley Ramirez SS 4. Gaby Sanchez 1B 5. Greg Dobbs 3B 6. Mike Stanton RF 7. John Buck C 8. Emileo Bonifacio 3B 9. Ricky Nolasco SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

2010 Pedro Alvarez vs. 2011 Pedro Alvarez

I don't have a lot of time here, but I just wanted to make another quick post about Pedro Alvarez and his slow start. So far this year Pedro has 11 hits in 60 at bats with only 2 extra base hits (both doubles) and 22 strikeouts. A lot of people are starting to get nervous about this slow start. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little concerned as well.

The thing is that I think a lot of people don't remember how horrible he was at the beginning of his big league career last year as well. Let's take a look at that:

So far in 2011, Pedro has had 65 plate appearances, so let's look at what he did last year in a similar sample. Pedro made his big league debut on June 16. After the Pirates game with the Phillies, in which Pedro hit his first home run, he had 63 plate appearances. Here are the numbers from those 63 appearances, compared directly with what he's done this year in his first 65:

2010: 63 PA, 58 AB, 5 R, 11 H, 3 2B, 1 HR, 7 RBI, 4 BB, 25 K
2011: 65 PA, 60 AB, 3 R, 11 H, 2 2B, 0 HR, 4 RBI, 5 BB, 22 K

Those lines are ridiculously similar, and when you consider what Alvarez did after those first 63 plate appearances in 2010, your worry starts to ease a bit, doesn't it?

Now it's not exactly fair to compare this year to last, since Pedro had been hitting professional pitching for a couple months prior to his big league debut in 2010, which could have helped him break out of the initial slump with more ease. We haven't had the opportunity to see how he reacts to starting in the big leagues yet, so we don't know for sure how well those two lines above relate to each other. However, it is certainly interesting to note how similar they are.

Pedro has all the talent he needs to be an all-star in this league. His skill set and ability to hit the ball seems too great for him to underperform like this for long. After Alvarez finds his groove and gets his timing down, he should turn into the beast we saw in the last few months of 2010, if not much better.

Pirates vs. Marlins

Pittsburgh Pirates (8-8) vs. Florida Marlins (8-6)
7:10

Paul Maholm (0-2, 2.33) vs. Josh Johnson (2-0, 1.35)

Lineups:

Pirates Lineup: 1. Andrew McCutchen CF 2. Jose Tabata LF 3. Lyle Overbay 1B 4. Neil Walker 2B 5. Garrett Jones RF 6. Ryan Doumit C 7. Pedro Alvarez 3B 8. Ronny Cedeno SS 9. Paul Maholm SP

Marlins Lineup: 1. Chris Coghlan CF 2. Omar Infante 2B 3. Hanley Ramirez SS 4. Gaby Sanchez 1B 5. Logan Morrison LF 6. Mike Stanton RF 7. John Buck C 8. Emileo Bonifacio 3B 9. Josh Johnson SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

15 Hits, Correia Complete Game Lift Pirates Over Reds

The Pittsburgh Pirates dominated the Cincinnati Reds on Monday night. The offense followed up their best offensive output of the year on Sunday with an even better one. The Pirates collected 15 hits and scored 9 runs to clinch their 3rd straight road series win and bring their record to 8-8.

The offense was not led by any single player. Seven different players had 2 hits. Seven. I would love to know the last time the Pirates did that. (Edit: The Pirates actually did it last year on July 21st against the Brewers, go figure.) Jose Tabata, Matt Diaz, Neil Walker, Steven Pearce, Lyle Overbay, Chris Snyder, and Ronny Cedeno all had 2 hits. Andrew McCutchen added a hit of his own and 2 RBI. None of the Pirates 15 hits were home runs, and only 3 of them went for extra bases. The Pirates hit .385 as a team in this game. Before these last two games, we were talking about how the Pirates offense really hadn't broken out for a bunch of runs yet this year, but they've done just that the last 2 games. The Pirates averaged 11 hits and 6 runs a game in this series against the Reds, and drew an impressive 6 walks per game.

An equally impressive performance was put together by Kevin Correia on the hill. He pitched all 9 innings, notching the Pirates second complete game of the season (they had 1 all of last year). Correia allowed only 4 hits and 2 earned runs, both of those runs coming in the 9th inning on a home run served up to Chris Heisey. Correia was on cruise control throughout most of this game, walking only 2 batters and striking out 5 against one of the top offenses in the league. He now has a 2.48 ERA this year and been more than worth every penny the Pirates gave him this offseason.

It's performances like tonight that really make you optimistic as a Pirates fan. Anytime you have a pitcher that is performing like Correia has been on the mound, you have a fantastic chance to win any game you play. The Pirates have 2 extremely hot pitchers in Correia and Charlie Morton, who will pitch Wednesday, and they've gotten some very good innings from Paul Maholm as well. Ross Ohlendorf is on his way back and we'll hope we can get some good starts out of him, and James McDonald is too good of a pitcher to continue his early season struggles for very long.

The offense has done all of this good work while getting no production from Pedro Alvarez, arguably their best power bat. I wrote a post about Alvarez last night, so read that for more on his slow start. The hot starts that Tabata, Walker, and Snyder have had to this season have been extremely vital, and it really seems that Overbay and McCutchen are starting to turn it on. This offense could make these kinds of outbursts commonplace, which could certainly win the Pirates a good amount of games this year if the pitching can keep up anywhere near what they've been doing this year.

The offense is batting .267 this year and the pitching staff has an ERA of 3.86, both pretty solid numbers. 8-8 is a good spot for the Pirates and I don't see any reason they can't keep up the hot streak and win another road series in Miami this week. Here's the updated numbers:

Pirates vs. Reds, Game 16

Pittsburgh Pirates (7-8) vs. Cincinnati Reds (9-6)
7:10 at Great American Ballpark

Kevin Correia (2-1, 2.70) vs. Travis Wood (1-1, 3.86)

Lineups:

Pirates Lineup: 1. Andrew McCutchen CF 2. Jose Tabata LF 3. Matt Diaz RF 4. Neil Walker 2B 5. Steve Pearce 3B 6. Lyle Overbay 1B 7. Chris Snyder C 8. Ronny Cedeno SS 9. Kevin Correia SP

Reds Lineup: 1. Drew Stubbs CF 2. Edgar Renteria SS 3. Joey Votto 1B 4. Scott Rolen 3B 5. Jonny Gomes LF 6. Jay Bruce RF 7. Miguel Cairo 2B 8. Ryan Hanigan C 9. Travis Wood SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

Pedro Alvarez's Slow Start

The Pittsburgh Pirates are 7-8 as they head into Monday's game with the Cincinnati Reds. The Pirates have shown some good signs and some bad signs at the beginning of this 2011 season. Probably the biggest negative for the Pirates so far has been Pedro Alvarez.

Now nobody expected Alvarez to start hot, he has been a slow starter in his young career and appears to be the kind of player that is very vulnerable to having that become a trend in his career. However, the start he has had to this 2011 season has been really, really terrible.

There have been 7 games where Pedro has gone hitless. That leaves 8 games where Pedro has gotten hits. He has only two multi-hit games, and there have only been 2 games in which he has not struck out. He has 11 hits in 57 at bats, which equates to a .193 batting average. Only 2 of his 11 hits have gone for extra bases, both doubles.

Pedro's striking out an alarming rate. He has 20 strikeouts in 62 plate appearances. He is on pace to strike out over 200 times this season, which would put him right with the league leaders on an average year. That's not as disturbing as the lack of power he has shown. He has 0 home runs, and there has only been 1 ball that really even had a shot. He's hitting 48.6% of his balls on the ground, 34.3% of them for flyballs, and only 17.1% of them for line drives.

A lot of the problems have seemed to start with his approach at the plate. He hasn't been swinging at strikes when he gets them. He's swung at only 61.2% of the strikes he's been thrown, which is 4 percentage points below the league average this year. Pedro's not only swinging at too many pitches out of the strike zone, but he isn't making contact enough when he does so. He makes contact with 57.1% of the pitches he swings at that are out of the zone, 9 points below the league average. His contact percentage on balls inside the zone is even worse, at 12 points below the league average (75%). His contact rate altogether is 69.3%, with the league average of 80%. The final statistic I'm going to give you here is that he's swinging and missing at 12.7% of the strikes he's thrown, the league average is 8.4%.

You can tell that Pedro has been having a ton of trouble making contact. 34% of his at bats are ending in strikeouts, a scary number. He's drawing a fair amount of walks, especially lately, with 8.6% of his at bats going for walks.

It doesn't seem to be just a matter of Pedro putting the ball in play, because he really hasn't been hitting the ball hard at all when he does. There have been a ton of pitches on the outer half of the plate that he has tried to pull and ended up just hitting weak grounders on. I think he's pressing at the plate majorly; it's hard not to when you start this slow. He got a day off on Thursday to try and clear his head and get him on track, but since then he's a nice 2/12.

The Pirates need Pedro to hit the ball out of the ballpark for them this year, and he hasn't done anything close to that so far. He's been struggling mightily. We certainly aren't worried yet, it's been only 15 games and he's only played 110 career games, but it would sure be a huge boost if he could turn it around soon. The offense is treading water without his production, but he is a huge key to this offense taking the next step and helping this team win some baseball games.

Keep a close eye on Pedro the next few games, I'm sure there are going to be some adjustments made to try and bust him out of this slump.

Here's hoping Pedro gets on track and hits 80 bombs this year.

Pirates vs. Reds, Game 15

Pittsburgh Pirates (6-8) vs. Cincinnati Reds (9-5)
1:10 at Great American Ballpark

Jeff Karstens (1-0, 0.00) vs. Edinson Volquez (2-0, 5.82)

Lineups:

Pirates Lineup: 1. Andrew McCutchen CF 2. Jose Tabata LF 3. Lyle Overbay 1B 4. Neil Walker 2B 5. Pedro Alvarez 3B 6. Garrett Jones RF 7. Chris Snyder C 8. Ronny Cedeno SS 9. Jeff Karstens SP

Reds Lineup: 1. Drew Stubbs CF 2. Miguel Cairo 2B 3. Joey Votto 1B 4. Scott Rolen 3B 5. Jonny Gomes LF 6. Jay Bruce RF 7. Ramon Hernandez C 8. Paul Janish SS 9. Edinson Volquez SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

Pirates vs. Reds, Game 14

Pittsburgh Pirates (6-7) vs. Cincinnati Reds (8-5)
1:10 at Great American Ballpark

James McDonald (0-0, 5.56) vs. Mike Leake (1-0, 6.75)

Lineups:

Pirates Lineup: 1. Andrew McCutchen CF 2. Jose Tabata LF 3. Lyle Overbay 1B 4. Neil Walker 2B 5. Pedro Alvarez 3B 6. Ryan Doumit C 7. Garrett Jones RF 8. Ronny Cedeno SS 9. James McDonald SP

Reds Lineup: 1. Drew Stubbs CF 2. Miguel Cairo 2B 3. Joey Votto 1B 4. Jonny Gomes LF 5. Jay Bruce RF 6. Juan Francisco 3B 7. Ramon Hernandez C 8. Paul Janish SS 9. Mike Leake SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

Morton Dominates, Pirates Get Huge Victory

I cannot begin to describe the importance of what happened in Cincinnati tonight for this Pittsburgh Pirates team. In my opinion, this is as big a win as a team like the Pirates can get this early in the season.

First of all, it would be unfair to say anything about the game before I throw in my two cents about Charlie Morton. One of the best Pirates pitching performances we have seen in a long time. Morton went the distance, giving up only 1 run on 5 hits. He got 15 ground ball outs and there was seriously less than 5 balls hit hard tonight. One of those hard hit balls went over the fence off the bat of Jay Bruce in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs, what a jerk. Morton continues to be absolutely remarkable. He has an ERA of 1.64 and has matched his win total from last year. It should be a heck of a lot of fun watching Morton for the rest of the year.

In addition to the hugeness of Morton's performance, the offense bust out. The Pirates collected 15 hits despite some terrible playing conditions for most of the game. Jose Tabata had a monster game with 4 hits ad raised his batting average to .354, Chris Snyder added 3 hits, and Lyle Overbay and Garrett Jones both chipped in 2. Andrew McCutchen had a miserable game at the plate, going 0/5 with 4 strikeouts, but that was basically the only negative side. The Pirates haven't had a game where they put up runs in bunches yet this year, and tonight was certainly a huge game for them. They scored all 6 of their runs in innings 2 through 4, but were quiet after that. It was good to see the Pirates jump out to a big lead. They hadn't led by more than 2 runs all year, this was truly the first dominating performance of the year for the Buccos.

Let me also say that I do not attribute this offensive outburst to the order of the lineup. Hurdle switched things up tonight, batting McCutchen first, Tabata second, Overbay third, and Walker fourth. A lot of people are giving Hurdle a lot of credit for switching things around after a couple really ugly offensive games. I don't see how switching the lineup could make any real difference. The offensive improvement was sheerly coincidental, if you're asking me. If the Pirates run the same lineup out as they have been tonight, they still would have scored the runs and won this game. The lineup really doesn't make a difference, and I will stand by my belief that Tabata should lead off and McCutchen should hit 3rd.

I also really believe that this offense will be improved a ton once Pedro Alvarez gets it going. Now that's an obvious thing to say, but I think Pedro's improvement will help the Pirates in more ways than the obvious. Pitchers will certainly start being more aggressive to the guys ahead of Alvarez, whether it be Overbay, Walker, Diaz, or Jones, which can do nothing but help those guys out. We expect Overbay to hit near 20 bombs this year, and he seems to be starting to heat up. If Pedro can start driving the ball and Overbay can get some better pitches to hit, I think he could go on a tear pretty soon.

Another quick note, Ronny Cedeno made another bad error in the 5th inning of tonight's game. A routine groundball was botched terribly by the Pirates shortstop. His defense has been a huge problem this year, eventually the Pirates might have to do something, even though they really don't have any other options at this point.

Here's the updated stats for the offense and starting pitching. Tonight's efforts certainly helped the Pirates averages quite a bit:

The biggest number in the above statistics is the starters ERA. The Pirates 5 starters have a combined ERA of 3.25, a pretty impressive number for any team, especially the Pirates. James McDonald will try to continue that success tomorrow as the Pirates play the Reds in game 2 of this series at 1:10.

Pirates vs. Reds, Game 13

Pittsburgh Pirates (5-7) vs. Cincinnati Reds (8-4)
7:10 at Great American Ballpark

Charlie Morton (1-0, 2.08) vs. Bronson Arroyo (2-0, 2.08)

Lineups:

Pirates Lineup: 1. Andrew McCutchen CF 2. Jose Tabata LF 3. Lyle Overbay 1B 4. Neil Walker 2B 5. Pedro Alvarez 3B 6. Garrett Jones RF 7. Chris Snyder C 8. Ronny Cedeno SS 9. Charlie Morton SP

Reds Lineup: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Bronson Arroyo SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

Brewers 4 Pirates 1

You know what sucks? Having Paul Maholm go 7 innings while giving up only 2 runs, and then losing the game because the offense can't get anything going against Randy Wolf.

The pitching was supposed to be terrible and the offense was supposed to be exciting. It's been the complete opposite this year, and I think I'd prefer it the other way around.

Pirates are 5-7 now and head to Cincinnati for a 3-game set against the first place Reds. Should be tons of fun.

More later.

Brewers vs. Pirates, Game 12

Milwaukee Brewers (6-5) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (5-6)
7:05 at PNC Park

Randy Wolf (0-2, 7.20) vs. Paul Maholm (0-1, 2.19)

Gameday:

Pirates Haunted By Big Inning, Could Be A Trend

The Pirates came out extremely flat after their 2+ days of rest. They were held scoreless by Shaun Marcum and a series of bullpen guys, and collected only 4 hits the entire game. They didn't get a hit until the 5th inning, when they got 2 in a row to start the inning but couldn't score. You have to give Marcum some credit, he is a very talented pitcher and he was very efficient tonight. However, the Pirates offense hasn't been good at all in their first homestand, and tonight was their flattest effort of the year.

On the pitching side, Kevin Correia was excellent through his first 5 innings. He had a no-hitter going until the sixth inning, when he gave up 4 runs, 3 of which came from a Prince Fielder 3-run bomb. The bullpen pitched 3 scoreless innings but the offensive could not get anything going offensively to make their effort worthwhile.

The other big negative of tonight's game was that Jose Tabata was held hitless. He drew 2 walks, so it wasn't a completely unproductive day for Jose, but it stinks to see his 10 game streak come to an end. Also, the Pirates are now below .500 for the first time in 2011.

As tough as it is for me to say, I think tonight's game has a theme in it that is going to be a big issue for the Pirates this year. That theme is the big inning.

The Pirates pitching staff is very susceptible to the home run ball. Correia, Paul Maholm, Ross Ohlendorf, and even James McDonald are guys that are going to give up their share of flyballs, and they don't have the kind of stuff (with the possible exception of McDonald) to keep enough of them in the ballpark. We saw it tonight with the Fielder home run, and I think we are going to be seeing a lot more of it this year. Charlie Morton has proven that he can keep the ball on the ground with the best of them, so if he keeps up the approach he's taken thus far I don't see him being included in this discussion, but if he reverts to how he pitched last year it certainly could hurt him.

We have been saying all year that the offense has some major potential. With a leading 5 of Tabata-Walker-McCutchen-Overbay-Alvarez, there's no doubt that this offense could have some big innings of their own. We have yet to see one this year, with the possible exception of the inning in the first game when Walker hit the grand slam. The first couple of games it seemed that the top 3 were all locked in and hitting the ball extremely well, but since then they have been out of sync. Tabata has stayed hot, but Walker and McCutchen have been very inconsistent. I'm certainly not worried about McCutchen, but Walker and Alvarez certainly are major question marks offensively, at least for right now.

The Pirates are going to have a lot of games decided by big innings, if they can have them more often than they surrender them, they'll be a good baseball team. However, with the pitching staff we're working with and the youth and inexperience of the offense, I don't see it working in our favor.

The Pirates are 5-6 and will look to climb back to .500 tomorrow as they wrap up their series with the Brew Crew at 7:05.

Brewers vs. Pirates, Game 11

Milwaukee Brewers (5-5) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (5-5)
7:05 at PNC Park

Shaun Marcum (1-1, 4.22) vs. Kevin Correia (2-0, 1.29)

Lineups:

Brewers Lineup: 1. Rickie Weeks 2B 2. Carlos Gomez CF 3. Ryan Braun LF 4. Prince Fielder 1B 5. Casey McGehee 3B 6. Mark Kotsay RF 7. Yuniesky Betancourt SS 8. Jonathan Lucroy C 9. Shaun Marcum SP

Pirates Lineup: 1. Jose Tabata LF 2. Neil Walker 2B 3. Andrew McCutchen CF 4. Lyle Overbay 1B 5. Matt Diaz RF 6. Pedro Alvarez 3B 7. Ryan Doumit C 8. Ronny Cedeno SS 9. Kevin Correia SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

How the Pirates Win, How the Pirates Lose

The Pirates are 5-5 in this young 2011 season. I've been taking a look at how the Pirates have won the games they've won and how they've lost the games they've lost. Here's what I've found:

The Pirates have won their games by the scores of 6-3, 3-1, 5-4, 4-3, and 4-3. That's a run differential of +8 (22-14). The games they have lost have been by the scores of 2-3, 5-6, 3-5, 4-6, and 1-7. That's a differential of -12 (15-27). All together that leaves the Pirates run differential for the 2011 season at -4. The only blowout game they've been apart of was the Home Opener on Sunday when the Rockies beat them by that 7-1 score.

In the 5 games the Pirates have won, they are scoring 4.4 runs per game, collecting 10 hits a game (helped greatly by the 16 hit performance in the 3rd game with the Cubs), hitting 1 home run per game, walking 3.8 times per game, and striking out 6.8 times per game.

On the flip side, in the 5 games the Pirates have lost, they are scoring 3 runs per game, collecting 6.4 hits per game, hitting 0.8 home runs per game, walking 3 times per game, and striking out 8.4 times per game.

You can see that the numbers between winning and losing aren't that different on the offensive side. Let's take a look at the pitching.

In the Pirates 5 wins, they have given up an average of 2.8 runs per game, given up 8.4 hits per game (not helped by the 14-inning affair on Friday night), given up only .4 home runs per game, walked 4.4 batters per game, and struck out 7.6 batters per game (another number that has been largely blown up by Friday's game).

In the 5 losses, the pitching staff has given up 5.4 runs per game, 8.4 hits per game, .6 home runs per game, they've walked 4.8 batters per game, and struck out 4 batters per game.

The staff has an ERA of 2.52 in games they win, and an ERA of 5.65 in games they lose. Basically, the Pirates have doubled their ERA in games they've lost compared to the games they've won.

So the difference in the pitching numbers is a lot greater than the difference in the offensive numbers when you compare the Pirates wins to their losses. I don't think that will surprise anybody. The offense hasn't been great, but it's been consistent. They've scored at least 3 runs in 8 of their 10 games. They haven't scored more than 6 in a game however, so they are certainly struggling to put together the big inning.

This is a Pirate team that is going to need some big innings to be competitive, and I don't see why this Pirate offense can't put together some of those innings with the solid top 5 hitters they have in the lineup.

The main issue for the offense so far this year has been Pedro Alvarez's lack of production. Alvarez is hitting .195/.250/.220 thus far. He has 8 hits, and only 1 of them has gone for extra bases (a double in the 3rd game against the Cardinals). He isn't driving the ball well and he is striking out a ton. He has 14 strikeouts in 41 at bats, which leads him on a pace to strike out 226 times in a 162-game season (Mark Reynolds led the league last year with 211 strikeouts).

Getting back to the pitching side of it, let's compare the starting rotation to the bullpen. The starters have an ERA of 3.34, and the bullpen has an ERA of 3.24. Both sides have certainly done their job early on this year. The starters are doing a pretty good job going deep into games, averaging 6 innings per start. There's only been 3 occurrences of a Pirate starter going past the 6th inning, two of which came from Kevin Correia (one of those came on Opening Day when Correia only faced one batter in the 7th and gave up a single before being pulled), and the other came from Charlie Morton, who was probably stretched out a little longer than he normally would be because of the Friday night game that exhausted the Pirates bullpen.

All-in-all on the surface it's been a good start for the Pirates this year. Some of the numbers suggest that the pitching will get worse as the season progresses (lack of strikeouts, lots of balls being hit in the air, low BABIP), but they've held their own thus far. I don't think anybody would be upset if the Pirates played .500 ball all season, that's almost become a goal for a lot of fans. Certainly .500 is not the goal, but it would be a giant step forward for this organization.

The Pirates play the Brewers tonight at 7:05, with Kevin Correia on the hill. Check back right here for a liveblog. Let's Go Bucs.

Rainout

Tonight's Brewers/Pirates game has been postponed, and no makeup day has been scheduled. The only other time the Brewers come to Pittsburgh is August 22 - August 24, so the makeup game will most likely be scheduled for then.

Nobody wanted to see this game get rained out. The Penguins start their playoff series tomorrow night, so there will be buzz in Pittsburgh for that which will take away from the Pirates. Also, the Pirates game will not be on ROOT sports because of that Penguins game, so that's one less Pirate game we get to watch on TV.

The Pirates will stick with Correia and Maholm for the 2 games in this series, but it will be interesting to see what they do after that. They will most likely stick with Karstens for the first game of the next series (against the Reds), but there is also the possibility of going straight to Morton and McDonald then going straight back to Correia and bypassing Karstens turn. That's what I would do. Why throw out an inferior starter when you have a better guy ready to go on normal rest? We'll see what happens, Karstens has looked very good early on this year.

So that's it for tonight, a frustrating sports day for sure. If you're planning on watching the Penguins game tomorrow night but want to keep tabs on the Bucco game, check back right here for the liveblog and gameday.

Pirates vs. Brewers Series Preview

The Milwaukee Brewers are the Pirates biggest rival. There have been various scuffles and other confrontations in the last few years when these teams have met up. Tonight the Pittsburgh Pirates play the Brewers for the first time in 2011.

The Pirates and Brewers met 18 times last season, and the Pirates won 5 of those games, a .278 winning percentage, that's not very good. Two of those losses ended in scores of 20-0 and 17-3, which helped the Brewers outscore the Pirates 125-80 in the 18 games.

The good news is, it's not last year anymore. The Pirates have a chance to start anew against their rivals. Tonight the Pirates send Kevin Correia to the hill to face Shaun Marcum, whom the Brewers acquired as a free agent this offseason.

Marcum is a very good pitcher, last year he posted a 3.64 ERA with 13 wins in 31 starts. He's a good strikeout pitcher, he's averaged over 7 strikeouts per 9 innings in his career. Tonight will be his 3rd start of the year. In his first start he lasted only 4.2 innings and gave up 3 earned runs against the Reds and took the loss. He walked 5 batters in that start. He rebounded nicely in his 2nd start and went 6 strong innings allowing only 2 runs and earning the victory over the Braves.

That brings Marcum's early season ERA to 4.22 with 11 strikeouts in 10.2 innings. Correia number's are superior to Marcum, as he has jumped out to an incredibly hot start to the 2011 season. In 2 starts, Correia has allowed only 2 earned runs while pitching 13 innings. He also made an appearance in the 9th inning of Saturday's game, and retired all 3 batters he faced. That brings his season ERA to a tidy 1.29. He'll have to be effective again tonight to beat the Brewers, who have one of the best offenses in the National League.

The starting pitching has been pretty good for the Brewers thus far. They have a staff ERA of 3.19 from 4 starters (Yovani Gallardo, Chris Narveson, Randy Wolf, and Marcum). The bullpen has been pretty bad for them and has cost them a couple games. Their closer, John Axford is off to a really slow start, he's given up 4 earned runs in 4.1 innings pitched which gives him an ERA of 8.31, despite having 3 saves already.

So far this year, the Brewers are 5-5 and scoring 3.8 runs per game. That's a pretty slow start for an offense that scored 4.63 runs per game in 2010. The two big bats of Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder have been doing their job early on. Fielder is hitting .400 with 2 homers and 11 RBI. Braun has 4 homers of his own and has driven in 8 runs while hitting .353 in the first 10 games. There hasn't been many other players contributing besides those two, and that's why the offense has struggled a bit. Casey McGehee, who had a surprisingly big year in 2010, is hitting just .229 early on.

The Pirates are going to have to take advantage of the Brewers early offensive struggles and pitch well if they want to win this series. The key will be how often they can get to the tandem of Braun-Fielder with the bases empty. Those two have hurt the Pirates big time the last few years, especially Braun, who has hit .319/.395/.608 with 16 bombs in 57 games against the Pirates. That means that Braun hits .28 home runs per game against the Pirates, which would result in 45 bombs in a 162-game season. Let's hope the Pirates can keep him in the yard this series, nobody likes seeing that guy round the bases.

The only gleam of positivity I can see on this Brewers squad (aside from the fact that they are a pretty good baseball team) is Nyjer Morgan. That's right, Morgan plays for the Brewers. They acquired him very late in spring training. He's played in all 10 games for this Brewers squad and has gotten 19 at bats. He's got 9 hits in those 19 at bats which brings his average to an impressive .474; I'd expect Morgan to start a game or two in this series.

Nyjmo doesn't seem to be the same fun-loving carefree guy we knew in Pittsburgh. He's been involved in his share of incidents the last few years, remember this?


While we're on youtube...


In another note, Jeff Karstens will be pitching Thursday's game, he was one of the main player's in the incidents a couple years ago after plunking Braun, who proceeded to cry about it for the next 4 days.

We'll have the gameday and liveblog up soon, check back around gametime to chat with us. Let's Go Bucs.

Hate Poem, Brewers vs. Pirates Series Preview

Here's a short poem about how the Brewers suck:

Who the crap likes the Brewers? They really stink
Ryan Braun's panties are colored pink
The only thing Prince has more of than body fat is fatigue
They have to give him free buffet's so he doesn't eat half the National League
If the Pirates don't beat the Brewers this week I'll cry, I swear
Let's hope the Brewers boyfriends don't come, they play better when they're there

So that's my poem about the Brewers. Here's some real stuff:

Probable Starters
Game 1: Kevin Correia (2-0, 1.29) vs. Shaun Marcum (1-1, 4.22)
Game 2: Paul Maholm (0-1, 2.19) vs. Randy Wolf (0-2, 7.20)
Game 3: Jeff Karstens (1-0, 0.00) vs. Chris Narveson (1-0, 0.00)

More tomorrow. Let's Go Bucs.

What The Pirates Do

This is what the Pirates do, frustrate the hell out of fans from other teams when we beat them. boom.

Rockies vs. Pirates Series Wrap-Up

The Pirates dropped the finale of their first home series today by the score of 6-5. James McDonald made the start and had a rough first inning but was very strong from there out. The Pirates battled back to tie the game at 4 and eventually grabbed the lead on a McDonald RBI infield single, but the bullpen could not make the lead stand up and the Pirates lost another close one.

All-in-all this wasn't a terrible series for the Pirates. The pitching certainly wasn't near as strong as it was on the first road trip, but the Pirates had chances to win 3 of the 4 games. The home opener was bad, not much of a game at all, but the Pirates could have won each of the next 3 games. Friday they got it done in extras, Saturday the Rockies put 3 on the board in the 8th and the Pirates couldn't bounce back, and Sunday the Pirates just couldn't get the big hit late in the game when they needed it.

At the end of the series, the Pirates starters finished with a 5.32 ERA in the 4 games, giving up 5.5 hits per start and 4 runs per start. Three of the four starters (Maholm, Morton, and McDonald) made it past the 6th inning, but none of them were able to earn wins.

The offense didn't do enough to earn more than 1 win from this series, and that was the biggest problem. The team put up only 14 runs in the 4 games and hit for a putrid batting average of .191. You have to give some credit to the Rockies, who threw out some pretty talented starters in this series, despite not having their ace, Ubaldo Jimenez. I said it at the beginning of the year and I'll say it again, the Rockies are legitimately one of the best teams in the National League, they are my pick to win the NL West.

The bright spot of the series was undoubtably Jose Tabata. In the series, the Pirates lead off hitter was 5/16 (.312) with 2 home runs, 3 RBI, and 3 stolen bases. He season average is not up to .342, the highest on the team. Andrew McCutchen had a rough series, going 2/17 and bringing his batting average down to .257 on the young season.

If the Pirates are going to win ballgames, they are going to have to have more production from the 1-6 guys in their order. They really didn't do too much in this series, and the Pirates lost 3 of the 4 games. The pitching is not going to be like it was in the first two series, but it might be better than it was in this series, either way the offense is going to have to score more runs if the Pirates want to be the least bit competitive this year.

The good news is that the Pirates are still at .500, with 5 wins and 5 losses. It took them 10 games to lose 2 in a row, so that's certainly a good sign. They're a resilient bunch and should be back ready to play on Tuesday.

Here's the updated offense and starting pitching breakdowns for the first 10 games of the season:

We'll have a new post or two up tomorrow, as it is the Pirates first off day of the year. They'll be back in action Tuesday as they start a 3-game set with the hated Milwaukee Brewers.

Rockies (5-2) vs. Pirates (5-4), Game 10

Colorado Rockies (5-2) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (5-4)
1:35 at PNC Park

Jhoulys Chacin (0-0, 0.00) vs. James McDonald (0-0, 3.86)

Lineups:

Rockies Lineup: 1. Dexter Fowler CF 2. Ryan Spilborghs RF 3. Jason Giambi 1B 4. Troy Tulowitzki SS 5. Seth Smith RF 6. Jose Lopez 3B 7. Ty Wigginton LF 8. Chris Iannetta C 9. Jhoulys Chacin SP

Pirates Lineup: 1. Jose Tabata LF 2. Neil Walker 2B 3. Andrew McCutchen CF 4. Lyle Overbay 1B 5. Pedro Alvarez 3B 6. Ryan Doumit C 7. Garrett Jones RF 8. Ronny Cedeno SS 9. James McDonald SP

Liveblog:

Gameday:

Bullpen Gets It Done: Pirates 4 Rockies 3

It was the first game of the year that I couldn't watch, and it was by far the best game of the year. This was one of those instant classic Pirate games. It would take at least a half hour to write a full recap of it, and I hardly have 5 minutes, so here's just the big notes, that I'm sure you already know:

• The bullpen did an almost unbelievable job. Ross Ohlendorf only made it through 2.2 innings before he had to leave the game with a shoulder injury (more information will be available on that tomorrow), which left the Pirates bullpen with quite a tough job to do. They responded in a way that nobody expected. Jeff Karstens went 3.1 scoreless innings and struck out 5. After that, Michael Crotta, Jose Veras, Joel Hanrahan, Chris Resop, and Garrett Olson pitched 8 scoreless innings. Three of those innings came from Resop and two from Olson. When all was said and done the Pirates had 15 strikeouts in 14 innings pitched.
• Ohlendorf wasn't good when he was in the game, giving up 3 hits in 2.2 innings including a 3-run home run to Jason Giambi. He hasn't looked good early on, but it's still very important for him to get back and be healthy this year.
• Jose Tabata had a big game, driving in 2 of the Pirates 4 runs. He hit a homered in the 5th inning and won the game for the Pirates in the 14th with a double (a rare walk-off double?).
• Other than Tabata, nobody did much of anything. Andrew McCutchen was 0/5, Lyle Overbay was 0/4, Matt Diaz and Garrett Jones combined to go 0/6, and Ronny Cedeno was a putrid 0/6. This game certainly did not do the Pirates team batting average any favors. Jason Jaramillo was a bright spot as well with 2 hits and the game-tying RBI in the 6th.
  

It was pretty incredible to see the Pirates win this game. They were down 3-0 after the first inning, and their starting pitcher left the game in the 3rd. You wouldn't expect any team to win the game in that situation, and you really wouldn't give the Pirates much of a chance at all in the past. The bullpen stepped up and Tabata put the team on his back for a bucco win.

Pirates will look to clinch their 3rd straight non-losing series tomorrow as they play the Rockies in game 3 of the 4 game set. Mr. Electric Stuff Charlie Morton will be back on the hill, so be sure to hit up the following twitter feeds for some hilarity: @mceffect, @rtjr, @northsidenotch, @fakecharmorton

Game's at 7:05, check back here for the liveblog and gameday.

Rockies (4-1) vs. Pirates (4-3), Game 8

Colorado Rockies (4-1) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (4-3)
7:05 at PNC Park

Jorge De La Rosa (1-0, 0.00) vs. Ross Ohlendorf (0-0, 6.00)

Gameday:

A Look At Jose Tabata's Young Career

In 2008, the Pirates traded Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady to the Yankees for Ross Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens, Daniel McCutchen, and Jose Tabata. At the time it seemed to be a pretty good deal for the Pirates, and the next 3 years proved it. Ohlendorf, Karstens, and Tabata have turned into mainstays on the Pirates 25-man roster. Ohlendorf has been one of the Pirates best pitchers (despite not putting up any really good numbers), and Karstens have been a good guy to have for spot starts and decent relief innings. Those two alone may have been worth losing Marte and an aging Nady, but having Tabata included was huge. Jose was called up last summer and has not only been one of the Pirates best hitters since then, he's been one of the best in the National League.


In 2010, Tabata played 102 games for the Pirates. In those 102 games, he collected 121 hits, good for a .299 batting average. He also drew 28 walks which brought his on-base percentage to .368, and struck out only 57 times, which gave him a strikeout to plate appearance of .129, a pretty good number. While Tabata was very consistent at the plate, he showed the ability to be very streaky as well. In his 102 games, Tabata collected two 6-game hitting streaks, a 7-game streak, a 12-game streak, and a 14-game streak.

Jose is off to another hot start in 2011. He has 9 hits in his first 26 at bats and has hit safely in all 7 games. That has brought his career batting average up to .302 and his career on-base percentage to .376 (he has drawn 4 walks this year). He is settling into his role as the Pirates lead-off hitter and doing a remarkable job. He had incredible success as a rookie and he doesn't seem to be anywhere near a sophomore slump.

The negative side with Tabata is that he does not hit for much power. So far in his career he has 130 hits, and 93 of them have been singles. He's hit 4 triples and 4 home runs, which leaves him with 29 doubles. There is some power potential there, but we certainly haven't seen much of it yet.

The Pirates 2008 trade with the Yankees has turned out to be a fantastic move for this organization, if not only because of Jose Tabata. All signs point to him being one of the league's best lead-off hitters for years to come, and we're lucky to have him in Pittsburgh.