Sunday 6/3 Minor League Roundup

AAA Indianapolis | Indianapolis 14 Syracuse 6
The Indians broke out the bats on Sunday and pounded out 19 hits in a 14-6 win. Alex Presley, Chase d'Arnaud, and Jeff Larish all had three hits. Presley homered and d'Arnaud doubled twice. Anderson Hernandez had four hits of his own, all singles. Starling Marte had a single and a double, and four other Indians had hits on the day. It was an easy game to pitch in, as Daniel Cabrera got the win going 5.1 innings and giving up five runs. He struck out four and walked two. Duke Welker pitched a scoreless inning, Tim Wood did the same, and Kris Johnson gave up an unearned run in the ninth.

AA Altoona | Altoona 2 Portland 0
Brandon Cumpton threw eight shutout innings and the Curve got an impressive win over the Portland Sea Dogs. Cumpton struck out just two but allowed only four hits. The offense came from Tony Sanchez, who had an RBI double and Quincy Latimore who did the same. Miles Durham had two hits and Brock Holt added a single and a run.

A West Virginia | Hickory 7 West Virginia 6
Alen Hanson went 0/5 with four strikeouts, but the Power still managed to score six runs. Gregory Polanco, Jose Osuna, and Francisco Aponte all had two hits, and Osuna added a home run. Polanco also drew three walks and scored two runs. Six runs wasn't enough for the Power pitching staff as Robby Rowland gave up four runs (all unearned) in six innings and Mike Jefferson took the loss by giving up three runs (two earned) in 2.1 innings of relief. Bad defense led to this lost for the Power. A Bradenton | Brevard County 3 Bradenton 2
Gerrit Cole made the start and went six strong innings, giving up two runs and striking out six. He has a 2.53 ERA on the season and looks to be promoted soon. The offense didn't do much. Mel Rojas, Alex Dickerson, Stefan Welch, and Andy Vasquez all had hits. Welch homered and Dan Grovatt brought in the other run as the Marauders lost a close one.

6/3 James McDonald Pitch F/X

6 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K

Pitch Type	Veloc	H-Break	V-Break	Count	Strike%
4-Seam	92.9	-3.87	11.09	42	71.43%
Change	81.7	-8.95	8.10	3	66.67%
Slider	80.3	2.06	0.99	21	42.86%
Curve	76.3	5.96	-8.08	19	47.37%
2-Seam	92.4	-6.80	8.73	14	71.43%

You can view all the season's pitch f/x posts by clicking here

6/3 Recap | Pirates 6 Brewers 5

The Pirates used the long ball to win their third straight series. They knocked off the Brewers 6-5 and head into an off day with a winning record on the season.

Andrew McCutchen got the Pirates the lead in the sixth with a two run homer and Garrett Jones followed him immediately with a home run of his own for an insurance run. In the very next inning Rod Barajas hit a solo home run to give the Pirates a three run lead. They weren’t done there however, as Clint Barmes added a solo homer of his own in the 9th off Brewers closer John Axford.

James McDonald got another quality start and a win. He pitched six innings and gave up three runs, although only one of them was earned because of a first inning fielding error on Clint Barmes, who would drive in a run on a single in the second inning to try and make up for it. McDonald wasn’t at his best but he was good enough, getting eight strikeouts in six innings.

Juan Cruz gave up a solo home run to Carlos Maldonado in the seventh inning, Jason Grilli pitched a scoreless eighth and Joel Hanrahan gave up a solo home run to Brooks Conrad before closing out the game in the 9th to wrap up the 6-5 win.

Pirates (26-26) vs. Brewers (24-29), Game 53

Pittsburgh Pirates (26-26) vs. Milwaukee Brewers (24-29)

June 3, 2012

James McDonald (4-2, 2.20) vs. Michael Fiers (1-0, 1.29)


Game Notes:

6/2 Erik Bedard Pitch F/X

3.2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 5 K, 3 BB

Pitch Type	Veloc	H-Break	V-Break	Count	Strike%
4-Seam	88.9	4.75	10.47	23	73.91%
Change	76.5	5.99	7.19	3	33.33%
Curve	77.8	-5.32	-6.49	27	55.56%
Cutter	88.8	-1.39	6.35	1	100.00%
2-Seam	90.5	9.86	8.25	33	57.58%

6/2 Recap | Brewers 5 Pirates 1

Erik Bedard had a bad outing and the offense couldn’t do anything to pick him up and the Pirates fell back to .500 on the year. Bedard made it through just 3.2 innings and gave up five earned runs. It was easily his worst start of the year and the Pirates never had much of a chance with Shaun Marcum on his game for the Brewers. The bullpen did another fantastic job keeping the Brewers off the board. Chris Resop pitched 2.1 innings of scoreless ball, and Jared Hughes and Doug Slaten added scoreless innings of their own. Slaten walked three in his inning but escaped the jam.

The offense came from Garrett Jones and only Garrett Jones. He hit a monster solo home run in the fourth to tie the game up at one, but nobody else contributed much of anything. Jones had another hit in the game, and Andrew McCutchen, Jose Tabata, and Matt Hague all added singles of their own.

Big game tomorrow as the Pirates try to win their third straight series. James McDonald is on the bump against rookie Michael Fiers.

Pirates (26-25) vs. Brewers (23-29), Game 52

Pittsburgh Pirates (26-25) vs. Milwaukee Brewers (23-29)

June 2, 2012

Erik Bedard (3-5, 3.12) vs. Shaun Marcum (3-3, 3.63)


Game Notes:

PNC Park's Radar Gun is Slow

All season I have been keeping an eye on the radar of the Pirates starter's pitches, mainly their fastballs. The case with pretty much every starter has been that their velocity has been down a bit from last year. Now that's understandable with one or two guys, but when all five starters are seeing declines in their velocity, you have to start wondering if something is up here. Let's look at our starter's average fastball velocity from last year as compared to this year.

Pitcher	2011	2012
Bedard	90.4	89.4
Burnett	92.7	92.5
McDonald	92.7	91.7
Correia	90.6	89.6
Morton	91.2	89.8

Again, that consistent difference just isn't logical. So let's look at the numbers from these pitchers at home against on the road. I looked at each individual start for each pitcher, noted their average fastball velocity for that night, and then sorted them by velocity. Here's the results:

Charlie Morton is the only one whose fastball isn't obviously slower at home. That data is from his two seamer as well, which varies in velocity more than a four seamer would, so it doesn't surprise me that the data is inconsistent around him. I'd say that Erik Bedard pretty much proves this one. His top three are away and bottom three are at home. Correia's top three are at home, and three of Burnett's top four are road starts.

So there you have it. Don't get worried when the Pirates pitcher's don't seem to have their best velocity at home anymore, because the radar gun is around a mile an hour slow in PNC Park.

6/1 Kevin Correia Pitch F/X

5.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K

Pitch Type	Veloc	H-Break	V-Break	Count	Strike%
4-Seam	91.2	-2.92	8.10	25	60.00%
Change	86.5	-8.97	6.74	2	50.00%
Slider	87.8	2.43	5.06	20	55.00%
Curve	77.1	8.60	-5.94	15	66.67%
Cutter	90.5	0.21	8.90	5	100.00%
2-Seam	91.3	-6.09	6.68	22	68.18%

You can view all the season's pitch f/x posts by clicking here

6/1 Recap | Pirates 8 Brewers 2

The Pirates did something last night that they haven’t done much of at all in recent years - win a baseball game in Miller Park.

It started out shaky in the first inning. The Pirates would see two men reach second base with less than two outs and they could not score either of them. After that Nyjer Morgan hit a solo home run for his first RBI of the season, which just seemed all too typical. It felt like a normal trip to Milwaukee after that first inning. However, things got better in a hurry in the third.

The Pirates used back to back triples from Josh Harrison and Andrew McCutchen to tie the game, then Neil Walker drove in the go ahead run. After that, Matt Hague and Rod Barajas singled to bring in another run. Jordy Mercer then drew a walk and pitcher Kevin Correia grounded out to set up Jose Tabata with the bases loaded and two outs. Tabata hit a line drive right at Nyjer Morgan, who misplayed the ball and saw it sail over his head, scoring three more runs and the Pirates had a 6-1 lead.

That would be more than Correia and company would need. The “road warrior” Correia went 5.2 innings and allowed just two runs (both on solo home runs) in a winning effort. He got his first winning decision since April 15, his second start of the year. Doug Slaten, Jared Hughes, Brad Lincoln, Tony Watson, and Juan Cruz pitched 3.1 scoreless innings to get the Bucs over .500 for just the second time this year.

Friday 6/1 Minor League Roundup

AAA Indianapolis | Syracuse 7 Indianapolis 5
Starling Marte had a big day at the plate with three hits including a home run and a double. He scored three runs. Yamaico Navarro also had a couple of hits including a triple, and Jeff Clement and Jeff Larish added hits and RBI's. Jeff Karstens made a rehab start and pitched five innings. He gave up six runs, but only two of them were earned. He struck out six and gave up a home run while walking one.

AA Altoona | Postponed


A West Virginia | Hickory 9 West Virginia 6
Jose Osuna homered, Carlos Mesa had three hits, and four other players had two hit games. Despite that, the Power couldn't score enough to make up for a bad performance on the mound. Nick Kingham made another poor start going 4.2 innings and giving up six earned runs. He walked three, struck out five, and allowed three home runs. Clario Perez and Vince Payne allowed three more runs in 3.1 innings of work out of the bullpen.

A Bradenton | Postponed

Pirates (25-25) vs. Brewers (23-28), Game 51

Pittsburgh Pirates (25-25) vs. Milwaukee Brewers (23-28)

June 1, 2012

Kevin Correia (1-5, 4.30) vs. Randy Wolf (2-4, 5.73)


Game Notes:

Pirates Make Up Injury, Send Morton to the DL

I'm normally not a news reporter on here, but this is too good to pass up.

The Pirates have put Charlie Morton on the DL with "elbow inflammation". Morton just came off a start and afterwards said he "felt fine". There's no way he's actually hurt right now, they just said this to get him out of the rotation for a bit as Jeff Karstens is on his way back from his injury.

Now that Morton is on the DL, he'll be able to make rehab starts in the minor leagues and work on what he needs to work on. They couldn't straight demote him because he's out of options, so this was the only way to get him innings without hurting the major league club. He'll sit a week or two out and then he'll start making rehab starts. Hopefully he'll figure some stuff out and be ready to be an effective major league starter.

My guess is that the Pirates go with a four man rotation until Karstens is ready. They had an off day yesterday and another one Monday, so they can afford to go with the four man rotation until the weekend. After that, Karstens should be read to come back. I don't think they'll need to make another move, they should get by with what they have now.

The rotation right now looks like this:

Friday: Correia
Saturday: Bedard
Sunday: McDonald
Monday: off
Tuesday: Burnett (with five days rest)
Wednesday: Correia
Thursday: Bedard
Friday: McDonald
Saturday: Karstens

Jeff should be ready for that Saturday start, if he's not they can have Brad Lincoln or Jeff Locke make the start.

Pittsburgh Pirates May Highlights

My man Drew Brown hooked up a May highlights video. Check it out.

Pirates vs. Brewers, Series Preview

Clipped from: rumbunter.com (share this clip)