When Did The Pirates Learn How To Hit?


In the first month of the season the Pirates scored a total of 58 runs, by far the worst in the league 15 runs behind the Athletics who were at ranked twenty-ninth in that category and 69 runs behind the Red Sox who were ranked first. In the second month of the season the Pirates were still last in runs but this time they jumped from just 58 runs scored to 89 runs two runs behind the Athletics who were at twenty-ninth once again and 78 runs behind the Rangers who were sitting in first.

All this lack of offense got people around Pittsburgh demanding for another bat, throwing out the most ridiculous of names at times, even wanting Manny Ramirez at one point. As of late such demands have calmed down from all those hardcore yinzer's out there for some reason. Why am I telling you all of this useless information you might ask, and my answer for you is in the month of June the Pirates have scored more runs then any other team in the whole Major Leagues. That's right you heard me more runs then any other team who plays baseball in the major leagues, that includes all of those American League powerhouses like Texas, Boston, and New York who everyone always seems to want to rave about.

The Pirates have scored 139 runs this month alone more then doubling their total from the whole month of April. The next closest team is the Mets who have scored 137 runs to this point. The Mets can pass the Pirates if they score a few more runs in their game right now against the Dodgers but hopefully that won't happen. I normally wouldn't write a full length post about the Pirates improvement in offense but this drastic jump is just way to much to ignore. The Pirates have also hit 38 home-runs this month third behind only the Blue-Jays and Yankees who notably play in very very small hitter friendly ball-parks.

In June the Pirates also only have one position player hitting below Mendoza line and that is Rod Barajas who is currently day to day with a knee injury. Even his back-up Michael McKenry is hitting .313 on the month with two home runs in only 39 plate appearances, not bad for a back up catcher. Andrew McCutchen has continued his dominance this month hitting .365 with 7 home-runs, but is also day to day with a wrist injury suffered in today's win in St. Louis. Pedro Alvarez still strikes out to much but he has hit 6 home-runs this month and has hit for a solid .259 average as well. I could give you names all night of people who have improved in June but that would get boring after awhile so I'll stop.

I think by now you understand what I'm trying to get across which is the Pirates no longer suck at hitting baseballs, as of now they are the best in the league in June that is. If the Pirates keep this up even just partly for the rest of the year they stand a chance, and a chance is all they need. It will be interesting to see how the Pirates offense does in July because this is when they started to fall apart last year. The pitching has come apart just a little bit the past month but in my opinion they added a big piece not with a trade but just by getting Jeff Karstens back. Bedard pitches tomorrow lets see how that goes.

Why Do The Pirates Refuse To Throw Runners Out?

If you have watched the Pirates at all this year you would of probably noticed their inability to throw out runners attempting to steal bases. I myself have noticed this as well so I looked a little farther into and I really had no idea how bad it actually was. When your a team like the Pirates who is 29th in the league in batting average and other important batting stat's you can not afford to give the team the extra base which the Pirates are doing seemingly every time someone gets on-base.

Rod Barajas who has played just about 2/3 of the total innings for the Pirates this year has had a total of 42 chances to throw out runners attempting to steal and has actually throw these runners out just two times. If your going to do the math that is just .048% of the time, and if you want to do more math that means Barajas  throws runners out less then one out of every twenty times he has the chance. This is by far the worst in the league the next worst being Jarrod Saltalamacchia of the Red Sox who has still thrown out more then three times the runners at seven then Barajas has.

The second and third worst regular starters in the major leagues at throwing out base runners are Buster Posey and Saltalamacchia. The difference between Barajas compared to Posey and Saltalamacchia is that the other two make up for their lack of defense on offense. Barajas is hitting at just a .224/.284/.394 compared to Posey's .298/.361/.483 and Saltalamacchia's .254/.301/.539.  Both of these players have better stats then Barajas in virtually every offensive category making you ask yourself what Barajas actually has on these guys.

As a lot of people like to say, the stolen base is not always on the catcher which is true but a lot of the time it is. Michael McKenry who has played the other third of the innings for th e Pirates has a .166% at throwing out base-runners proves this point. I'm not going to go as far as to say that McKenry is good at throwing out base-runners but he is a whole of a lot better then Barajas. Rod Barajas rSB which measures the runs a catcher or pitcher saves on stolen bases is at a -5. This means that Barajas actually loses his team runs when he is in the field playing catcher. Mckenry's rSB is at an even 0 which means that he doesn't necessarily help his team on stolen bases but he doesn't hurt his team any. Right now with Barajas being day-to-day McKenry has a chance to earn himself maybe not a starting job but certainly more playing time that is if he hits, because that is basically the reason he's not playing right now.

The Pirates pitchers do also play a big role in the lack of runners the Pirates throw out stealing. Out of the fifteen players to pitch for the Pirates so far this year none of them have a positive rSB, but two of them do have a negative rSB. The two guys that have negative rSB are A.J. Burnett and Jared Hughes at -3 and -5. The pitchers need to help their catchers out because if they don't give the catchers a chance then everyone will be able to steal on this team.

Like I mentioned earlier the Pirates are not exactly hitting the cover off of the ball so they have to make up for this with good pitching and defense. Throwing out base runners is not exactly defense but it is pretty close. It seems like every time someone even walks it turns into a double which is something that is just flat out unacceptable, you can not easily allow runners to run their way into scoring position. It will be interesting to see how or if the Pirates improve at all in this category the rest of the season, because if they want to stay in this race for the playoffs I think they have to.



Tuesday Roster Moves

The Pirates made a few fairly interesting roster moves today involving four different players. The first move they made was to add the recently acquired Drew Sutton to the 25 man roster, they did this by optioning infielder Matt Hague back to AAA. Hague was hitting at a .235 average with only two extra base hits in 68 just at bats. The Pirates are just hoping to catch lightning in a bottle when it comes to Sutton, he has played just eight-teen games with the Rays this season and only has thirteen hits, hopefully he can give the team some production in the infield.

The other move came when the Pirates recalled catcher Eric Fryer from AAA to fill in for a short amount of time while Rod Barajas is day-to-day with his knee injury suffered in the second inning of last nights game in Philadelphia Fryer has been terrible in AAA so I'm not going to even give you any stats to show it, because they are so bad you probably don't even want to see them. 

To make room for Fryer the Pirates sent down left handed reliever Doug Slaten to Indianapolis. Slaten had a 2.77 ERA in ten appearances this year for the Pirates for a total of thirteen innings pitched. This now gives the Pirates only one left handed option out of the pen in Tony Watson, so I wouldn't be surprised if Slaten is called up later in the year again to give the team another option.

Clint Barmes and W.A.R.

You would be hard-pressed to find a stat that supports Clint Barmes these days.  Whether it is his terrible batting average of .205 (the lowest of the regular starters), or his 50 strikeouts.  However, I will look past these stats to try and determine what Barmes's real value (if any) is to the team.

There is no better stat to start to measure a players value then WAR.  WAR (Wins Above Replacement) a statistic that attempts to measure a players contributions to the team.  You should always use more than one metric at a time when evaluating players, but WAR is pretty darn all-inclusive and provides a handy reference point. WAR basically looks at a player and asks the question, “If this player got injured and their team had to replace them with a minor leaguer or someone from their bench, how much value would the team be losing?” This value is expressed in a wins format, so we could say that Player X is worth +6.3 wins to their team while Player Y is only worth +3.5 wins.

Clint Barmes is worth an astoundingly low -.2 WAR. This means that if Barmes got hurt today we would win on average .2 more games.  So because of this we are forced to ask, "Why is he still starting?" My answer to this is that they believe he will regain some of his past hitting, and raise his average.  Now, there is some merit to that argument because Barmes has never hit below .235 in a full season, and his WAR in the past 4 season have all been above .5.

In my opinion however they should take him out of the starting lineup, and replace him, temporarily with Josh Harrison.  Harrison is no stud this season either, batting .231, but his OBP is much better. Clint Barmes's OBP is a terrible .225 compared to Harrison's respectable .291.  Harrison's WAR is also .7, while not much it is still much better then -.2.  Still I do not see Harrison as a long term solution.

The Pirates long term solution at shortstop should be Alen Hanson.  Hanson is currently in A ball with the West Virginia Power, where he is tearing it up. Hanson is only 19, and yet he is batting .324 with 10 homeruns.  He also is blazing fast swiping 19 stolen bases so far this season.  Hanson in my mind has all the tools to be a stud at the Major League level, and replace Harrison or Barmes.  The problem is though he is only 19, so he won't be in the Majors for at least another 2 years.  In the mean time the Pirates should look for other options to Barmes, because the more he plays, the less likely we are to win.

Karstens Back In Rotation Lincoln To Pen

Before the Pirates lost to Detroit today they announced that the injured Jeff Karstens would return to the starting to the rotation, then after the game they announced that his first start would be tomorrow in Philadelphia. This addition to the rotation meant that someone would have to be subtracted from the rotation  and the odd man out happened to be Brad Lincoln.

Karstens went on the DL April eighteenth after he was pulled from the game after just one inning of work, this was just Karstens third game of his season. In his first two starts he went six and then five inning giving up just one run his first outing and three his next outing. Karstens also went 9-9 in 2011 with a3.38 ERA over 162.1 innings, so this is clearly a big addition to the squad. In my opinion this give the Pirates four very good starters out of a possible five, the starter not included in those four being Kevin Correia who has been rumored (by other bloggers) to be on the trading block, but who knows.

On the other side of this move Lincoln will be moved back to the bullpen where he belongs. Lincoln pitched very well in his last outing where he took a no hitter into the sixth but other then that he has a 6.08 ERA as a starter which just isn't very good. However he has a 0.42 ERA as a reliever this year so he can obviously do work in that role. This means that with the addition of Karstens someone has to go and I have a feeling that it might be the recently recalled Bryan Morris who didn't even get a chance to pitch at this point in his short stint as a major leaguer, but we will find out the move for sure tomorrow.

6/24 Recap vs Tigers

Your Pirates lost a tough one today to the Detroit Tigers by a score of 3-2. Before the game you probably weren't picking the Bucs to win this one anyway mostly because the guy that they were attempting to score runs against, Justin Verlander. If you weren't aware Verlander not only won the AL Cy Young last year, he also won the AL MVP. Thats Crazy.

This game started out as bad as possible for the Pirates when Quintin Berry hit his first career major league home-run in the first inning right after lead-off hitter Austin Jackson singled to start the game, this gave the Tigers an early 2-0 lead. Luckily for the Pirates Kevin Correia bounced back nicely after this going 6IP, 3ER, 1ER, 4SO, 1HR.

Just when the Pirates looked like they didn't stand a chance against Verlander Jones excited the crowd by hitting a two run shot to tie the game at two in the seventh. Disappointingly the Pirates lost the lead the very next inning when Chris Resop allowed a single to right field to score Quintin Berry from second with two outs. Cruz came in for an one-two-three inning in the ninth, but the Pirates were unable to score off of Verlander who threw his second complete game of the year against the Pirates.

The Pirates still took two out of three in this one and went four and two during the home-stand so all in all this was a pretty good past few days for the Bucs. The Pirates will head on the road tomorrow to face the Phillies in a four game set in which they will enter five games above .500 and just one game out of first place. The Phillies are one of those teams who have under-performed to this point in the year so it will be interesting to see how the Pirates do. I know I told you this the other day but seriously #VoteCutch.

6/22 Recap vs Tigers

The Pirates took game one of their three game set with the Tigers by a score of 4-1 giving almost 38,000 people at PNC park something to cheer about as they left the game tonight. This was a good win for the Bucs, they got ahead early against a decent American League team and they never let the lead go.

A.J. Burnett took the ball for Pirates tonight and earned his seventh straight win. I have never been a fan of wins as a stat because I think it is very meaningless, but if you get seven straight wins then your doing something right. Burnett's finished up with 6IP, 2H, 0R, 3BB, 4SO, this puts his ERA down to 3.24 which is just awesome.

The Pirates got two of their runs in the very first inning when they started with three straight hits coming from Alex Presley, Neil Walker, and of course Andrew McCutchen. Garret Jones also hit into a productive double-play to score Neil Walker from third putting the Pirates on top 2-0. The next two runs were kind of a joke when A.J. Burnett went to sacrifice bunt and Doug Fister overthrew the base scoring the speedy (sarcasm) Rod Barajas all the way from first with a fantastic head first slide at home.

Hughes gave up a meaningless Detroit run in the top of the seventh shrinking his teams lead to three runs. Hanrahan had the save in the ninth and Andrew McCutchen went three for four and his one out was a line-drive right at Detroit's shortstop.

Pirates play at a special 4:05 start tomorrow and Brad Lincoln (3-2, 3.82) will go up against Max Scherzer (6-4, 5.17), get to the game if you can lets make this summer exciting. Oh and go #VoteCutch.

Alen Hanson Your Future Starting Shortstop

Not to often do I get real excited about much of anyone when their performing well at the Low-A level, but for me Alen Hanson is a different story. Hanson is currently y playing shortstop for the West Virginia Power, if you are not aware West Virginia has been the Low-A affiliate of the Pirates since 2009. The awesome thing about Hanson though is that he is not performing at a Low-A level, he is performing much higher.

Hanson was born in October of 1992 making him just 19 years old. Hanson started his professional career in 2010 when he made his presence felt in the DSL where he hit for a 324/383/447 triple slash in just 244 at-bats, he added two home-runs to the mix as well. Hanson made his first trip over to the states in 2011 where he had another successful year playing for the half season GCL Pirates. Hanson hit two home-runs once again hitting for a 263/352/429 triple slash earning him a very late season promotion to State College where he played in just three games for the Spikes.

Another one of Hanson's major features is his speed. Hanson had a combined 44 stolen bases in his first two year playing professionally, and as I say you can't teach speed. Hanson is well on pace to steal over thirty bases this season at West Virginia already swiping 18 to this point. For all we know Clint Hurdle probably wants this guy on the team right now just so he can sit on the bench and pinch run every once in awhile, but that's a subject for a different time.

You know that little bit of power I was talking about earlier? Well that little bit of pop in Hanson's bat has turned into more then just a little pop, Hanson now leads the Power in both slugging percentage and home-runs so far this year. Hanson has registered 10 long balls and has hit for a .564 slugging percentage so far this year, and did I mention he's a shortstop? That's what gets me more excited then anything about this kid is that he is a shortstop! The Pirates can't seem to find a shortstop at any level of the system, at this point Jordy Mercer would probably be considered the teams top prospect on the left side of the infield but he has only had nine at-bats all of June due to hideous managing by Clint Hurdle.

I hate to say anything bad at all about Hanson but his one big downfall is his fielding at the shortstop position. Hanson is fielding the ball at just a .891 mark so far this year which is just terrible to say the least. If Hanson ever wants to have a chance at making the majors this must improve his defense. I think that fielding is something that is much easier to improve then hitting though so I think that Hanson can do it. I think this is the only reason Hanson is still playing in Low-A ball and not a level higher. Hanson has committed 27 errors so far this year which actually makes me sick just thinking about.

I think why I get so excited about Hanson is because he gives me some hope. Hope that one day the Pirates might actually be solid at shortstop sometime in the near future something that I thought would of needed to be addressed by the draft at the beginning of the year, but now I think we have our solution sitting in West Virginia. I just seem to love this guy for some reason and I can't even tell you why I love him so much but I do, I just have this good feeling that Hanson is going to solve all of our problems, and that we are never going to have to see a guy like Ronny Cedeno or Clint Barmes attempting to hit baseballs ever again. I would love to see Hanson get promoted to Bradenton at some point this year because frankly I think he deserves it, and I would love to see how he would perform against just slightly higher competition but I truly have no idea what the Pirates have planned for him.

Hanson is up for Minor League free agency in 2016 but I don't think that this will ever be to much of a problem for the Pirates because I think that they would hope he would be in the major leagues by this point anyhow. I don't know how Hanson will end up but one thing I can tell you is that if Hanson ever has a Major League debut you can find me where ever that might be wearing his jersey.

Thursday 6/21 News And Notes


  • Gerrit Cole made his Double-A debut for the Altoona Curve last night and it was a pretty good one as well. Cole started the game off by retiring the first nine that he faced until he finally gave up his first run in the fourth inning. Cole ended up going five whole innings on just two runs and six strikeouts. Cole also showed good control last night walking no batters in all five innings he pitched, he also hit as high as 99 on stadium radar gun in Altoona. Robbie Grossman hit a home-run for the Curve and Brock Holt also added two hits on way to a 9-4 Altoona victory.
  • Last night the Pirates dropped a close 2-1 game to the Twins, to tie the series at one. The Pirates had their best chance in the seventh when they had the bases loaded with only one out and Rod Barajas at the plate. Barajas ripped one hard to left-center field looking like a bases clearing double for sure but then Twins center-fielder, Denard Span seemingly came out of nowhere and made a fantastic diving catch, Pedro Alvarez still scored on a tag from third but the if Span misses that ball the Pirates probably take this one pretty easily. James McDonald take the hill tonight for the Bucs as they will look to take the series from the Twins.
  • Jeff Karstens is scheduled to make his last rehab start on Sunday for Indianapolis before he will return to the big league rotation. Karstens said that he feels ready and could step in to a major league role tomorrow if he needed to. By the sound clip that I heard Karstens almost sounded annoyed that he is still pitching in the minor leagues, it sounded like he was unsure on why they just don't throw him into the rotation already.
  • In other Minor league news the Indians crushed the ball last night winning the game 10-2, advancing their division lead to 8.5 games. Bradenton lost again last night to St. Lucie, Casey Sadler pitched six scoreless innings for the Marauders. State college got smacked losing 13-1 to Williamsport yesterday, Luis Heredia will make his Spikes debut tonight as he will take the hill once again against Williamsport. The GCL Pirates won 11-4 over the GCL Tigers, Wyatt Mathisen had a nice game going 3-4 with a walk.

6/19 Recap vs Twins

The Pirates got this one started on the right note when Josh Harrison who got the start in right-field tonight hit a solo home-run to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. The bats stayed silent all the way until the bottom of the fifth when Josh Harrison scored again on a Casey McGehee sac-fly to center-field, which followed a beautiful double steal by Harrison and McCutchen to put runners on second and third with just one out.

Another fantastic piece of baseball came in the bottom of the sixth when the Pirates perfectly executed a hit and run. Pedro Alvarez was on first and he went on the pitch and sure enough Clint Barmes had a beautiful inside out swing just driving the ball to right-center field easily scoring Alvarez all the way from first. This was the second small ball thing the Pirates did well in this game, the first one being the double steal in the fifth. Barmes eventually came around to score.

Denard Span homered home the Twins only two runs of the game off of the struggling of late Juan Cruz in the seventh. Andrew McCutchen answered right back in the bottom of the inning with his own two run bomb, his twelfth of the year.

All and all this was a pretty good win for the Pirates considering that they took down the Twins ace Scott Diamond. In my opinion anytime you can win when Kevin Correia pitches you have done yourself a huge favor. Correia was surprisingly good tonight though going 5.1 IP, 4H, 0ER, 1BB, 2SO, if we could get this every night from Correia that would be awesome, but we won't because well he's Kevin Correia.

Bucs will look to take another one tomorrow when Erik Bedard will try to redeem himself from last start as he will face Francisco Liriano (1-7, 6.24). The Bucs are of course home again get there if you can, lets show this team a little support, they are in second place after all.


Series Preview Twins

This series looks promising as the Pirates will head home for three interleague games with the Minnesota Twins.  I predict pitching will be the key to this one as Correia, Bedard, and McDonald will take the hill for the Bucs in these games. 

Correia and Bedard have both struggled lately so these will be crucial starts to see if they can regain some of their early season dominance. The Pirates will face tough pitching from the Twins in the first game as the young Scott Diamond (5-2) will take the hill.  He struggled in his last start so hopefully the Pirates can capitalize and continue to score runs.

On the offensive side of the ball, the big storyline is Alvarez tremendous hitting of late.  In his last 2 games he's gone 5-8 with 4 of his 5 hits being homeruns.  We will see if he can continue to hit well in this series.  

All in all, the Twins are only 13-17 away so maybe just maybe the Pirates can not only win the series, but grab another sweep.  The Bucs currently sit 3.5 games back so it will be crucial to do well if we want to get back in the division race by the All Star Break.

Examining the 20 Games Before The All Star Break

Today the Pirates will return back to PNC Park where they will start a rigorous stretch of 20 games in 20 days, so what I figured I would do was take a look at each of the games that the Pirates play in this stretch and try to figure out how they might fare.

During these next 20 games the Pirates will play six series (two four game, and four three game) all against different teams. The teams that the Pirates will match up against are in order the Twins, Tigers, Phillies, Cardinals, Astros, and Giants. These teams are a combined 189 and 212 on the year coming out at a winning percentage of .471. Just by looking at the numbers you can tell that the this is not the team's toughest stretch of games by any means, but in my opinion it is a little tougher then you would originally think.

The long stretch starts off pretty easy with probably the worst team in the league with the Twins. The Twins are 26-39 to this point but are a surprising 5-5 in their last ten. I wouldn't go as far to say that the Twins are playing well as of late, but they are defiantly playing better, but I still think the Pirates should be looking to take two of three if not more from one of the American Leagues worst. The Pirates continue the American league trend when the Tigers come to town this weekend, the second time the Pirates will face the Tigers this year. The first series did not go so well for the Pirates losing two of three and nearly getting no-hit by Justin Verlander before Josh Harrison broke it up with a line drive single in the top of the ninth. The Tigers are just 32-34 on the year but they have been hot of late going 7-3 in their last ten, and unfoutunly Verlander is scheduled to pitch again on Sunday against the lousy Kevin Correia.

After the first six games at home the Pirates go to Philadelphia where they will face the Phillies in a four game set. The Phillies have underachieved so far this year only having a record of 31-37 earning them a last place spot in the tough NL East. The Phillies still have good pitching and the ability to hit so they could easily play well and embarrass the Pirates like they did last year when the Pirates went to Citizens Bank Park, or this time the Pirates could continue their good play and win the series. The team will continue their road trip and head to St. Louis after Philadelphia and face the Cardinals. The Cardinals are currently sitting in third place in the NL Central just a half game behind the Pirates who are in second and four and a half back of the Reds who lead the division. The Cardinals won the World Series last year so obviously they are a good team not playing quite up to their expectations at this point. The Cardinals could turn it on at any time and for the Pirates sake they hope it isn't around June twenty-ninth.

The Pirates will wrap up their streak of 20 straight games at home with a four game set against the Astros and a three game set against the Giants. The Astros are in fifth place in the Central and they stink, I actually think it is surprising that they are only eleven games below .500. Since this is a four game set I think the Pirates need to take three games here because only splitting with the Astros would be a real win for them. The Giants on the other hand are another story because they come in to today at 39-30 and are playing well recently. As you have probably heard by now Matt Cain threw the first perfect game in Giants history last Wednesday, which has turned into a big boost for the whole Giants team. This should be a good test for the Pirates before the All-Star break, taking two of three should be a reasonable goal here considering the Pirates will be at home and using the bullpen a little more shouldn't be an issue because they will have the whole three day break to rest up before they will have to pitch again.

If I had to make a predication on the how the Pirates will do over this stretch I would probably go with 12-8 because if you take the Pirates winning percentage of .523 and average it with the winning percentage of the teams that had opposed the six teams the Pirates will face in the next 20 games you will get a winning percentage of around .523 which should mathematically give the Pirates 10.46 wins overt the next 20 games. Of course we all know it is impossible to have 10.46 wins so I decided to be nice and round up to 11. Then I gave the Pirates one more win on top of that because they have been so good at home this year going 19-11 when the play at PNC so since they have 13 games at home compared to the mere 7 on the road I figured this deserved another win. If the Pirates do end up going 12-8 to finish up before the all-start break they would be at seven games over .500, which we all know was the peak of their success last year. In my mind I always thought that if you were at .500 or better at the All-Star break most year's in the NL Central you would at least have a chance at a playoff berth, so if the Pirates get to that point at seven games over .500 I would say as long as there is no second half collapse, the chances look better then they have the past nineteen years.





Game Recap 06/17 vs. Indians (9-5)

High Octane Offense!!! If only that was the slogan for the Pittsburgh Pirates right now.  Runs came by the plenty in this blowout, and the Buccos rebounded from their series sweep to win the series.

Lincoln had another rough outing making it very unlikely that he will be starting any time soon. He went only 3 and a third innings, giving up 4 runs. Watson (4-0) won the game for the Bucs going 1 and 2/3 innings with no earned runs.  Finally, the Hammer picked up his 17th save to close it out for the Pirates in the 9th.

The real story in this one though was the offensive production.  Pedro Alvarez, possibly the most streaky player ever, picked up 6 RBI's on 2 homeruns, and going 3-4.  He is the first Pirates player to pick up 6 or more RBI's in one game since Andy LaRoche in 2009. Alex Presley also hit a solo homerun. "The Great" Casey McGhee also continued his 6 game hitting streak picking up one hit along with every other player except, Barmes, Jones, and McKenry.

Today was a good day for the Bucs.  Winning this series is a major confidence booster, and the offense proved that even on days when the pitching struggles we can win.  It's been fantastic to see this kind of production from Alvarez, who in the last two games has looked amazing.  All in all, hopefully the rough spot is over, and we can continue the success into the All Star Break.

Important Start For Lincoln

Today Brad Lincoln is scheduled to make his his third straight appearance as a starter against the Cleveland Indians instead of his normal role as reliever. Brad Lincoln is 3-2 on the year with a 3.15 ERA sounds pretty good right? Well not really, Lincoln's past two appearances have been starts and he has gone just 4 and 4.1 innings giving up five then four runs in those starts.

Basically the reason Lincoln's ERA is as low as it is, is because of the remarkable work he has done as a reliever. If I have done my math correctly I believe that Lincoln stands somewhere around a 0.41 ERA out of the bullpen with a 3-0 record, but don't quote me on that. This is one of the best reliever ERA's in the National League, so this might leave you wondering why is there such a big difference between Lincoln as a starter and a reliever? 

The reason is that Lincoln basically only throw's two pitches and this catch's up to him as a starter. Last start against Baltimore Lincoln threw his fastball 60.9% of his pitches and his curve-ball 39.9% of his pitches. If you do the math Lincoln throws these two pitches just about 91% of the time, which is way to much when a hitter gets to face you multiple times in a game. Major League hitters are the best hitters in the world, and part of what makes them so great is the ability to be able to adjust to the pitcher. Lincoln has a very good curve-ball don't get me wrong but if a Major League hitter see's it enough they will be able to hit it, and hit it well.

That is what make's Lincoln so successful as a reliever is that most of the time the hitters will only get to see his curve-ball one or two times a game making it a lot harder to adjust to. Also when Lincoln comes out of the pen he throws his fastball about one MPH faster. I talked about this in a previous article but believe it or not one extra MPH on a fastball makes a big difference, trust me. I am not quite sure why Lincoln does not throw his change-up more often, last year Lincoln would throw his change-up as much as 15% of the time while this year he hardly throws it 5% of the time. Clint Hurdle went as far as to call his change-up "a good major league pitch" recently which just makes me wonder even more why he is so hesitant to throw his change.

If Lincoln does not perform well today against the Indians I cant say it will be his last appearance as a starter because that is what I said last time, but I can say that I hope it would be his last appearance as a starter this year at least. I talked about it a little bit earlier this week but the Pirates have two maybe even three guys at the AAA level that could easily come in and start a few games if they needed them to, so I am not quite sure why they are so determined for Lincoln to be successful. I am not sure what the Pirates future plans are for Lincoln but I would think that they would be as a reliever especially with all the pitching depth they have in the minor leagues but the longer they keep Lincoln as a starter the more I wonder what they actually have in mind for Lincoln.

Pirates Promote Gerrit Cole To AA

On Friday the Pirates announced the promotion of the 2011 first overall draft pick, Gerrit Cole to AA Altoona. This is no major surprise to anyone who has been following Cole this year being he has posted a 2.55 ERA so far this year in just 67 innings in High A Bradenton.

The Pirates promoted Cole the day after his stellar performance of five shutout innings and 7 K's. This promotion is going to make Cole the least professional experienced pitcher to ever play for Altoona with his short 67 innings in Bradenton. The previous owner of this title was Paul Maholm whenever he reached Altoona with just 94 innings of professional experience.

Cole has been surprisingly consistent in his first year playing professional ball. Most people probably expected Cole to have his great starts and his bad starts but instead he has just had a whole bunch pretty good starts which is good thing. If Cole can keep this consistency in AA then you might see Cole start his season in AAA next year with Indianapolis with a target date in July to see him make his major league debut in Pittsburgh.

Recap 6/15 vs. Indians

The Pirates and the Indians both came into this game on three game losing streaks, but, unfortunately for Bucco fans, it would not be the Pirates that ended their streak tonight.

James McDonald took the hill for the Pirates in this one, and continued to prove himself as the Pirates ace.  J. Mac went 6 innings giving up 1 earned on three hits, and striking out 5. But, the real story in this game was the lack of offense for the Pirates.

The Pirates were shutout, picking up 5 hits, and stranded 7. Every player in the Bucco lineup, except Casey McGhee struck out at least once tonight.  McGhee has been lighting it up in June so far hitting .357 with 2 homeruns, one of the few bright spots in the Pirates lineup right now.

All in all, it's been a rough few days for Pirates fans, and it feels like deja vu from last year after we were in first.  I am confident though that the team can hopefully fix their mistakes, and prevent falling off like they did last year.

Charlie Morton Scheduled To Have Tommy John

Well today the Pirates found out that their sinker ball thrower, Charlie Morton  is going to have to have season ending Tommy John surgery in the next few days. The right hander had appeared in nine games in 2012 posting a 4.65 ERA and a 2-6 record before heading to the 15 day DL with right elbow inflammation.

Although his stats do not look good this could be a pretty big hit to the Pirates because although their pitching had been good it still has problems. One of them I mentioned in a post earlier today which you can read here talking about Brad Lincoln and his struggles as a starter. The other problem is about Kevin Correia who at this point I am all to feed up with. Even Erik Bedard has showed struggles at times this year with his control and he is always a injury threat as well.

At this point Morton's return should be scheduled around July of next year. I think with this injury the Pirates are just one more lost starting pitcher away from having big pitching issues. All the Pirates should be looking forward to should be getting Jeff Karstens back on the mound to remove Brad Lincoln from this rotation. I think that once Karstens returns this club will get back on the right track having four quality pitchers out of the five that they will send out there. If Karstens can come back be healthy and perform like he did last year this team can continue their successes, if not the loss of Morton could come back to haunt the Pirates later in the year.

Brad Lincoln To Start Again

Ugh. Well yesterday manager Clint Hurdle announced that Brad Lincoln will be making his third straight "spot start" against the Indians on Sunday. Lincoln is filling in for the injured Charlie Morton and was only supposed to make one start and then Jeff Karstens was going to take over from there but then Karstens re-injured himself in a rehab start at Indianapolis giving Lincoln a longer life as a starter.

I am very confused on why they let Karstens start Tuesday against the Orioles and I am just stunned that they are letting him start again against the Indians. In Lincoln's past two start he had gone no longer then 4.1 IP and has given up four and five earned runs. Lincoln is a great pitcher out of the bullpen having a sub 1.00 ERA there but when he is a starter his ERA is way over 6.00, just not even close to being good enough.

The Pirates have other options as well which just makes this move even more confusing. The Pirates could easily call up Jeff Locke of Rudy Owens to start for a few games without screwing up their routine much at all. This also can't be good for Lincoln going back and forth from starter to bullpen guy, I'm sure he would rather just find out if he is one or the other and stick to it. If Lincoln has another bad start on Sunday and they give him another shot because Karstens is not ready, I'm going to be upset to say the least.

6/13 Recap vs. Orioles

Tonight the Pirates sucked, they lost by a total of 7-1 and just about nothing looked good for them. This one went the wrong direction all the way from the first inning when Kevin Correia let up a one run double to Chris Davis scoring J.J. Hardy all the way from first giving Baltimore a 1-0 lead which they would never let go of.

Kevin Correia ended up recovering from his terrible first few innings going 6.0 innings on four runs. But I'm not going to sugar coat it Correia was terrible. Correia only had one, yes one strikeout the entire six innings that he pitched. You can just not be a successful major league pitcher if you don't have the ability to strike anyone out. Correia also let up 10 hits in just six innings, most teams should not get 10 hits in a whole game let alone six innings. Hopefully it is just a matter of time before they forever move Correia out of this rotation because it just seams that whenever he pitches you start the game down four to nothing, which you can't have one every five days.

The Pirates did come through with one run this game and it came in the seventh inning whenever Neil Walker grounded out to first base with the bases loaded. Jose Tabata scored on a close play at the plate, frankly a lot closer then it should of been.

Tomorrow the Pirates will send Erik Bedard (4-6, 3.59) to the mound to try to stop the little two game skid they find themselves on. He will oppose the Orioles Tommy Hunter (2-3, 5.40). The Pirates have done pretty well avoiding the sweep in the third game of the series so far this year going 3-1 in those games. The Pirates really need a quality start from Bedard tomorrow if they want to have a chance to avoid the sweep, they can not let these average American League teams weigh down their record.



Could Derrek Lee Be A Pirate...Again?

So the other day Ken Rosenthal a reporter for FOX sports reported on twitter that former Pirate Derrek Lee would be open to returning to play baseball this season if it was the "right opportunity". Most likely what Lee means by this is that he will come back and play if it's for a good team with a chance to win and that team is in a town that he likes. Lee is 36 years old so he is not exactly looking for somewhere where he can spend the next five years more like somewhere he wouldn't mind staying for a few months to play playoff baseball.

This quote by Lee really got people around Pittsburgh thinking yesterday, because Lee is looking for "the right opportunity" and right now the Pirates are four games over .500 and one game out of first place so couldn't Pittsburgh be the "right opportunity"? If Lee is looking for a playoff team to play for and have a shot to win the World Series at this point the Pirates chances of doing this are just as good as anyone else's in the NL Central right? The reason I bring up the NL Central is because Lee spent a large majority of his professional time playing in that division so couldn't that mean that if he was going to return to baseball he would want to return to that division?

As you know the Pirates took their chances with Derrek Lee last year at the trade deadline, a move that ended up being meaningless because of the Pirates collapse in the second half of the season. Although the Pirates did not win the games they were hoping to with Lee on the roster, Derrek did have himself a pretty good 28 games in a Pirate uniform. During these 28 games Lee hit 7 home-runs and had a .337/.398/.584 triple slash. These are pretty good numbers for a 35 year old acquired at the trade deadline, so I guess you can consider Lee's time with the Pirates pretty good as far as the number's go.

The downfall to Lee's time in Pittsburgh last year is that he missed a lot of time with a injury to his hand. Some people in Pittsburgh were not happy with Lee for that reason because a lot of the time people thought that he was faking this injury because he didn't feel like playing. I frankly think this is a ridiculous accusation to make. I do not understand why people thought that Lee would all of a sudden in the middle of his career just decide that he didn't feel like playing so he would make up a hand injury instead. More realistically there were rumors that Lee didn't like Pittsburgh and that he thought that the fans were not true fans. Some people thought that Lee just wanted to serve his time in Pittsburgh and then leave which I can understand a little bit more than faking and injury.

From the Pirates stand point Lee would probably be a pretty good sign because they could get another good bat in the line-up without giving up any young players that they will need for the future. Lee will most likely be demanding a ton of money though to only play half of a season. Lee also rejected the Pirates in the off-season through arbitration. The Pirates tried to get Lee back for a full season but Lee was so stubborn about the amount of money that he wanted that he decided to say goodbye to Pittsburgh and hello to an extended off-season which is still going on for him.

I just do not think that Lee liked Pittsburgh enough to come back and give it another shot, especially considering how the Pirates season turned out after he got here last year. But if I was the Pirates I would be going after this guy hard, but most likely they won't because they are not willing to give up the kind of money that Lee thinks he is warranted. Who knows by the time Lee is finally ready to come back to baseball it might be around the trade deadline and the Pirates might be way out of contention by then anyways. Lee could also come back to baseball and do nothing productive at all. I'm sure that Lee is taking swings in the batting cages everyday and getting good work in but it is still hard to go from your pitching machine to guys like Roy Halladay and other major league pitchers on an everyday basis with out any spring training or any real live pitching. It will be interesting to see where Lee ends up if he does end up anywhere, but with the Pirates luck he will probably end up in Milwaukee and hit a game winning home-run against us in September.

Recap 6/12 vs. Orioles

The Pirates winning streak came to an unfortunate end tonight in an unusually high scoring game for the Buccos. The Pirates offense was able to rack up 6 runs, but the pitching was faulty tonight giving up 8.  This marks only the 3rd time this season the Pirates pitching staff has let up 8 or more runs.

The Pirates came out hot scoring on two hits and a walk in the first, but Lincoln struggled giving up 4 runs in 4 innings. Sadly, the Pirates pitching struggles would continue from there when Resop gave up 3 more earned.

The Pirates lineup however was unusually lively scoring 6 earned and getting good production out of some unusual suspects.  Casey McGehee hit a solo homerun in the 6th to make the score 2-4. The Bucs would score 2 more in the 7th and 8th innings to inch closer, and bring the score to 4-8.  Then finally, in the 9th Neil Walker hit a bomb to left scoring Presley. The game would end though off of a McGhee groundout to third.

Tomorrow night the Pirates will try to stop losing their first series in five series.  Correia (2-5) will most likely take the hill for the Bucs and Matusz (5-6) for the O's.  I think the Pirates should have a good shot tomorrow if they can continue the great offensive production we've seen recently.  Tonights game turned out to be a great example of why Lincoln, for the near future, should stay in the pen until he can prove himself as a Major League starter.


Series Preview vs. Orioles

The Pirates will visit the Baltimore Orioles this upcoming series and will hope to improve their famously bad play in American League ballparks as they will give Camden Yards a try this time around. The Orioles are eight games over .500 at 34-26 and in third place in the AL East. The Orioles record is not a true assessment to the kind of team that they are, because they are much worse then the average team who is 8 games over .500. The Orioles got off to hot start but have been tailing off lately totaling in at a 5-5 record in their last ten. The Pirates shouldn't have a tough time winning this series if they play as well as they have in their past fifteen in which they have gone 12-3 the best record in the MLB for that time frame.

Game 1- This match-up really confuses me on behalf of the Pirates because they will be sending Brad Lincoln to the hill for his second straight spot start. Lincoln did not have the results he wanted to last time out as he filled   in for Charlie Morton. The Pirates could of easily made the move to bring up Jeff Locke or Rudy Owens to make one quick start but they choose to go in my opinion the wrong route and decided to start Lincoln instead. Lincoln will oppose Wei-Yin Chen who is 5-2 with a 3.49 ERA. None of the Pirates on the roster have ever face Chen so it might take a trip through the line-up before they start to get to Chen but hopefully it won't be to long.

Game 2- In game 2 of the three game set the Pirates will Send Kevin Correia to the hill, by far the worst out of the five starters if you ask me. Correia is just 2-5 this year with a 4.29 ERA and I think an American League team like the Orioles will jump on him fairly easily and this will turn out to be a tough one to win for the Pirates. If Correia goes five or six innings the Pirates will stand a chance but if not the Pirates do not have the offense to come back from a bunch of runs down. The Orioles will throw Brian Matusz who is 5-6 with a 4.82 ERA so far this season.

Game 3- Erik Bedard will get the call in game 3 and he has looked to be his old self so far this year posting a 4-6 record with a 3.59 ERA. Bedard has been phenomenal this year but has struggled with his control at times. If Bedard wants to have a chance to get the win in this one he must keep the walks under control because if he doesn't the Orioles will make him pay.

I would be very happy with two out of three in this one and if my wish comes true it would be the clubs sixth straight series victory. As mentioned before the Pirates are traditionally very bad in inter-league play and even worse when they play inter-league on the road. The good thing is that the Pirates are on a four game win streak and do not show any signs of slowing up. It will be interesting to see how the Pirates respond after taking over first place on Sunday.

Off Day Talk: Being In First Place

Your hometown team the Pittsburgh Pirates are in first place on June 11, 2012. That's right I said it first place in the NL Central. But they aren't really in first place they are tied with the Reds, but if you are going to get technical they are currently winning the head to head match-up tie breaker so I guess you can put their name above the Reds. Everyone around town is really excited about their team right now, people were even watching  the Sunday Night Baseball match-up last night with great interest hoping the Tigers could come back and defeat the Reds which they did end up doing. But what some people are forgetting is that it is only June 11 and the Pirates still have over 100 games left to play before being in first place even matters for anything.

I have mixed feelings about the current situation the Pirates find themselves in at the Top of the NL Central. Obviously I am happy the Pirates are winning games at a faster rate then anyone else in their same division but on the other hand I just think that it is a little to early to throw a party for being in first place. Last year on June 11 the Pirates were 5.5 games out of first place and one game under .500. So this clearly shows that the Pirates are in a better situation then they were last year on this date, but they improved last year as well getting all the way up to six games over .500. The Pirates came to a point last year on July 25 that resembles this situation very similarly. The Pirates were six games over .500 at tied for first place with the St. Louis Cardinals who would eventually go on to win the world series. The Milwaukee Brewers were trailing just behind as well being .5 games off of the pace and would eventually go on to win the NL wild card.

What I am trying to get out of the scenario above is that the Pirates were in this same situation over a month later into the season last year and they did not even come close to a winning season let alone a playoff berth, like many people in Pittsburgh are predicting. All I am saying is that we have to be careful about how excited we get. Let me tell you I am one of the biggest Pirate fans you will ever meet and I am just trying to be careful because I know the pain you experience when you build your hopes so high and then they come crashing down right back on you.

But on the other hand the people in Pittsburgh are stoked about their team right now and that's just an awesome thing to see. For that reason I think the irrelevant title of being in first place in the middle of June is very relevant. Whenever you can get a whole city rallying around a sports team especially one who hasn't won in 19 years its a very special thing and that's what we are seeing right now. Right now we are seeing a city being passionate about a baseball team a sight that we saw last year in July but never really got the real feeling we all wanted, we only got a little taste. If the Pirates are still in this situation on July 25 like they were last year the feeling around this city is going to be unreal, which seems to only be a feeling you get in the fall when the Steelers return to Heinz field. But the difference this year is that we have the CHANCE to have this same feeling on the baseball field. I think that's all the people in the city of Pittsburgh want at this point is a CHANCE and this year that CHANCE is better than ever.


Pirates Draft Update

It has been about a week since the Pirates drafted another group of young talent in the 2012 MLB Draft and some of them are already starting to come to terms with the team. So what I thought I'd do is go over who these guys are that have already signed and tell you how this might impact how the Pirates will go about signing the rest of the guys they have drafted.

The Pirates did not back off the rest of the draft like some thought they were going to after drafting Mark Appel the possible number one draft pick that fell all the way down to eighth overall. Appel is going to be an expensive sign so some thought that the Pirates might have to let some of their later round picks go free in order to save enough money for Appel. The Pirates have not done anything like that to this point, one week after the draft. The Pirates started early with their signings when Jon Sandfort (third round pick) announced on Seibel, Starkey, and Miller that he would go to Bradenton on Monday (yesterday) and sign his contract. In my opinion this was a telling sign for the Pirates because Sandfort had a commitment to play in college and seemed relatively serious about this commitment but the Pirates put enough money on the table to convince him to take the other route in going pro. The Pirates most likely did not save much money if any from this pick which is not necessarily a bad thing considering they locked up a good third round pitcher.

Soon after coming to terms with Sandfort the Pirates announced agreements with two other picks. The two other guys the Pirates locked up were sixth rounder Eric Wood and ninth rounder D.J. Crumlich. Wood the third baseman signed for $88,000 under what the suggested slot value was leaving that money for the Pirates to spend somewhere else how they please. D.J. Crumlich says that he graduates from U.C. Irvine on the 15th of June and will head to state college shortly after that to start his career as a professional baseball player.

The Pirates also came to terms with UNC Senior catcher Jacob Stallings. This could be a sign where the Pirates might save some money with the slot value being $148,000. A pitcher Stallings might be catching at State College is the one that they drafted in the twelfth round Dalton Friend who is expected so sign at around 100K or so.

The Agreement that excited me the most by far though was the one that the Pirates came to with second round catcher Wyatt Mathisen. If you read my post last week about the Pirates Top 10 Draft Pick's then you would of seen that Mathisen hardly played any catcher at all in high-school instead he played shortstop. Most of the time if you are big enough to play catcher and athletic enough to play SS then you will turn out to be a strong major league defensive catcher, and that only improves when you could pitch as well in high-school adding a strong arm to the mix. Mathisen also has a quick bat with power, and you would be surprised at the bases he can steal for a catcher. The Pirates probably didn't get a great deal on Mathisen but they did get a possible starter in the major leagues for about 746K.

To this point the Pirates have not saved a ton of money on picks but they have done a good job at getting a lot of good players signed early. The Pirates main goal is still to sign Appel and at this point I can't even say if I think they are going to do it or not. Luckily the Pirates have a while until they really have to get worried about weather or not they will get a deal done with the Stanford Junior. The negotiations will most likely pick up in the next few days or so as well because Appel's season has just ended as his team has lost in the NCAA super-regional to Florida State. I truly think it will be interesting to see how this whole situation plays out and to see how serious the Pirates are about their first round draft pick. If the Pirates don't get this guy inked the people in Pittsburgh will go crazy but I can't say that it will necessarily be the wrong move because there are such high penalty's for going over the Pirates 6.6 million dollar draft budget. The Pirates have historically good history with Scott Boras so I guess you can call me a glass half full kind of guy when it comes to Appel.




6/10 Recap vs. Royals

The Pirates got their lead early in this one when Andrew McCutchen doubled home the speedy Alex Presley in the bottom of the first inning giving the Pirates a 1-0 lead which they would not let go the rest of the game. McCutchen came back the bottom of the third and hit a two run home-run which scored Neil Walker who singled the previous batter. This gave the Pirates a 3-0 lead which with their pitching is hard to blow.

Although McCutchen had all three RBI's for the Pirates A.J. Burnett might of been the MVP of this one. Burnett took a no-hitter all the way into the sixth inning before Alex Gordon singled on a ground ball to right field. Burnett finished up with 7.1 IP, 5 hits, 2ER, 2 BB, and 6 SO. There was a nice scene at PNC Park whenever Burnett left the game in the eighth, the crowd thanked Burnett for his performance by giving him a standing ovation and Burnett acknowledged them by tipping his cap.

The bullpen did good job in this one giving up no earned runs in 1.2 inning of work. With Hanrahan being unavailable because he had pitched three straight nights and five out of the past six games, Jason Grilli entered this one in the ninth and earned him self the save by striking out 2 to close out the game.

Pirates Look To Clinch Series Early Against Royals

The Pirates pulled through with a 4-2 win last night when they to advance all the way up to three game over the .500 number. The Pirates look to make their trip back to home a little sweeter tonight where they have a chance to take the series early against the Royals.

James McDonald will look to reel in the win tonight against the Royals Vin Mazzaro. Both pitcher's on the hill tonight have excellent ERA's McDonald totaling in at 2.14 and Mazzaro at 2.25. This will be only Mazzaro's fourth game this season so his ERA can be slightly deceiving. I am predicting that the Pirates will get to Mazzaro tonight, he is not a 2.25 ERA guy and has never been at any level that he has played professionally.

 This would be a very big win for the Pirates putting them all the way up to four games over .500 a very respectable number at this point in the season. It would also be the Pirates fifth straight series victory for the Pirates if they pull it off, so I guess you can say they are getting hot.

Pirates Lineup:

1. Presley 7
2. Walker 4
3. McCutchen 8
4. Jones 3
5. Alvarez 5
6. Tabata 9
7. Barajas 8
8. Barmes 6
9.McDonald 1

Royals Lineup:

1. Gordon 7
2. Betancourt 4
3. Butler 3
4. Moostakas 5
5. Francoeur 8
6. Hosmer 9
7. Pena 2
8. Escobar 6
9. Mazzaro 1

Karsetns Update

Jeff Karstens a guy that looked to be one of the Pirates top of the rotation starters at the start of the season has injured himself once again. As most of you know by now Karstens hurt himself in the start of the year when he left a start early in Arizona. Karstens was officially put on the DL for right shoulder inflammation and missed a good amount of time without even throwing a baseball

Karstens had been making multiple starts in the minors trying to rehab and build his arm strength to the point to where he could make a quality start at the major league level. Unfortunately just when it looked like Karstens was just fine tuning he re-injured  himself but this time in a different area.

Karstens was pulled from his start on Thursday in Triple-A Indianapolis with "tightness in his right groin". Karstens received an MRI on that particular area and even though we are not sure about the exact injury we know that it was an injury on his hip flexor.

Everyone hopes that Karstens will not miss to much time especially me, considering I am about the biggest hater of Kevin Correia that their is. I am not sure when Karstens will rehab again, but what I am sure of is that he will miss at least one more start.

6/8 Recap vs Royals

This one looked good from the very start whenever the Pirates jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the first inning whenever Garret Jones hit an RBI double to bring in the games first run. The Bucs furthered their lead in the second inning with singles by Neil Walker and Clint Barmes. On the Barmes base-hit it was just stupid base-running on behalf of the Pirates when they sent the slowest guy on the team Barajas home with none out.

After looking real strong early Erik Bedard got slightly rattled in the fourth inning allowing the Royals to get all the way back to within one run. Bedard finished strong after this though going 7 inning's on just two runs. Bedard also stuck out five and only allowed five hits as well, a very good start from the left-handed pitcher.

The Pirates tacked on one more in the third with some very bad and good base-runing in the same play. Jose Tabata got picked off of first base with just one out with Pedro Alvarez on third, Alvarez kept a heads up eye on the rundown waiting for the right moment to head home. He made it there without a throw while the Royals tagged out Tabata

I was slightly disappointed with the energy in the stadium tonight. The energy was better then most nights don't get me wrong but I do not think that it was to the level that everyone said it was.

Tomorrow night at 7:15 the Pirates will look to take an early series victory when James McDonald (5-2, 2.14) will go against Vin Mazzaro (2-0, 2.25). Should be another good game one that I am looking forward to.

Hammer Time Doesn't Mean What It Used To.

Joel Hanrahan blew his second save of the season last night against the Reds, but unlike most people I was not particularly surprised about this. Hanrahan has still gotten the save in 15 out of 17 opportunities so far this year but he has not looked nearly as sharp as he did in his 2011 campaign. I do think that if Hanrahan does not fix some things that he could blow even more saves in the future, costing the Pirates valuable wins.

There are a few obvious stats that stick out to me right right off the bat that show that Hanrahan is not up to par, one of those stats being his walks. Hanrahan has only pitched about 1/3 of the total innings that he had pitched last year and he already has 13 total walks compared to his 16 all of last year. I know this is obvious but it is really hard to not give up runs when you are giving the other team free base-runners like Hanrahan is. It is especially important in a reliever's role to not give up walks because most of the time you are coming in a one or two run game so any run you give up is especially important.

Another eyebrow raising stat is Hanrahan's especially high number of home-runs allowed. Hanrahan has already given up four home-run's this year compared to his one all of last year. This is a 400% percent increase and we are only 1/3 of the way through the season. Granted only one home-run in 68.2 innings is outstanding for any pitcher but allowing four in only 22 innings is especially bad. If Hanrahan continues on this pace he will finish the season with 12 home-run's allowed. This high of a total is not close to what should be expected by a 4.1 million dollar a year closer like Hanrahan.

The next stat that jumps out to me is Hanrahan's ERA. I myself am not a particular big fan in reliever's ERA but I think in this situation it is very telling. To this point in the season Hanrahan has an ERA of 2.86 not terrible by any means but it is still a whole run higher then his ERA last year of 2.83. You can live with a 2.86 ERA but in my estimation I see this ERA going up. This seems like a fairly random prediction but trust me I have a reason for this. Hanrahan's BABIP is at a crazy low mark for this point in the season at .191. In case you are not aware BABIP is is basically a number to tell you how lucky or how unlucky a pitcher or hitter is getting. For a pitcher the lower the BABIP the luckier you are the higher the BABIP the more unlucky you are. If you are more interested on the stat you can read one of our previous article's here where it explains BABIP when talking about James McDonald. There is no way that Hanrahan can keep this luck the entire season which means that he will give up more runs and blow more saves unless he figures out what he is doing wrong and fixes it.

The last thing that is standing out to me is Hanrahan's loss of velocity from 2011 to 2012. This is something that has gone unnoticed by most but not by me. Last year Hanrahan averaged a speed of 97.0 MPH on his fastball, fast enough to blow by even some of the best hitters in the league. This year Hanrahan has a speed of only 95.9 MPH on his fastball. This might not seem like much to you but to a major league hitter it makes a huge difference. This mere 1.1 MPH drop of Hanrahan's fastball has caused Hanrahan's fly-ball percentage to rise from 28.6% all the way to 51.0%. In my opinion a 22.4% increase in fly-balls is enough evidence to say that  major league hitters can tell and take advantage of a velocity drop of 1.1 MPH.

Joel Hanrahan has gotten to this point in the season with average stats and has gotten away with it 15 out of 17 times. This will not continue unless Hanrahan makes a change. I am not a pitching coach or even much of a pitcher so I can not tell you what Hanrahan is doing wrong mechanically but he is defiantly not doing anything perfectly. The Pirates are a team that can not afford to blow a lot of games late, every chance they have a chance to win in the ninth inning they must do it. If the Pirates want to win a championship like Hanrahan himself says he wants to and thinks they can do then, or even be a contender for the playoffs then Hanrahan must find the hammer within him and bring it out for the world to see.



6/7 Game Recap vs. Reds

On a Thursday night in Cincinnati Ohio the Pirates squeezed out a tight 5-4 win over the Reds taking the series and moving back up to just two game out of first place and two games over .500. This one took ten innings to settle and came in a very unlikely almost unthinkable situation.

This one started off on a rough note for the Bucs when Jay Bruce came to the plate in the second and crushed a solo homer to center-field off of the starting pitcher Kevin Correia, this was Bruce's 13th home-run this year. The Pirates answered and took the lead in the top of the fourth when Neil Walker drove in lead-off man Alex Presley with a solid double to right field. Walker later came around to score on a sacrifice fly hit by Garret Jones.

When the Reds came to the plate in the fifth inning the becoming infamous Ryan Ludwick did it again and hit a solo shot to left-field. The sixth inning was an exciting one and it all started when Garret Jones came through with his second RBI of the game with a single to left to once again bring home Presley. The Pirates had to work some magic in the bottom of the same inning to just limit the Reds runs to one run. Michael McKenry hit a sacrifice fly in the seventh to give the Pirates a 4-3 lead.

The Pirates held the lead until the very first pitch of the bottom of the ninth where Joel Hanrahan gave Ryan Ludwick his second homerun of the game. The Reds brought in their lights out closer Aroldis Chapman and his 0.00 season ERA. The Pirates started the inning off with a truly great at bat by Clint Barmes where he crushed a double to left-center. The very next batter Michael McKenry hit a powerful opposite field double to drive in Barmes and give the Pirates a 5-4 lead. The Pirates held onto this lead in the bottom of the tenth but it was interesting when Resop allowed runners to reach first and second with just one out, but he
successfully worked out of it giving the Pirates a very exciting win.

Correia's final line went as followed: 5 Innings Pitched. 8 Hits. 3 ER. 1 BB. 4 SO.

The Pirates will return home tomorrow to face the Royal's just two games out of first place. Lets get excited about this team's performance and head down to the stadium this weekend and fill up PNC. It could be an exciting weekend at the ballpark if all goes well.

The Pirates Offense...It's Not That Bad

In six games from May 28th to June 3rd the Pirates scored 22 runs, averaging 3.67 runs a game.  Granted, that may not sound like much, but lets compare that to other stretches so far this season.  Throughout, April the Pirates offense was record breaking bad.  The club was last in almost every major offense category, except homeruns.  In fact, in a similar six game span from April 16th to April 22nd, the Bucs only scored 12 runs, averaging 2 runs a game. Why the dramatic change?

A lot of people may be thinking this is due to less challenging pitching, but that cannot account for the dramatic change.  For example, the Reds are 7th in the MLB in pitching and when we played them in early May we only scored 4 runs over a three game series.  While in the first two games of this series the Bucs have scored 12 runs and counting.  So pitching challenge may account for part of the change, but I think there is still more to this story.

The difference between then and now has been offensive production from younger players.  Even though most of them do not have the numbers we would hope, there has been a considerable increase in performance.  Take Hague as an example, at the end of April he had a terrible average of .111, but since then he has increased it to .229, a considerable change.  Garrett Jones, even though he is not a young guy, is also contributing greatly to the teams recent success.  He is batting .313 in June so far and is on pace to hit around 20 homers this season.  Jones has also been helped by McCutchen who has been a constant throughout the season, and his stats show this as well.  He leads the team in every major offensive stat, an unprecedented accomplishment.

Overall I would expect this uptick in offense to continue and the Pirates pitching to subdue a little as it has recently. But, if nothing else, it makes the games more exciting to go to when you get to see so much young talent performing well.  The future of the Pirates offense may not be as bleak as had been predicted, in-fact I think the best is still to come.

5/6 Recap vs. Reds

The Bucs lost 4-5 in a close game to the Reds tonight, who increased their division lead to 3 games.  The Pirates scored off of a Walker single that scored Barajas, and a McCutchen three run homerun.  Cueto had a great game, and Lincoln looked promising through 3 innings, but giving up 4 runs in the fourth did him in. After Lincoln was taken out Slaten and Hughes pitched four more scoreless innings. Chapman came in, to close it out for the Reds striking out Barajas on a smoking 101 MPH pitch

The Pirates record now stands at 28-27 one game over .500 and the Pirates will look to take the series tomorrow.  The Reds also improved their record against the Bucs to 12-5 in the last 17 matchups.  Overall, it was a decent game for the Pirates, Hague went 0-4 again but Presley seems to be regaining some of what we saw last year.

A Closer Look at Pirates Top 10 Picks

Obviously the draft has been going on for the past few days and everyone is trying to figure out how the Pirates did compared to the rest of the league. Figuring this out goes way beyond the first round especially in baseball so instead of doing one big post on Pirates first round draft pick Mark Appel I thought it would be more appropriate to do a post on the Pirates Top 10 picks where of course Appel would be included. But just in case you are looking for a place to take an even deeper look at Appel you should check out the link below at fangraphs where they thoroughly explain Mark Appel and the big problems that come with him.


1.) Mark Appel- By now most of you already know the story of Appel but I will just go along and tell it again anyways. Appel was the 8th overall selection of the draft and the first pick taken by the Pirates. Appel is currently a Junior at Stanford where he is preparing to play in the NCAA super regional tournament the final step before the college world series. Most people were highly surprised that Appel fell all the way down to the 8th pick partly because he was the number one ranked player in the draft according to Baseball America. Appel has a mid 90's fastball and an above average slider along with a spectacular circle change. The one problem that comes with Appel is that he represented by Scott Boras and even though Appel was only the 8th overall pick Boras will be demanding that he gets paid like a 1st overall guy which will be difficult to pay with the new CBA. Like I mentioned before the article on fangraphs explains this in detail if you are interested.

2.) Barret Barnes- Many thought that after picking Appel in the first round the Pirates would really back off on their picks going for guys that they could sign for cheap contacts to free up room for Appel, but they did the opposite in picking Barnes. Barnes is a Junior outfielder coming out of Texas Tech and really performed well late in the year moving his name up the boards late. Barnes has good pop in his bat and hits for a good average. Barnes has played mostly center-field showing great speed in college but projects to be more of a corner guy at the pro level.

3.) Wyatt Mathisen- The 69th overall pick of the 2012 draft was especially interesting to me when the Pirates took a high-school catcher who has never really eve6r played catcher before. Mathisen mostly played SS and pitched for his high-school team in Texas, but looks like he will be playing catcher as a pro. Mathisen goes R/R and has okay power in the batters box. This move interesting to me because just a few days ago the Pirates promoted their number one catching prospect in Tony Sanchez to Triple-A. Most likely Sanchez will have already been in the Big Leagues by the time Mathisen gets to that point but it will be interesting to see how Mathisen's numbers compare to Sanchez as he comes up through the minors that is if they get him signed.

4.) Jonathan Sandfort- With their fourth selection in the draft the Pirates took their second right handed pitcher of the draft. Sandfort is a prep guy and is committed to playing baseball at Florida next year but is very open about playing pro-ball if the right opportunity arises. Sandfort has very good speed on his fastball but a little to slow of a curve-ball. It will be interesting to see if Sandfort signs or sticks with his commitment to play for Florida.

5.) Brandon Thomas- The Pirates had the 136th pick in the draft and they decided to use it on their third College Junior of the draft and their second outfielder. The big upside in my opinion about Thomas is that he is a switch hitter and can go gap to gap from both sides of the plate. Thomas also has great speed like most center-fielders but is often afriad to use it on the base-paths. Thomas's downfall is his arm which is average at best but that can be improved with long toss and other similar activities.

6.) Adrian Sampson- Sampson is a victim of the infamous Tommy John surgery which he had his senior year of high school causing him to go undrafted and take the Junior College route. Sampson does not have overpowering stuff but he can commend his pitches very well being able to throw all of them for strikes consistently. Sampson is defiantly someone looking to sign very quickly, he is also right handed.

7.) Eric Wood- It is tough finding a lot of information on this guy but what I do know is that he plays third-base and in high-school he ran a 7.20 60. So take it for what its worth but I think this is just a pick where the Pirates were looking not to save a little bit of cash. I really dont ever see Wood making it to the big leagues but then again what do I know?

8.) Jacob Stallings- Stallings was taken as the 226 overall pick in the draft and is a college catcher at North Carolina University. Stallings his just below .300 this year at UNC but shows his real upside on defense. Stallings knows how to handle a pitching staff and really shows it in a article write by Tar Heel Monthly. Stallings will most likely start progressing faster then previous pick Wyatt Mathisen because of his strong defense but will eventually be passed because of Mathisen's stellar bat.

9.) Kevin Ross- The Pirates finally addressed there lack of depth in the minors at the middle infield positions when they took Kevin Ross a SS out of high-school in Illinois. Ross hit .451 in his senior year at prep schooll and shows a quick bat with good pop. Ross will most likely be looking to play third at a pro level not having the speed to play SS. So even though the Pirates addressed the middle infield they really did not address the middle infield.

10.) Douglas Crumilch- The Pirates took a college SS out of UC Irvine as the 286 overall pick of the draft. This is the second straight year the Pirates have taken Crumilch but this year he seems to be an easy sign considering he is a Senior and his only real option is to sign. Crumilch unlike Stallings projects to be a professional SS and had a nice average this year hitting .324 for UC Irvine.

I would say that to this point in the draft the Pirates have been strong and it's a class I feel pretty confident about. Also if you are wondering why I didn't do anything about the later rounds in the draft it's because that hardly ever do those players make it to the big leagues. Player taken beyond this point are used strictly to fill roster spots and used as organizational players their whole careers. Also if you are looking for more information on the Appel situation then this is by far the best website for it. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-pirates-game-theory-dilemma/.

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Draft Pick

With the 8th pick overall the Pirates take RHP Mark Appel.

Sanchez Takes a Step In The Right Direction

The same day that Stetson Allie made the switch from pitcher to position player Pirates 2009 first round draft pick (4th overall) Tony Sanchez made the jump from Double-A to Triple-A.

This season Sanchez started his second year in Double A and posted improved numbers in categories such as Batting Average, On Base Percentage, and On Base Plus Slugging. Sanchez in my opinion had spent enough time in Double-A and improved enough to a level where he was worthy of a Triple-A promotion.

There are two categories that worry me though and they are home-runs and strikeouts. In 40 games this year Sanchez has has hit zero home-runs and struck out 33 times. From a position like catcher you would like to see a little more power but if he gets on base enough he can make up for the lack of power. It will be interesting to see how long Sanchez stays in Triple-A, it will surely be for the rest of the season at least, unless they get in a situation like last year where every catcher in the organization seems to go down.

The Pirates Did What to Who?

The Pirates announced big news on Sunday night, surprisingly it was not about the all important upcoming draft. This news was about a former second round draft pick named Stetson Allie a pitcher coming out of the Columbus area in high school.

 Allie was highly regarded as a power pitcher as he could hit 100 on the radar gun pretty consistently and could back this up with a nasty right handed slider. Coming out of high school Allie was a dominate pitcher but he surprisingly did not start pitching until his senior year. Allie posted impressive numbers even striking out 134 batters in just 60 innings. What people do not think about though is that he did this playing high school baseball in Ohio. I am not bad talking Ohio baseball but is not the best high school baseball in the country, just like none of the North East states are. Allie probably only ever got to face a future Division I hitter once or maybe twice the whole season, and that is not even counting future professional batters like he would see playing in the Pirates minor league system everyday. Taking Allie in the second round of the draft and then giving him a 2.25 million dollar bonus was a very risky move, but a move that you could get excited about.

Now lets get to the point, you have probably been wondering why I have been speaking in the past tense the whole time because Allie is still around he didn't go anywhere he still plays professional ball in the Pirates system. The only difference starting today is that Allie will not be taking the hill, he will be stepping in the batters box instead. Yes that is correct the Pirates are converting Allie from a pitcher to a hitter, most likely a third baseman. Allie's concern was always his control, this is a problem that the Pirates thought they could keep under control and even fix but today they decided that they could not continue with the Allie pitching experiment. Allie made only 17 minor league appearances before the Pirates decided that they had seen enough. In these 17 appearances he pitched 26 and 2/3 innings allowing 37 walks and 29 strikeouts. If you do the math this is a .78 SO/BB ratio, bad statistics even for a half season pitcher. What most likely really set the Pirates over the edge on Allie was his one appearance for Allie in Low-A West Virginia. Allie went 2/3 of an inning on four earned runs eight walks and one strikeout. In this one appearance Allie showed absolutely no control what so ever in this appearance most likely leading the Pirates to their final decision of moving him to a hitter.

What you are probably wondering now is can Allie hit or are they just completely giving up on him? Like I mentioned earlier Allie did not start pitching until his senior year, this meant that he had to be playing somewhere else before that and he played that somewhere else well. From what I have heard Allie hit near or around .500 both his Junior and Senior year of high school with a good amount of home-runs in a high school season. Before the Pirates drafted Allie in 2010 he was committed to North Carolina on a full baseball scholarship where he was targeted to be a third-baseman. What this tells me is that many people thought Allie had a brighter future as a hitter and not a pitcher. Most people though that if Allie would of entered the draft as a hitter and not a pitcher he would of been a 3rd to 5th rounder.

Some people seem to be very upset about this move and think that the Pirates were to early to jump to such major conclusions. I think that these people are wrong. the Pirates know these players better then anyone of us and they would of not made this move unless they were 100% sure that this was in the best interest of both the Pirates and Allie himself. Also Allie showed just about zero upside in the minors not really even making one good appearance. I personally am very excited about this move, I am thrilled to see how he does. This could be one of the stupidest moves in Pirates history or it could be one of the smartest, and only time is going to tell us which one it was.



6/3 Game Recap vs. Brewers

The Battlin' Buccos beat the Brewcrew 6-5 and take the series in this exciting game at Miller Park. The first series they have taken in Milwaukee in over two years.

McDonald had a good start, going 6 innings with 1 earned run, but the real story is the hitting.  McCutchen, Jones, Barajas, and Barmes all had homeruns in this one, and Barmes also had a clutch single in the second scoring Casey McGehee. Overall, the offense seemed more lively but, Hague came back down to Earth going 0-4 with 2 strikeouts ending his hitting streak. 

The importance of winning this series cannot be overstated.  The Pirates are just 21-59 against the Brewers since 07', and we still have three more series against them this season.  All in all, if the Pirates play the way they did tonight I am very excited about the rest of the season. Please, comment if you have any opinion on the game.

Is It Time to Give Jeff Clement a Try?

The Pirates have the worst offense in the major leagues by far and everyone is looking for a way to solve this problem outside of the organization. Last night in Triple-A Indianapolis Jeff Clement hit for the cycle and this got me thinking, could he be the missing bat that everyone is looking for?

Jeff Clement has 153 At Bats this year in Triple-A and this makes him very comparable to Matt Hague who has had 144 At Bats in Triple-A, and is now on the major league roster. Clement this year has hit for an average of .307 compared to Hagues .278 Triple-A average. This is a whole 29 points higher that big of a difference is not just a matter of luck. You might be thinking that Hague will hit a lot more home-runs making up for the difference in average because he did hit seven in spring training after all. This is wrong, Clement has hit six home-runs this year well Hague has only hit one at the Triple-A level and Major League level combined. Lastly Clement has a much better eye at the plate as well, he has drawn a total of 21 walks in Triple-A compared to Hagues 9 free passes.

With all of this said I do not think that this is a good time to move Clement to the Big Leagues in place of Hague and this is why. Although Hague is only hitting .278 in the Big Leagues this is one of the better averages on our team, but in a limited number of at bats of course. Hague is currently on an 8 game hitting streak, starting since the day he was called up last Friday night against the Cubs. Hague has done nothing wrong on the Big League level and certainly not something bad enough to be sent down on a team that is searching for offense wherever you can get it. There is also no telling what Clement would do when put on the Major League stage. Clement has been in the majors before and in 2008 (when he had his most major league at bats in a single season) he hit just a mere .227, a batting average that would be considered poor even on this team. The other downfall to Clement is that he is strictly a first baseman just like Hague, another reason these two are very comparable. If I were the Pirates I would keep a close eye on both Hague and Clement, and if Hague starts to struggle they should move Clement to the 40 man roster and then call him up to the Big Leagues and see what he can do at that level this time around.

6/2 Game Recap vs. Brewers

After winning 8-2 on Friday night the Pirates seemed to have come back to reality scoring only one run in their second game in Milwaukee. The Pirates today had just five hits one of them being a solo home-run hit by Garret Jones to start the fourth inning and tie the game at 1. The sixth inning looked promising for the Pirates when Jose Tabata and Garret Jones hit back to back singles, but the Pirates proceeded to go one two three after that, failing to even more a runner up.

On the Pitching side of the game Erik Bedard did not have his best stuff to say the least going only 3 and 2/3 on 5 runs all of them being earned. One nice thing that did come out of this game was the bullpen. The bullpen has done everything they can do every game to put the team in a position to win and they did the same thing tonight. Cris Resop entered the game in the fourth to replace Bedard and he went 2 and 1/3 scoreless. Hughes and Slaten also added scoreless frames. Only using four pitchers when your starter can't even go four full is a solid thing to see, and will put the team in good position to get a win tomorrow, the rubber match of the series.

Why J.Mac's Getting Lucky

I have some sad news for Bucco fans, as much as is it pains me to say, James McDonald is not as good as his basic stats say.  J. Mac according to basic stats has thrown a Cy Young caliber season so far, but is he this good?  To answer this question we need to look at BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play). Right about now I assume you're asking yourself, "What the hell is BABIP".

BABIP is a measure of all balls hit into play. Therefore it only counts singles, doubles, triples, sac flies, and all other outs. It does not count however, homeruns, strikeouts, and walks. The league average BABIP is .300 that means only 30% of balls hit in play become hits.  So, if a 100 balls are hit in play 70 of them will be outs. If a pitcher has a lower BABIP it means he is getting lucky and more balls more balls hit into play will be outs.  When a pitcher has a higher BABIP it means he is getting unlucky because more balls hit in play will be hits. This is what is happening to McDonald.

J. Mac's average BABIP through 4 years is .291.  That means on average of 100 balls hit in play off of J. Mac 71 will be outs.  But, right now J. Mac's BABIP is at .258 so of a 100 balls hit in play 74 will be outs.  That 3 out difference may not sound like much, but it adds up.  If you don't believe me take these stats into consideration.

In 2009 and 2011 McDonald's BABIP was the closest to average. His ERA in those two seasons was 4.00 in 2009 and 4.21 in 2011.  Now his ERA is 2.20 and his BABIP is much lower.  As a Pirates fan I hope that this is merely coincidence, but the stats say otherwise.  J. Mac is getting lucky and his stats will unfortunately revert back to average by the end of the season.  Watch this short video for a better explanation of BABIP.


6/1 Recap vs Brewers

The Pirates won this one in an unusual fashion tonight and what I mean by this is that they actually scored an amount of runs that you would expect a major league team to score every once in a while. The Pirates won this game by a final of 8-2 Correia went a total of 5 2/3 on two runs and had two strikeouts. This is about what you would come to expect by watching Correia pitch this year.

Although 8-2 sounds great this game did not start out this way for the Pirates. Former Pirate and current Brewer center-fielder Nyjer Morgan AKA Tony Plush started this one off with a solo homer in the top of the first inning to give the Brewers a 1-0 lead. This game turned around in the third inning when the Pirates added 6 runs. Both Josh Harrison and Andrew McCutchen had triples, while Neil Walker, Rod Barajas, and Jose Tabata all added RBI's. The Pirates added 2 more runs in the 6th when Andrew McCutchen doubled home Jose Tabata and Josh Harrison.

Although no reliever other then Cruz went a full inning, Slaten, Hughes, Lincoln, and Watson all had clean performances. Cruz came into the game in the ninth to get a one two three finish.