The All-Star game is over and the N.L.won for the third straight year this time by a score of 8-0 now everyone's eyes are heading to the second half, an especially exciting second half for Pirates fans. There seem to be a lot of things that could go right for this team in the second half but there are also a ton of things that could go wrong as well. I'm not really sure exactly what to say for this post but it seems like a good idea so I'm just going to go through well just about everything.
The Pirates have 77 games remaining on their schedule which means even though the All-Star break is considered half way it really isn't, its a little past it. The Pirates have a relatively easy road the rest of the way and you can see that in this heat map made by Captain Jolly Roger, he does a pretty good job of explaining it. Just click here to see it. As you can see by this link out of the total 77 games left 32 of them are against teams with winning percentage's under .395. The numbers I am referring to are just slightly off because the date this chart was posted was on July 4th and each team has had about three games since then, so please forgive me for that. Also as you can see the Pirates have no games left against any teams that have a winning percentage of .556 or higher now that the Giants series is over. The Pirates do however end their schedule on a fairly tough stretch as they play ten games against three different teams who all have winning percentage of .525 or higher luckily for the Pirates they play six of these games at home where they have a winning percentage of .674.
The pitching staff in my opinion still has many questions that need to be answered before I can be completely sold for a number of different reasons. Lets start from the top and work down with James McDonald who has established himself as the ace of this staff. I personally believe that McDonald has made a long lasting turn for the better in 2012 but there are some numbers that would suggest otherwise, mainly those of years past. Last year was basically McDonald's first full year in the majors appearing in 31 games and pitching exactly 171 innings posting a 4.06 ERA and 4.68 FIP. This year McDonald is already at 110 innings and is well on pace to significantly pass his previous high of 171, which brings up the question can he maintain? I think that he will because of the mentoring or Burnett helping him through this, but if McDonald looses a mile or two on his fastball things could go bad real quick.
A.J. Burnett is having one of his better years since 2005 when he pitched for the Marlins and seems to have found his spot in Pittsburgh but then again he hasn't pitched this well in a long time. Burnett is a veteran and has been in pennant races before so he knows how to handle the pressure so probably won't be affected to much by that but he is getting older so the innings might start adding up on his arm. Jeff Karstens has recently returned from his long stint on the DL and is basically just starting his season now. I think that if the Pirates stay in this race Karstens and his 88 MPH fastball are going to play a huge role in it. Innings won't really be a concern for Karstens because of his trip to the DL so every fifth day Karstens can just go out there and throw as long as he wants without any watch on his innings.
The bottom two guys in the rotation are the ones I'm concerned about, Kevin Correia and Erik Bedard that is. Correia has a 4.34 ERA this year which actually sound's better then he actually is, which is terrible. It seems like every time Correia takes the hill he strikes out two guys allows 4 runs and gets pulled in the fifth and makes the offense have a great day just for the team to even have a chance to win. When you're in a race for the division like the Pirates are you can't afford to have this all the time, which is what the Pirates are getting from him. The next guy is Erik Bedard who is the only lefty in the rotation which is probably what is keeping him his job. Earlier this year Bedard was the opening day starter and was pitching well locating his fastball and putting nice spin on his curve and then got pulled from a start with back spasms and hasn't been the same since. Bedard was quoted as saying that this is the best he's felt in years so that takes away the excuse of injury which means that Bedard needs to improve quickly which this ten day break for him will help. If neither one of these guys improve I would expect Rudy Owens of Jeff Locke to replace them at some point, if you want to know more about them visit Pirates Prospects they will have everything you need.
Although the Pirates offense had a great last month plus lets not forget that they also had one of the worst first two months since the dead-ball era. Some guys are going to fall off such as someone like Andrew McCutchen, and when I say fall off I mean that he is still going to be really really good but not unhuman like. McCutchen is hitting .362 and chances are that he will not continue at this pace, but he can still hit at a pace of like .320 or somewhere around there. One guy I would really like to see step it up in the second half would be Clint Barmes. Barmes is way below his career lows in just about everything which I think has to improve at some point and hopefully soon, if he improves he can really help this team out. I would also like to see some one like Alvarez hit for a higher batting average, which is in fact already improving but if he hits .280 the second half that would be awesome.
I am really excited to see what happens the second half especially because the Pirates are legit contenders this year and I don't think that's changing any time soon. With the second wild card this year, that only means the chances are greater of something special happening. Even if the Pirates are 10 games below .500 the second half hey it's still a winning season which ends a twenty year drought which is all I really wanted at the beginning of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment