Game 76: Cubs 3 Pirates 1 E-mail
Written by Pat Lackey   
Monday, 29 June 2009 21:59

I am suddenly strongly regretting my decision to use my "we just got dominated by a good pitcher" post on Greinke yesterday. Where Greinke was good yesterday, Harden was absolutely dominant today, suddenly reminding everyone of the guy the Cubs got from the A's last July. We must of course consider the the opponent when discussing his dominance, but he looked really good tonight.

On the positive side of things, I thought Zach Duke pitched very well tonight and certainly didn't deserve to get saddled with a loss. Andy LaRoche also added two hits and seems to be coming out of a long dry spell with five hits, including two triples and a double, all of which were to the opposite field and hit off of the wall, in the last three games after hitting .212/.295/.282 in June before these three games. Nyjer Morgan also rapped out three hits and actually has his OPS over .700 now.

On the negative side, it seems pretty clear that hitters have a book on Andrew McCutchen now and he's probably going to struggle over the next few weeks. He did manage a single tonight, which was his first hit since his walkoff against the Indians last Thursday, but he looked a little overmatched at the plate tonight for the fourth game in a row. This is in no way a criticism of him, but this is how things work with a 22-year-old making his first run of any sort in the big leagues. I'm interested to see how he handles this first stretch of adversity, just like I'm interested to see if Andy LaRoche can really pull himself out of an extended slump during the season. These are the important things in a season like this for the Pirates.


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Comments (8)add comment

CecelioGuante said:

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Big Laroche looked as overmatched as i've ever seen him. Harden could've thrown nothing but that nasty slider at his feet and the result would've been the same. And Freddy came up empty in a couple clutch situations.

There's really no excuse for a team with no power to strike out like that. There's 2 feet of choke up in the lineup.

Kudos to the pen again.
 
June 30, 2009
Votes: +0

whygavs said:

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Good point about Adam LaRoche tonight; he looked awful.
 
June 30, 2009
Votes: +0

Carnegie Chip said:

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He did make two really awesome plays in the field. Well, one play and the other he needed help from Freddy.

But agreed on his offensive performance last night. He's been pretty bad all year with just short bursts of awesomeness to keep it respectable.

Is anybody gonna miss him when he's gone? Anybody?
 
June 30, 2009
Votes: +0

nicolas said:

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i have no idea how adam has had such a good june, especially when i spend SO many nights sitting in front of my tv screaming "stop swinging at sliders down and in, dumbass!" in at-bat after at-bat after at-bat after...
 
June 30, 2009
Votes: +0

Michael Alexander said:

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I'll miss either LaRoche if we get rid of them. I like the idea of brothers in the lineup, but maybe it is just a wish that they would follow in the steps of the Waners.

Trade Nyjer quick, his value is as high as it will ever be.
 
June 30, 2009
Votes: +0

brooklynpirate said:

re:
i have no idea how adam has had such a good june, especially when i spend SO many nights sitting in front of my tv screaming "stop swinging at sliders down and in, dumbass!" in at-bat after at-bat after at-bat after...


The reason he had such a good June is because he had such a good June. We're conditioned to only see the worst, to only see the failures. I'm not saying that he's the answer to all of our 1st base prayers, or that he's even above average, or that he doesn't have more than his share of bad games (he looked like he could have had 100 at bats against Harden tonight and not gotten a hit), but Adam LaRoche is simply not that bad of a baseball player. If they replaced him with, say, Steve Pearce, I think you'd miss him pretty quick.
 
June 30, 2009
Votes: +0

nicolas said:

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that might be a bit of a reach. i don't think the difference between laroche and pearce is that big.

i'm not trying to crap on adam's parade, but would it kill him to learn from his mistakes and stop swinging at the same pitch?

he has to know that his big long swing makes it harder to hit pitches inside, especially low and inside. and it isnt like harden is theonly pitcher to ever get him to swing over that down-and-in slider. progress and learning. thats all i ask.
 
June 30, 2009
Votes: +0

Nate said:

We could od worse at first.
He's not an impact first baseman, but he's a solid player. Depending on who we trot out there to replace him, I might miss him for the rest of this season.
 
June 30, 2009
Votes: +0

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