There’s something particularly wonderful and gratifying about what’s happened at PNC Park the last two nights: the Pirates came into this series against the Brewers mired in a terrible offensive slump with an ugly record. The starting rotation got off to an excellent start, but there just weren’t many runs to go around. Two games in a row, it’s been Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco that have pulled the Pirates out of that slump. Last night, the Brewers jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning before Jeff Locke got himself on track, but the Pirates answered immediately when Polanco doubled into the left-center gap to drive Josh Harrison home, then Starling Marte singled in both Polanco and Andrew McCutchen to give the Pirates a 3-1 lead. A few innings later, Marte sent a ball into the left field bleachers for the second straight night, and the Pirates had themselves an easy 6-1 win.
There are a certain number of known quantities on this Pirate team: Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Francisco Liriano, and maybe a handful of other players. The difference for these Pirates in 2015 is going to come from the other players; the Polancos and Martes and Gerrit Coles and maybe even the Jeff Lockes. Seeing Polanco and Marte shoulder the load while McCutchen hobbles around the field trying to get his knee into shape and Walker slumps is fantastic; it not only moves towards validating the approach that the Pirates have used to build this team, it also makes it easier to believe that maybe this is the Pirate team we all hoped it could be in spring training. It’s just a couple games, of course, and these two games don’t ultimately prove anything, but it’s nice to have some encouraging early-season results to file away with all of the ugliness we saw in Cincinnati and against the Tigers.
Jeff Locke is, of course, also worth mentioning, because he was excellent after his rough first inning last night. Obviously I’d like to see some starts against non-Brewer teams before jumping to any conclusions, but we know that the Pirates and Locke have tinkered quite a bit with his mechanics and approach in the past, and thus far, he’s only walked one hitter in 14 innings to open 2015. It was easy to criticize the Pirates naming him the fifth starter over Vance Worley before Charlie Morton’s injury (I surely did), but Locke has rewarded them thus far. If he can slide into the fourth rotation spot and give the Pirates solid innings in the way they’ve always hoped Charlie Morton would do, it’d go a long ways towards solidifying a rotation that raised so many pre-season questions.
Anyway, Gerrit Cole takes the mound today to try and help the Pirates sweep the Brewers. Cole was excellent in front of a huge crowd against a good Tiger team on Monday, but what the Pirates need from him this year is to be just as excellent against an awful Brewer team on a random Sunday. It’d also be nice to see him pitch a little deeper into the game than he did in the Home Opener, as things sort of came apart for him in the sixth inning.
First pitch today is at 1:35. A win gets the Pirates back to .500.
Photo by Justin K. Aller, Getty Images
