I was out last night for a friend’s birthday, which meant that I spent the night stealing glances at my phone, wondering if the Pirates were going to somehow score enough runs to erase the deficit that kept growing. There’s a little jolt of electricity that you get when you watch a game this way and the score goes from 5-2 Reds to 6-5 Pirates in between glances. “Was that a grand slam?” you wonder. “It probably had to be, it wasn’t all that long ago that I checked,” you think. And then you look and see that it was, in fact, the first home run of the season, a Starling Marte grand slam that swung the Pirates’ win probability from 11% to 71% in two seconds, turning a one-run lead over to Neftali Feliz and Mark Melancon.
There was a lot of consternation this winter over whether or not the Pirates had enough power in the lineup without Pedro Alvarez and Neil Walker anchoring the middle. Whenever someone would ask me about the team’s power, my stock answer was that they would probably hit more home runs than people expect, and that while they will also probably hit fewer home runs than they have been hitting the last few years, fewer home runs doesn’t mean zero home runs. The key, of course, is making the home runs that you do hit count, and having a lineup that starts with John Jaso (career .360 OBP), Andrew McCutchen (.388) and David Freese (.344) is one way to make sure that there are people on base when Starling Marte hits his 20 or 25 home runs this year. Certainly, the Pirates got plenty of mileage out of their first homer of the year last night.
Today is a big day for the Pirates, because Gerrit Cole makes his 2016 debut. I’ll have to sit down and take a closer look at Cole’s 2015 sometime soon; as good as Cole was, I don’t think he’s quite at his ceiling yet, and so I’m curious to see if I can find places he can improve this year. My hunch is that the answer lies in his changeup, so I’ll try to keep an eye on that this afternoon. Otherwise, though, it’ll just be good to see Gerrit Cole out on the mound today doing what he does. There wasn’t really any point this spring where I was worried about his health, but he did spend a good chunk of it over at Pirate City in minor league games and on the back fields, and so simply confirmation of his existing Gerrit Coleness will be nice to see today.
It’s worth mentioning that Cole had a really hard time with the Reds last year; at one point, Cole was 11-3 and the Pirates were 11-4 in his starts, and two of his Ls and three of the total team losses came against the Reds. I actually briefly considered that he was tipping pitches, they were hitting the ball so well against him. The Reds in general were a stumbling block for the Pirates last year, so following last night’s dramatic win with a good start from Cole would be a great place to open 2016 against a them.
Raisel Iglesias starts for the Reds this afternoon. He was a very pleasant surprise for them last year (2.31 ERA and a 55/13 K/BB ratio over 46 2/3 innings and seven starts in August and early September before the Pirates crushed him in his next-to-last start of the year) and one of the few things for the Reds to be really excited about coming into 2016. His main weakness at this early juncture of his career is that he seems to be prone to home runs (he’s a fly ball pitcher) and that he’s occasionally run up some big pitch counts. This Pirate lineup is as capable of anyone of running big pitch counts up on pitchers, so I’m guessing that’s where their success will come against Iglesias today, should they find it.
Anyway, first pitch this afternoon is at 1:10. There is only one undefeated team left in the National League; let’s see if the Pirates can make that last a little bit longer.
Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images
