0 comments by Pat Lackey on 5/19/2015
I’ve said my piece about Francisco Liriano below. He starts tonight against his old team, the Twins. The Twins are off to a surprisingly good start (21-17), but they have a ridiculous pitching staff that almost refuses to strike hitters out. I suspect that the Pirates will do quite well against a staff like this, […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
It’s relatively easy to figure out how the season is going for 80% of the rotation. Gerrit Cole has been fantastic, and he’s closer than ever to finally breaking out and living up to that “1-1” tag the Pirates put on him four years ago. AJ Burnett is revitalized with the Pirates, throwing strikes and […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
We have selected OF Jose Tabata from @indyindians & optioned RHP Wilfredo Boscan to Indy. Justin Sellers was transferred to the 60-day DL. — Pirates (@Pirates) May 19, 2015
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 5/18/2015
Here’s the thing about this particular Pittsburgh Pirate team: this was more or less a perfect baseball game today. AJ Burnett had some control issues, but it didn’t matter because he was virtually unhittable against the dynamic young Cub lineup. The defense made plays behind him: Andrew McCutchen made a fantastic sliding catch/pop-up throw double play, […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 5/15/2015
The Cubs had leads of 7-1 and 10-5, but the Pirates managed to tie the game at 10. Andrew McCutchen and Josh Harrison had a bunch of big hits to key the comeback. In the tenth inning, the Cubs loaded the bases with one out. Matt Szczur hit a pop-up to right field, Gregory Polanco caught it, […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
Every single time I feel like maybe this Pirate team is about to turn a corner, they go and do something dumb like lose two games in a row to the Phillies. Seriously: the Pirates had a four-game set against the Phillies this week, and lost ground on the Cardinals and Cubs. It’s still “early”, […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 5/14/2015
Should we talk about how Vance Worley got pounded in his four innings of work today, giving up eight hits and striking out no one? Or about how the defense behind him gave him absolutely no support, to the point that it almost feels ridiculous that anyone could’ve thought an infield with Neil Walker, Jordy […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
I have two pieces of advice today: 1. Don’t lose to Aaron Harang. 2. Don’t split a series with the Phillies. Vance Worley starts for the Bucs.
0 comments by Pat Lackey
This is pretty much the pre-game worst-case scenario that I was afraid of when I wrote about Liriano not quite being up to snuff lately. It’s not that a seven-inning, six-strikeout, three-walk, three-run performance is bad, just that it’s not good enough when your offense hands you a 2-0 lead against Cole Hamels and the worst […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 5/13/2015
There is no doubt that the Pirate offense has been much improved over the last week. In their last six games, they’ve scored 34 runs and they’ve won five of those games. This has overlapped with Andrew McCutchen doubling his season extra base hit total, which is surely not coincidence. They haven’t faced much in the […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 5/12/2015
It took a little while, but this game finally ended up where it looked like it was heading for the entire evening. The Pirates mostly scorched balls off of Sean O’Sullivan in the early going, but had pretty much nothing to show for it until Josh Harrison’s three-run fourth inning homer. AJ Burnett mowed through […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
Players talk about “home town discounts” all the time, but rarely has it borne itself out as dramatically as AJ Burnett’s return to Pittsburgh; he spent one ugly year in Philadelphia and then turned his nose up at $12-13 million dollars when it came time to decide on his player option. In the same breath, […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 5/11/2015
This game was sort of a perfect archetype of a good team beating a bad team. Gerrit Cole constantly seemed on the edge of losing control tonight, but the Phillies just stood no chance against him. Cole ended up getting more fly balls than usual, but he still got through seven innings, struck out six, […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
I feel a little bit like a broken record, but if the last two years have taught us anything about how the MLB season works, it’s that the best way to get into contention is to hold serve against the good teams and then beat the ever-loving crap out of the bad ones. The Phillies […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 5/10/2015
One of the defining characteristics of last year’s Pirates was the way that no matter what went wrong, the Pirates had a player ready to solve their problem. Wandy Rodriguez can’t hack it anymore (apparently, this has changed)? Well, here’s a newly fixed Vance Worley. Pedro Alvarez lost the ability to throw to first base? […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
If there was one fear that I had from the Pirates’ ugly run of games against NL Central teams over these last two weeks, it was that the Pirates were wasting great performances from their starting pitching that wouldn’t last, and that when the Pirates’ bats finally came around, the pitching would no longer be […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 5/8/2015
Saying that the Pirates’ current eight-game deficit in the NL Central isn’t a big deal because it’s “early” in the season is true, but it’s something that only holds true if the Pirates don’t get any further behind the Cardinals and if the Pirates start to play better against National League Central teams. Depending on […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
Yesterday I linked to Forbes to Federal’s excellent analysis of Andrew McCutchen’s slump, and today at FOX, Jeff Sullivan takes the analysis of McCutchen’s swing a bit further to fully diagnose what’s wrong with the Pirates’ best player. In short, if you look at the McCutchen of the past you can see him drive so […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 5/7/2015
This is how you break out of an extended losing streak/slump: Neil Walker singles to center, Gregory Polanco scores. Starling Marte out on a sac fly to right, Neil Walker scores. Pedro Alvarez doubles to center, Andrew McCutchen scores. Starling Marte singles to center, Neil Walker scores. Chris Stewart singles to center, Andrew McCutchen and […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
I can’t tell you here anything that you don’t know. AJ Burnett has the lowest ERA in the National League, but he has zero wins because the Pirates can’t score runs. Who says traditional stats can’t tell you anything? The Cardinals won again today, so if the Pirates lose tonight, they’ll be nine games behind […]
