0 comments by Pat Lackey on 6/19/2014
Look, let’s not mince words. It’s time for Jason Grilli to stop being the Pirates’ closer. It’s past time for that, actually. In the past seven days, Grilli is the one who stoked the fire in last Friday’s near-collapse against Miami, he served up a home run to Todd Frazier that cost the Pirates Tuesday’s […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
Here’s my bullet-point recap of last night’s game: We learned that MLB did not at all consider force plays when writing the new plate-blocking rules this winter, and basically just made up a ruling on the spot that cost the Pirates an out and extended an already brutal third inning. It probably didn’t matter, because […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 6/18/2014
Today, I opened up MLB.com, looked at the pitching matchup, and thought to myself, “Oh, thank goodness Edinson Volquez is pitching today.” That’s more a reaction to the state of the rest of the rotation right now, but Volquez really has been quite good lately. He’ll face Alfredo Simon, who’s put up some great traditional […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
If I had to guess, I’d say that the one Pirate-related question that I get asked more than any other is some variation on this one: “Is Pedro Alvarez ever going to put everything together?” Every spring training, every Alvarez hot streak, every Alvarez slump, they all bring the same question. Before 2014, my answer […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 6/17/2014
For the second time this year, things with the Pirates’ bullpen have hit a critical mass. After Brandon Cumpton gutted his way through six three-run innings and kept the Pirates in the game through Johnny Cueto’s six innings, Justin Wilson came in and immediately served up two runs to extend the Reds’ lead to 5-2. […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
Look, I’m not going to pull punches. This has me scared: June 17: Johnny Cueto vs. Brandon Cumpton June 18: Alfredo Simon vs. Edinson Volquez June 19: Homer Bailey vs. Jeff Locke That is just ridiculously one-sided, even if Volquez and Locke have been pitching relatively well recently. Johnny Cueto has thrown two complete games […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 6/15/2014
Before the game, I wrote this: I won’t pretend like Jason Grilli coming in and serving up a single to the first hitter he faced to put Giancarlo Stanton into the on-deck circle as the winning run didn’t terrify me, but again, it’s just hard to see it as something other than a fluke circumstance. […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
Let’s start with last night’s game: I’m inclined once again to ignore the ninth inning debacle, because it was different than Friday’s ninth inning debacle and Stolmy Pimentel giving up two two-run home runs in the ninth inning of a six-run game feels like an isolated incident. I won’t pretend like Jason Grilli coming in […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 6/14/2014
If we just pretend that the ninth inning last night didn’t happen, the Pirates are only a really nice stretch of baseball right now during this three-game winning streak. Edinson Volquez and Jeff Locke have given the Pirates two nice starts in a row, and the Pirates aren’t really having much trouble scoring runs, and […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
I want to say that I’m at a loss for words here, but that’s not entirely true. I have plenty of words to say about this game, it’s just difficult to find a place to begin unpacking everything that happened on this weird Friday the 13th game in Miami. For pretty much the entirety of […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 6/13/2014
It feels like it’s a little bit early to say things like this, but for now the wild card race in the National League is awfully bunched up. Currently, the Pirates trail the Marlins by 2 1/2 games. At some point, one or two teams are going to separate themselves from this pack, and sometimes […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 6/12/2014
Andrew McCutchen. That’s it. That could pretty much be the recap. OK, I’ll write a little more. Andrew McCutchen went 2-for-4 tonight with two doubles off of Jeff Samardzija, driving in two of the Pirates runs and scoring a third. Technically, that won’t move his June OBP up at all and it’ll actually bring his […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
After taking two of the first three games from the Cubs in this four-game set, the Pirates face a bit of a challenge to get a third win tonight as the Cubs will send Jeff Samardzija to the mound in the series finale. I have a feeling that we’re going to hear Samardzija’s name a […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
Nick Kingham was promoted from Altoona to Indianapolis today. I haven’t written much about the minor leagues this year, but given all of the thinking I’ve been doing about the short-term and long-term future of the Pirates’ rotation, I think it’s worth it to take a little bit of time and talk about Kingham’s general […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
I didn’t see much of this game beyond highlights and so I don’t have a lot to offer beyond, “When you’re in the shape the Pirates are in right now with injuries the best you can do is just take each game as it comes and see how many wins you can somehow rack up,” […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 6/11/2014
Here’s all we know right now: Francisco Liriano is on the disabled list and Stolmy Pimentel is back with the Pirates. The Pirates did not stretch Pimentel out that much on his rehab assignment, so he’s unlikely to start in Liriano’s place on Sunday. We’ll have to wait until later to see who is likely to […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
Let’s be blunt: with Francisco Liriano looking like he’s headed to the disabled list with an oblique injury, the Pirates have a huge problem with their pitching staff. If Liriano is out for any amount of time (and this tweet from Travis Sawchik/David Manel
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 6/10/2014
For a few innings, it looked like Gregory Polanco’s big league debut was going to be a night to remember. In his second at-bat, he kept his hands back and made a nice swing on a pitch on the outside part of the plate and laced it into left field for a solid single. Andrew […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
I think I’ve pretty much covered the Polanco Hysteria by this point, but the last thing I wanted to do was to link to a recent scouting report of Polanco by Mike Newman of ROTO Scouting. He does a really nice job of summarizing why you should be excited about Polanco (basically, he’s filling out […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
After the disastrous final years of the Dave Littlefield era, I didn’t think I could be shocked by another baseball trade. Littlefield’s drive to acquire veterans that would somehow add up to an 82-win Pirate team was so monomaniacal that it went from surprising to a little bit funny to outright sad. When Neal Huntington […]
