This post was supposed to run on Sunday, but, uh, I apparently forgot to hit publish. Here! Have it on Monday! Some of it is still applicable!
After an awful start to the second half on the road, the Pirates have gotten themselves together enough to win two of three from a first place team with a decent shot at winning three of four in the series this afternoon. They’ve lost a game on the Cardinals, as the Cardinals have now won five games in a row by a total of eight runs, with last night’s win coming by a score of 1-0 despite the Braves out-hitting them 7-2. Is it even worth getting worked up over a divisional race in which one of the teams can’t lose games no matter what they do? It is probably not.
Last night showed pretty clearly that the Pirates have a bit of a bullpen issue on their hands right now. AJ Burnett was not very good in handing the Nationals a 5-0 lead by the sixth inning, but Deolis Guerra and Arquimedes Caminero both served up two-run homers that stopped any thoughts of a Pirate rally after they cut the lead to 5-3 dead in their tracks. Caminero has been abysmal lately and Guerra can’t be considered to be much more than “fine, I guess.” The problem, of course, is that they’re the first two relievers that the Pirates turn to in close games in which they’re behind. Those games have very quickly become not close games lately.
Also in that paragraph: AJ Burnett has now given up 11 runs on 22 hits in his last two starts, which have lasted a total of 11 2/3 innings. His ERA since June 19th is 4.17 and he’s been getting hit HARD in that span (.332/.379/.833). Part of that is probably due to a very high BABIP against him (.391), but opponents’ line drive percentage against him since June 19th is 31% compared to 24% in the starts before then. It’s time to start taking notice of this: as I said at the break, if the Pirates “Big Three” becomes a “Big Two,” it’s suddenly going to feel a lot harder to win baseball games.
Anyway, Gerrit Cole starts for the Pirates today. Cole has drawn some tough assignments of late, against the Royals, Cardinals, and even the Indians. This is a really unimpressive Nationals lineup right now (besides Harper, of course), though, and so I’m interested to see what Cole can do against them. Joe Ross starts for the Nats. He dominated the Pirates in June and then went to Triple-A, this will be his second start back up. His numbers with the Nats this year are awfully impressive, but his Triple-A numbers weren’t and he didn’t enter 2015 high on anyone’s prospect radar. I’ll be interested to see how he does against a big league lineup that’s mostly seen him before.
First pitch today is at 1:35.
Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images
