The whole of this game is overwhelmed by the post-game news that Brendan Donnelly is being released and Brad Lincoln is being demoted back down to Triple-A. It’s true that Lincoln’s struggled quite a bit since being called up, but it wasn’t hard to see that that was a possibility. This is what I wrote before his first start:
He’s most likely headed towards a career as a #3 starter, but if he can maintain his velocity a little closer to the mid-90s (he’s capable of getting there but will probably sit in the lower 90s) and develop his changeup a bit, he could be a #2-type guy thanks to his curveball. He’s not there yet, though. In Triple-A, he’s struggled with lefties and gives up a lot of flyballs that might be homers his first couple times through the National League.
Since he’s come up, Lincoln’s given up nine homers in 50 2/3 innings (that includes seven in his last four starts) with six coming against lefties. Which is to say that he’s struggling, yes, but more or less in the way that wasn’t all that hard to predict in June.
The team’s explanation for sending him down, that he’s got mechanical issues that are keeping his velocity down, is interesting. In his best start of the year at Chicago (which immediately preceeded his turn into a home run derby pitcher), his fastball averaged about 91.5 mph with a max of 94.3. His next start had about the same average with a max of 93.8. After that it was about 91/92.6, then 92.7/95.5, and today was about 90.5/92.7. I guess he’s dropping off a bit, but I don’t see a huge downward trend there.
That’s not to say he hasn’t been disappointing, but he’s always taken some time to adjust at each level after being promoted. When he went from Hickory to Lynchburg in 2008, his strikeouts dropped and his walks rose. When he went from Altoona to Indianapolis in 2009, his homers and hits allowed spiked, his walks rose, and his strikeouts dropped. Both promotions saw pronounced struggles with lefties (click through his Minor League Splits page to see what I mean). I guess my thinking with all of these young guys is that once they’ve earned promotions (and Lincoln has), I’d much rather see them try to get things ironed out in Pittsburgh than in the minors. Jose Tabata and Pedro Alvarez both went through pretty long dry spells, but came through them. I was hoping they’d do the same for Lincoln, but obviously something’s not working right for him and maybe they feel that Indianapolis is, for whatever reason, the best place for him to figure that out.
As for Donnelly, well, the guy’s walking 7.3 hitters per nine innings, gives up homers at a rate like Lincoln, and has just not been very good of late. There’s suddenly a lot of focus on his pay going up as he hits certain inning plateaus, but it’s not like we’re suddenly cutting Hanrahan or Meek here. Someone like Wil Ledezma should be able to come up and do at least what Donnelly’s done. I understand that the other pitchers liked the guy, but hey, if he’d pitched better this wouldn’t be happening.
And now the Pirates have lost four games in a row without playing all that poorly.
