Save us, art thou J Mac!

James McDonald did something that no other player on the Pirates major league roster did yesterday. He got a base hit. That's pretty funny right???

NO.


This offense is horrid. Terrifying. Egregious. Let me pull up thesaurus.com so I can continue with this...


Yes, James McDonald was the only thing that stood in between Matt Cain and a perfect game. McDonald hit a   ball hard in his first at bat, but poked a single to the left side in his second at bat. Nobody else made a peep.

Now look. Barajas, Barmes and Walker have been god awful. BUT, they aren't going to finish the year batting under .100. Why? Well, if Barajas and Barmes are hitting under .100 for another month or two, they will be gone. If Walker stays at his current pace (which he won't), well...this organization is going to have some tough decisions to make.

I just picked up Walker in a fantasy league, somebody with little patience already dropped him. Calm down people. Walker has hit the ball pretty decent lately, he's just getting zero luck. He'll turn it around.

Meanwhile, I don't have the same "turn it around" song to sing for the Pirates record, at least not for the short term. We have to keep playing the Giants for a couple games, then we get to go down to Arizona (Yay!). The month of April schedule is brutal, and it's April 14th. We have a long way to go.

In other news, Matt Hague has been sent down to AAA Indianapolis in order to make room for Morton on the roster. The Pirates looked ahead at future pitching matchups and decided they wouldn't need him more than Harrison and Navarro. They believe Hague will be back at some point during this season, he may be an up and down kind of guy. Tough, Hague hit the ball pretty well despite being 1-9.

Alvarez wasn't considered for a trip to Indy. He needs to be. This guy is LOST. He has no clue what he is doing, and it's becoming more and more evident every time he steps to the plate. I have always been one of Pedro's biggest supporters, but I can't support this. There was a particular at bat last night where Pedro saw 5 pitches, all balls from Matt Cain. He struck out. He isn't recognizing pitches he needs to recognize, and he isn't pounding balls he needs to pound. He has no clue. Let him play every day at AAA and get some confidence. He must figure it out.



Morton makes his first start of the season tonight at 9 PM EST. I'll have live updates on the Twitter (@thebattlinbucco) at least for the first few innings.

4/13 @Giants

Lineups

Giants

Pagan CF
Cabrera LF
Sandoval 3B
Posey C
Huff 1B
Schierholtz RF
Crawford SS
Burriss 2B
Cain

Pirates

Presley LF
Walker 2B
Cutch CF
McGehee 1B
Jones RF
Barajas C
Alvarez 3B
Harrison SS
McDonald


Wow, what a brutal weekend series against the Dodgers. Pretty embarrassing showing for the Pirates offense. Can't say I'm much more optimistic about this series, especially starting out against Cain.

Hopefully getting some protection from McCutchen will get Walker some fastballs that he can line up. He needs to get going if this team is going to win.

Also, I don't think Hurdle is doing Alvarez any favors putting him at 7th. McGehee probably has the clean up spot locked up with how he's playing lately, but put Alvarez in the 5 spot. Jones isn't a ton more than Pedro right now, move him up in the lineup and see if he can hit with some guys on base with a little bit of pop behind him.

Game gets under way in a couple of hours.

Phillies@Pirates Series Recap 4/5-4/8/2012

Boy it's great to have baseball back again, even if we had to start it out by being crushed by the Phillies....

Wait. You say we took two of three?

Oh s**t!

The Pirates opened the season on April 5th against Roy Halladay. Bedard got the start and he threw darts. The offense...showed up to PNC Park a couple days late.

_____________________________

Karstens got the start on Saturday. He threw 6 innings giving up an earned run. It was the standard Jeff Karstens start--nothing fancy, just a guy going out there throwing strikes. You know what you are going to get out of Karstens every single time, he is invaluable.

It didn't look like the Pirates were going to get a run, until the Phillies afforded them one. The Pirates scored on a passed ball. It looked like Cliff Lee had the runner at home, but he couldn't handle the throw that was....right at his glove..

The bullpen did solid work, and the night's events culminated in an Alex Presley at bat.

Presley came to bat with runners on 1st and 3rd. In a 2-2 count, Presley hit a slow roller to the right side. Initially, it looked like Polanco was going to cut off the grounder. If he had, the outcome might have been different. Instead, the ball rolled all the way to Rollins at deep short. Rollins fielded it cleanly and fired a throw at first...

Too late.

Presley and the Pirates walked off and moved to .500 at 1-1.
__________________________________

McDonald got the start on Sunday afternoon against the Phils' Vance Worley. McDonald tossed 6 innings of  2 run ball, a welcome sight after hearing about all of the "dead arm" speculation during spring training.

Other good news. Pedro Alvarez (AKA K-Dro, E-Dro, Disappointmentthusfar-dro) hit a moon shot. His solo shot in his second at bat against Vance Worley would have rolled in the river had it not hit the back wall of the river walk. The homer was both encouraging, as it may be a sign of things to come, and depressing, because it shows just what we are missing when Pedro isn't performing like he knows he can.

I actually thought J Mac should have tossed the 7th inning, but Hurdle disagreed. He brought Jared Hughes on who proceeded to give up a couple of runs.

But Casey McGehee wasn't about to let 3 runs get away of a Pirates win. After Alvarez struck out and still got on base (maybe things were just going his way today), McGehee delivered a bomb off of the right field wall, just feet from leaving the yard.

Matt Hague also had his first hit, and his first RBI in the bottom of the 8th to tie the ball game with two outs. Clutch first hit for Mr. Hague.

The pen, once again, did good work.

The bottom of the ninth saw Casey McGehee come to the plate and blast yet another double, this time into the left center field gap.

After things played out, pinch runner Josh Harrison ended up on third, and McCutchen stepped to the plate with two outs. And Charlie Manuel sat on his ass.

“I didn't want to load the bases and I didn't want him to pitch against a lefty.”


Oh Charlie...that makes literally no sense. It might be time for you to hang up your cleats, boat shoes, or whatever the hell kind of kicks you wear on the bench. I'm convinced you have no clue what is going on on the field.


Let's think this out. If you walk McCutchen, you face Walker. No reason to stop there with a base still open. You walk Neil. Then you get to the Pirates pitchers spot (due to a double switch earlier). The Pirates have one guy on the bench, that's Rod Barajas. He hasn't been impressive whatsoever, except for his double  in Friday nights' thriller. 


So you wouldn't have been pitching against a lefty, and WTF does it matter if the bases are loaded? If McCutchen gets a hit you're going to lose. If Barajas had gotten a hit, you're going to lose. The ONLY difference would have been that a walk would have scored the winning run. Bad decision Charlie.


Anyway, Cutch cracked one off of the center field wall to end the ball game. 

Hell of a day for Cutch with three hits. 


This team feels a lot like the Pirates of early 2011. They are pitching very solid right now and finding ways to grind out wins. This is good, because they are of course winning. This is bad, because it probably isn't sustainable. But I won't talk about sustainability too much yet, it's only the first week of the season.


2 down, 80 to go. The Pirates are 2-1, one game above .500. 

Opening Day in the Burgh: 2012

It is officially opening day in Pittsburgh.

I have mixed feelings on this special day:

-I'm tremendously excited. Baseball is back once again for the long haul. No matter how angry the Pirates make me, I love watching them. I watch all of the garbage just for those few special moments that happen every season.

Most people don't understand us Pirate fans, but we understand each other. Through all of our frustration and disagreements, we all want the same thing. Despite our expectations for this season, low or high, opening day represents a new beginning...even if we're just going to begin losing again, I'm excited for another opportunity.

-I'm nervous. There are so many things that could go terribly wrong this season. Pedro Alvarez' fate will almost be entirely decided. If he stinks it up the entire year--where do we go from there? Where do we put him in 2013? Do we just leave him in the minors? What does he become? It's a question that I'm not even sure I want to know the answer to. Please don't let us down Pedro.

Can Bedard stay healthy? He can be something of an anchor of this rotation--but the catch is, he has to be in it.

-AJ is ahead in his recovery and should be back this month. What will he bring to the table? Can he be the old AJ (or at least show some representation of it), or will he be New York AJ? Huge difference that will determine a significant amount of games this season.

I'm excited to watch the continued development of Andrew McCutchen. He is starting to turn into something very special. Andrew wasn't a superstar last year. I believe that changes this year. Andrew will be a superstar, and he will carry this Pirates team, even if it is only to 70 wins.

Walker needs to bounce back. He had a down year last year. For a guy who is probably going to have to hold down the 4 hole, he doesn't bring a lot of power to the table. But we've seen Walker do damage. He isn't going to bop the ball over the wall often, but he's clutch. He can drive it up the middle with men in scoring position. We need him to do that consistently.

-The bullpen. What are we going to see here? Hanrahan is going to be good, of that I'm certain. Maybe he won't have no blown saves until near around the all star break like last year, but he will be effective. He is the ONLY one I am that confident about. Nobody else stands out. Neal has been adamant about saying bullpens are the easiest thing to build. Prove it to us Neal, this bullpen needs to be solid.

For better or worse, let's play ball!!!!!!!!!!!

First pitch around 1:35 EST, Bedard VS. Halladay

7 days

A mere week separates Pirates fans from could be our impending doom--or a great season.

No matter your opinion on the future result of the 2012 Pirates season, you can't help crack a little smile when you hear that first crack of the bat--even if it is Shane Victorino hitting a blast into the PNC Park seats in the first inning off of Erik Bedard (ok maybe no smiles for that one).

Good news out of spring training today: K-Dro..ahem..E-Dro...I'm sorry...PEDRO Alvarez went 2/5 today. AND, he only struck out twice!! Yes..that's improvement. Now really, I still think he is going to rebound with a decent season despite this atrocious spring. I could see something like an average around .240-50 and 20-25 homers. It would be even better if he could strike out under 16,227 times!!

Oh yes...and the bad news. McDonald got F'ing ROCKED....by the Twins. The Twins. The Twins.

3 2/3 innings giving up 10 earned runs. That's less than encouraging. So much for the 7 inning performance he had several days ago--this Twins performance sends me back into panic mode.

A couple other notes...

-McLouth is having a huge spring. If he can get back to his "Pirates mode" baseball, ya know, specifically 2008, we could have an interesting situation in the outfield...

-Jason Jaramillo has signed a minor league contract with the Brewers, and Zach Duke has signed a minor league contract with the Nationals. Why is this important you ask?? It isn't.

-Juan Cruz will be headed north and join the big league club. Cruz was an interesting sign this offseason as it seemed pretty likely he'd be joining the bullpen.

-In case you...

1. Live under a rock

2. Live in a normal house and haven't heard the news

3. Don't watch ESPN (and you shouldn't)

...Chase Utley won't be playing on opening day, and as a result I'm sure, won't be playing the entire Pirates series. This is good news, because now the Phillies will only be a lot better than the Pirates...wow the Pirates have a brutal April schedule.

Twitter

Yo folks,

Since I don't think I've ever mentioned it on here before, make sure you check out my Twitter @thebattlinbucco...if you're in to that whole social media thing.

I have been doing live game updates as often as I can, and I'll be doing a lot more of that when we hit the regular season.

Josh Harrison, Pirates-Astros 3/24/12

Josh Harrison just keeps hitting the baseball...

He isn't a guy that is mentioned with the Pirates core of Cutch, Walker, Tabata...etc. Harrison is just a baseball player. Simple as that. He is a gritty little guy that hits the baseball and plays decent defense.

If there was one name that wasn't being discussed before spring training, that name was Josh Harrison. It seems to me that he still isn't being discussed. He leads the team in doubles this spring, but more importantly, he really is getting great wood on the ball. He had another double today in the first inning: a rocket shot to the opposite field gap.

For a guy that I looked at as a slap hitter last year, Harrison looks like he has added a little more power to his arsenal. He won't be an every day player, so he doesn't need to hit a ton of home runs. A good gap power hitter will be invaluable coming off the bench though.

Oh...and Harrison is hitting .520 this spring. So.......yeah.

Anyway, the Pirates lost 5-4 on Saturday afternoon, which isn't really a big deal considering the two pitchers who allowed the Astros to tie and win the game in the 9th and 10th innings won't see the light of day on the MLB squad. 

The Pirates have been looking at Igarashi, who gave up 3 runs in the 9th, but I don't think he's going to make it.

Walker had a clutch two out two run single in the first inning, and The Legend hit a massive moon shot home run later in the game. Cutch stole a base, and it remains very clear that the Pirates are going to be moving quite a bit on the base paths this year. That should be fun to watch.

It was also very encouraging to see James McDonald pitch 7 innings today, giving up one earned run. He only struck out three, but we have been hearing a lot about him having possible "dead arm" problems. This is a good sign, even though he was playing against the Asstros.