Cards at Pirates: White Hot Jose Tabata Loves PNC Park

The Pirates take on the Cardinals at PNC Park tonight with Albert Pujols in search of home run number 400. The Pirates will have Daniel McCutchen on the bump to face former Indian Jake Westbrook.  For the life of me, I can’t determine why the Pirates would move McCutchen back to a starting role as Jeff Karstens sits this one out with what is being described as arm fatigue.   Wait.

I can.  Nevermind.

As a starter this was the frequent photoshop used to describe the success McCutchen had:

As a reliever, he has been rather good.  Improving in fact.    McCutchen has a 1.93 ERA working out of the bullpen this month.  He was especially effective against the Rockies.  In his nine appearances from the bullpen he has pitched 10.1 innings and allowed two earned runs. Why when a pitcher is having some element of success, when he is making a positive contribution to a team would a decision be made to change that role?

Do the Pirates remember why he was sent to the bullpen?   Please tell me you remember.  Hint:  It was Busch Stadium.  July 31.  It’s baffling to me.

Neil Walker is now second on the team in RBI. Stud.

Jose Tabata has torn up the turf at PNC. He is 32-for-79 in the past 21 games on the North Shore with six doubles, a triple, and two homeruns while scoring 15 runs. Those stats are great, but was there anything finer than his key walk last night? Well maybe yeh….it was the blast into the LF seats off his country man Johan Santana on Sunday that was a thing of beauty.

Tabata is something like 11-for-19 against the bloody birds too.

Look for Andrew McCutchen to come around tonight against Westbrook. I think it has to happen eventually doesn’t it?

He has certainly been

hurting

slumping: .252/305/.445 Maybe when we talked about getting some rest, it would have helped? Sure Jose Tabata is an adventure in center, but come on.