The Pirates Right Field Power Outage

The Pittsburgh Pirates

won another road series with a victory over the Houston Astros last night.  A couple of thoughts on the 9-5 Pirates this June:

Matt Diaz is not going to be cut by the Pirates.  Get used to it.  He is the Pirates right handed hitting bat.  He was signed for a two-year deal and even though he is hitting just .174 in his past ten games with a whole lot of empty in his Mendoza line, he’s going nowhere.  So it’s up to Diaz to figure it out.  We have no idea why he can’t hit currently.  But prepare yourself to see Diaz in black and gold, but let’s just trust Hurdle doesn’t keep trotting him out as often.

Garrett Jones is going to continue to be in this lineup against right handers because he has shown power.  He can hit and has bounced back nicely in June, hitting at a .429 clip. But the lack of power is vivid.  He has six bombs this season.  We heard some uncomfirmed rumors that Jones is on the block.  If he continues to swing the bat well and if he somehow can find his power stroke, Jones would surely be a candidate at the deadline.  It certainly doesn’t look like he would bring much of a haul however.  So wouldn’t it be more advantageous to just coach him up?

Steve Pearce doesn’t play RF much and his being injured really hinders the Bucs offense. Andrew McCutchen can hurt the opposition, but other than Cutch right now, there just isn’t anybody to fear from the right side.  Nobody.  Tabata and Walker are as close as we have (and we trust they read this and get pissed off.)  Love him or hate him, Pearce has shown, in limited at bats, that he can hit.  He can’t come back fast enough.  In looking at the Pirates outfield situation in the future, Steve Pearce could certainly throw his hat in the ring.  Perhaps when he gets back, the Bucs will continue working with Pearce on the right field spot.  Shit, we are up for anything to get Diaz more bench time.

Alex Presley will get the call today.  The Bucs head to Cleveland and the hated DH will be in play as the Pirates face a tough schedule the rest of June.  Presley has done nothing but hit for the past two seasons.  Can he continue to do it in the bigs for his twelve game showcase?  We don’t think he is going to show much power, but at least everyone can shut the hell up about calling him up.

Xavier Paul.  He belted a homerun into the Crawford Boxes last night and Paul is starting to show some improvement after watching his average plummet from over .300 to near .250 headed into last night.  Perhaps he just needs consistent at-bats because he certainly hasn’t done much with the 85 at-bats he has had with the Bucs, well that’s if you ignore the 27 strikeouts he has racked up.

The right field spot on this roster wasn’t supposed to be this confusing.  We bought the sell job thinking Diaz and Jones could do work.  On paper Pirates GM Neal Huntington had a nice platoon.

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