Pirates Fall Again, Lose 5-4 To Twins

The Pittsburgh Pirates dropped another spring training game.  This time the ballclub battled back late, but fell short and lost 5-4 against the Minnesota Twins.  It was the third straight loss and dropped the club to 4-10 in the early portion of Grapefruit League play.

A.J. Burnett got the start and went 4.2 innings and left when his pitch count hit 65.

The Pirates Opening Day starter had his best outing of the spring.  He walked two.  Picked a runner off first base again and struck out three.

Jared Hughes looked like hell in his 1.1 inning of work giving up two hits, a walk and still he struck out two.  Hughes also made a nice play on a hard hit ball back through the box.

The other Pirates pitchers continued to not pitch well and reminded us that it’s about time to make a few cuts.  Vin Mazzaro pitched two innings and gave up a run on two hits.  Andy Oliver is still Andy Oliver giving up two walks and three hits as he allowed two runs.  The southpaw did get a strikeout in his inning of work.

It’s easy to tell what the scouts see in Mazzaro and Oliver.  It’s also really easy to tell how they ended up in Pittsburgh.  Both have live arms, but both need work.

The offense continues to frustrate us.  Andrew McCutchen was oh-fer, Tony Sanchez was oh-fer (now hitting .154) but the work he did with Burnett on the mound was simply amazing.  In the postgame, Burnett said he tried to get a ball past Sanchez but couldn’t.   Josh Harrison continues to look like he is not going to make the club with another 0h-fer on the day–Harrison has one hit this spring.

Ivan DeJesus was a late addition to the lineup and hit a bomb to bring his average to triple threes.

In looking at todays box score, DeJesus is one player that is surprising us a bit early on in camp. It’s not hard for us to see DeJesus, Jr being on the Opening Day roster especially with the other utility middle infielders doing little to impress when the games are played.

Travis Snider murdered a double which was nice to see.  But it’s hard to watch some of the players we had (at least some level) of expectation including Jerry Sands whose average dropped to .158.  We thought Oliver might be a surprise, but it’s been the opposite.

Heh, it’s still early, and there is no way possible that Jose Tabata won’t get some action in one of the two games tomorrow, but it would be cool if there was something to get pumped about other than Tabata and DeJesus.    It’s cool that some cuts are coming so we can focus in on just what the Bucs will look like in 2013.   And it gets really hard trying to spell all of these names too.

But seriously, is it really hard to determine that Clint Robinson needs some work?

April 1 is getting closer—-DONT FORGET TO SPRING AHEAD— and it’s still hard to make a distinction of how the Bucs will fare early in their tough schedule.   It would be a bit easier if some of the projects were moved to Pirates City, so fans could get a clear look at the core squad.