Video: Pirates Fall To Rays, But Gerrit Cole Pitched!

Umm, that was pretty ugly.  The Pittsburgh Pirates couldn’t get out of their own way at McKechnie Field, and got smoked by the Tampa Bay Rays.  The Bucs made three errors in the first two innings, yeh, it was ugly, which led to three unearned runs.

Neil Walker threw high to Garret Jones, but he couldn’t hang on.   Brad Hawpe (which rhymes with Bad Hop)  let a bloop single get past him.  Catcher Michael McKenry called for a sky high pop up and then got out of the way as Pedro Alvarez tried to track it down.  It landed right in front of the plate and hilariously, ended up in a Little League triple.     Immediately after the embrassament A.J. Burnett threw a pitch in the dirt allowing the runner to score from third.

The spring debut of the Bucs ace was indeed rough.  Burnett gave up four hits, most of them stung a little bit, over his two innings.

Burnett focused on his fastball–mainly keeping it away and his change.   The notorious curveball stayed on the shelf.

Gerrit Cole looked alright to us.  In fact, he appeared to have the best stuff of the Bucs staff today, especially since Burnett didn’t throw his curveball.   Sure, Cole still needs some work, but he pitched fine today in his debut.  He was deliberate in his delivery allowing a few stolen bases.  But still, the kid impressed me.  Even when he gets frustrated and kicks the dirt a little bit.

The velocity was strong.  Cole showed o.k. command.   He wasn’t firing first pitch strikes to everyone like he did in the scrimmage, but oh well.   (The wild pitch–wasn’t wild.  Cole fired it right off the glove of Lucas May)

Before we get on the airplane, here you go.  I hope to get more up over the next few days.

We swear we had some pics of Jose Tabata for you…can’t. locate. them.    Of course, there are over 800 from today.  So maybe that’s it.

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Before he heads off to join Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic,  Jameson Taillon will indeed get the start Thursday against the Red Sox as was speculated earlier.