Pirates-Padres Series Recap

Pirates drop 2 of 3 to the Padres. Read on for a recap and analysis:

Game One:

Winning Pitcher: Colin Rea (1-1)

Losing Pitcher: Francisco Liriano (1-1)

Save: Fernando Rodney (2)

The Pirates couldn’t hold onto a 3-0 lead and dropped the series opener by a 5-4 score. The Pirates got off to a quick start when David Freese singled in Andrew McCutchen in the First inning to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead. The Pirates doubled their lead when McCutchen scored again on a controversial balk in the Third inning. Padres Pitcher Colin Rea made a quick hop during a pitch to Francisco Cervelli that was barely, but still legally, a balk. With Starling Marte on Second base and McCutchen on Third base, both runners advanced to give the Pirates a run. However, the umpire crew huddled and decided that it wasn’t a balk and sent McCutchen back to Third base. Hurdle came out to argue and was convincing enough to force the Umpires to huddle again. They once again reversed their call and awarded the Pirates the run. Padres first year manager Andy Green was not happy about this decision, came out to argue, and received his first career ejection. That was about the last thing that went right for the Pirates though. After adding to their lead again in the Fourth inning, the Padres made it a one run ballgame when Wil Myers hit a 2-run Home Run in the bottom half of the Fourth inning. The next inning the Padres took the lead on another 2-run Homer, this one hit by Catcher Derek Norris, and Francisco Liriano’s night was done. Arquimedes Caminero came in and gave up Home Run to his first batter faced and the Padres were up 5-3. Ryan Vogelsong and A.J. Schugel came in after and pitched three scoreless frames. The Pirates had a chance to come back in the Eighth inning when they had runners on the corners with no outs, but they were only able to get one run out of this situation. Matt Joyce, pinch-hitting for Vogelsong, struck out, then everyone was safe with a run scored when Second Baseman Adam Rosales committed a throwing error on a John Jaso ground-ball. Unfortunately, Andrew McCutchen grounded into an inning ending double play and the Pirates went down in order in the Ninth inning.

Game Two:

Winning Pitcher: Drew Pomeranz (2-1)

Losing Pitcher: Jeff Locke (0-2)

Jeff Locke had another poor outing, giving up 8 Earned Runs over only 3+ Innings Pitched. Locke’s troubles began in the Second Inning when he gave up 4 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks. It could have been much worse as he got Matt Kemp to ground into an inning ending double play with the bases loaded and only one out. His troubles continued as he gave up 3 runs on 4 hits, a walk, and a Wild Pitch to give the Padres a 7-0 lead. Locke came in to pitch the Fourth inning, but after he gave up a leadoff Home Run to Matt Kemp and issued a walk to Melvin Upton, Jr. his night was over. Kyle Lobstein and A.J. Schugel came in and pitched 5 scoreless innings, giving up only 1 hit, but the damage had been done. Meanwhile the Pirates could get nothing done against Padres starter Drew Pomeranz, who pitched 6.2 innings, giving up only 1 Unearned Run off of 4 hits and striking out 10. The Pirates added solitary runs in the Seventh and Eighth innings, but it was way too little too late.

Game Three:

Winning Pitcher: Gerrit Cole (1-2)

Losing Pitcher: James Shields (0-3)

The Pirates finally got a good game from one of their starting pitchers in this series on a night when they didn’t really need it. Gerrit Cole looked great in his third start of the season going 6 scoreless innings and only giving up 4 hits, all singles. He also had 7 strikeouts and no walks on the night. The Pirates offense helped him out by scoring 1 run in the Second inning and 2 runs in the Fourth Inning to give the Pirates a 3-0 lead through six innings. The Pirates really broke the game open in the Seventh inning though when they scored 8 runs. The Pirates sent 14 batters to the plate and got all their runs on only 5 hits, getting baserunners on via a dropped third strike, two hit batters, and three walks (one intentional). Of the 5 hits, three were doubles and two were singles. The Padres added a meaningless run in the Eighth inning off of Rob Scahill, but Neftali Feliz and Mark Melancon pitched perfect Seventh and Ninth innings respectively and the Pirates were able to salvage a win and prevent getting swept.

Pirate of the Series: Francisco Cervelli

Deciding on the Pirate of the Series this time around was difficult. I briefly considered giving it to Gerrit Cole because he looked great in the only win of the series. However, despite the series loss there were multiple players with good performances over all games of the series. Because of this I only considered players this week that got a hit in every game of the series. That left three players, John Jaso, Starling Marte, and Francisco Cervelli. In the end, I gave the award this week to Cervelli for several reasons besides the fact that I’ve already given this honor to Jaso and Marte.

Francisco Cervelli went 4 for 12 for the series, with Jordy Mercer being the only player to have more hits than him. One of his hits went for extra bases, a double in the series opener. Another of his hits was a two-run single in the middle of the 8-run inning. This was also the hit that forced the Padres to replace reliever Leonel Campos. Another reason for Cervelli to be given this award is the versatility he showed in the series. Cervelli has played some first in his career, primarily composed of 40 innings at the position during the 2014 season when he was with the Yankees. Hurdle had apparently been wanting to send him to play First Base at some point this season and decided that this series was a good opportunity. What this flexibility does is give Cervelli more opportunities to get his bat into the lineup by letting him play the less physically demanding position of First Base. Look for this to happen in the future when the Pirates face a Left-handed Pitcher and John Jaso is placed on the bench.

Takeaways, Observations, and Other Random Thoughts

Jeff Locke Struggles

Jeff Locke’s last two starts are concerning. There was hope coming into this season that his new simplified delivery may lead to more consistency, but he has turned in two terrible starts in a row. Though you can try to chalk up his most recent start to bad luck, after all most of the 11 hits he gave up were ground balls that got through the infield, he still gave up three extra base hits, including a Home Run. Through three starts this season he has a 6.77 FIP, his strikeout rate is way down (9.9% vs. 17.0% career), and his walk rate is way up (18.3% vs. 9.5% career). You can still point to stats like his abnormally high BABIP (.429) and his high Ground Ball Percentage (62.5%) and say it isn’t too bad, but FIP and strikeout and walk rates are independent of the defense behind him and not prone to lucky or unlucky streaks. To be fair, this is only three starts, small sample sizes and whatnot, but it is still concerning. Jeff Locke is showing he is not a Major League caliber starting pitcher and he needs to string together a few quality starts to convince me he belongs in the rotation.

Francisco Liriano Troubles

Almost more concerning than Jeff Locke’s woes are those of Francisco Liriano. Since his great opening day start, he has been roughed up by Cincinnati, scratched from a start, and roughed up by the Padres. Though the Pirates and Liriano are claiming his hamstring isn’t bothering him, it’s obvious that he has had some issues with accuracy. In his start in the series opener, he walked 5 over only 4.1 innings and gave up 2 Home Runs. Like Locke, his walk rate is way up this season (19.2% vs. 10.1% career) and he has a 6.30 FIP. Liriano’s issues are more concerning because with so much uncertainty at the back-end of the Pirates rotation, it’s more important than ever that the Pirates get good starts out of Liriano and Cole. Cole has delivered in his most recent two starts, but Liriano’s performance of late is concerning. Liriano, Ray Searage, and the Pirates need to figure out what’s going on and quickly.

 What’s up with McCutchen?

After his great spring and being injury-free, there were few concerns that McCutchen would replicate his slow start to 2015. Though he is not playing nearly as poorly as he did last April, his play thus far is somewhat concerning. In this most recent series, McCutchen went 1 for 9 and had 4 strikeouts. Though he is still getting on base at a high rate (.356) thanks to his always high walk rate (15.1%), this is still way below his standard as he has had an OBP of at least .400 each of the last 4 seasons. The culprit behind this is McCutchen not hitting for average. He is currently batting .230, which is actually lowest on the team among those that qualify. So why isn’t Cutch hitting? It isn’t an abnormally high strikeout rate, his 19.2% on the season is not higher than his career of 17.3% and is actually lower than the 19.4% he had last season. I blame his abnormally low BABIP, which is currently .267. BABIP for most players tends to equalize over time to around .300 for most players, but this average is especially low for McCutchen because over his career he has a BABIP of .335. So nothing is actually wrong with McCutchen, he’s just been really unlucky so far this season.

What the Balk!

The balk in the series opener was one of the most bizarre sequences I’ve seen in recent years. It wasn’t enough that the balk is a rare occurrence and one that scores a run is even rarer. In fact the rarest thing about that whole sequence though may have been the umpires reversing a call not once, but twice without replay being used. I give credit to the umpires for making sure they got the call right because that play was a balk. Many of you may be wondering what even is a balk, they only occurred on average in 1 of every 18 Major League games in 2015, so you may not have even seen one, or not realized what was happening. The list of things that are considered a balk is long and complex, but a balk is basically any illegal attempt by the pitcher to deceive a base-runner by making it look like they are about to pitch, but then don’t in an attempt to catch them off the base. Colin Rea’s balk in the series opener is considered a balk under Rule 8.05(g) which states that “If there is a runner, or runners, it is a balk when… The pitcher makes any motion naturally associated with his pitch while he is not touching the pitcher’s plate”. As soon as Rea stepped off the rubber while he was pitching to Cervelli, he had committed a balk. Props also to Cervelli for recognizing right away that Rea had committed a balk. Other fun stats about the frequency of balk occurrence: There were 136 balks last season, with the Pirates committing 4 of them. The Cincinnati Reds committed the most with 11 and the Baltimore Orioles were the only team with zero balks last season.  So far there have been 7 balks in 2016, with the Diamondbacks, Reds, Angels, Brewers, Phillies, Nationals, and of course the Padres, each committing one.

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Series Result: Pirates lose 2-1

Season Record: 8-8

Series Record: 2-3

Prediction Result: Incorrectly predicted a Pirates series win (1-4)

Next up: The Pirates continue their western road trip when they visit the Arizona Diamondbacks for a 3 game series beginning Friday.