Pittsburgh Pirates Swept By the Cubs, World Hasn’t Ended

The Pittsburgh Pirates got swept by the Chicago Cubs and fell six games out of first place in the National League Central Division. Read on for a recap and analysis:

Game One:

Winning Pitcher: Jason Hammel (4-0)

Losing Pitcher: Gerrit Cole (2-3)

Andrew McCutchen gave the Pittsburgh Pirates an early 1-0 lead with a solo home run in the first inning. However, Jason Hammel shut the Pittsburgh Pirate bats down after that and the Cubs’ offense was able to take the lead off of two runs in the third inning. The Cubs then blew the game open in the fifth inning with four runs to give them a 6-1 lead. The Pirates put runners on second and third base in the home half of the inning with no outs, but were only able to get one run out of it. The Cubs bullpen shut the Pirates down from there and added another run on a Kyle Lobstein wild pitch in the seventh inning.

Game Two:

Winning Pitcher: Jake Arrieta (6-0)

Losing Pitcher: Jon Niese (3-1)

Jake Arrieta appeared human early when he issued back-to-back walks to the first two Pittsburgh Pirate batters of the game. However, the Pirates were unable to capitalize and he settled into a groove only allowing two hits and striking out five over seven scoreless innings. Meanwhile the Cubs bats staked Arrieta a 6-0 lead through four innings. The Pirates were able to get on the board when John Jaso grounded out with runners on the corners, but the Cubs got that run back in the ninth inning to provide the final score of 7-1.

Game Three:

Winning Pitcher: Jon Lester (3-1)

Losing Pitcher: Juan Nicasio (3-3)

The Cubs took advantage of Pirates’ miscues to go up early. The Cubs put two runners on without getting a hit in the third inning before Ben Zobrist hit a home run to put the Cubs up 3-0, and all three runs were unearned due to an error by Andrew McCutchen. The Pirates had a chance to get back into the game when they loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth inning. Unfortunately, they were unable to capitalize and the Pirates remained scoreless. The Cubs added insurance runs in the fifth and seventh innings to go up 5-0 before Matt Joyce got the Pirates on the board with a 2-run home run in the home half of the seventh. That would be all the scoring the Pirates would get on the afternoon though and the Cubs added a run in the ninth inning to set the final at 6-2 Cubs.

Pirate of the Series: Andrew McCutchen

The selection of Andrew McCutchen as the Pirate of the series this time is more of a statement on how poor the Pirates were as a whole in this series. He only went 3 for 12 with 3 strikeouts and a walk, but that was still among the best offensive performances by any Pirate in this series. Additionally, he did hit a home run in the first inning of the opener to give the Pirates their only lead of the series. He also did drive in the only other Pirate run in that game, albeit in the form of a ground out. One of his other hits was also a double, one of only two Pirates extra base hits in the final game of the series. Unfortunately, there isn’t really much else positive to say. Hopefully, Cutch’s decent, though not great, offensive performance against the Cubs’ fearsome pitching staff is indicative of an overall improvement in his play.

Takeaways, Observations, and other Random Thoughts

Jake Arrieta Continues to Dominate

Jake Arrieta has continued to be an unsolvable problem for not only the Pittsburgh Pirates, but to all of Major League Baseball. I keep continuing to expect him to come back to earth, but he has yet to. The fact of the matter is that Arrieta saw a large jump in the quality of his play after he was traded to the Cubs from the Orioles in 2013 and he had a breakout year last season that saw him win the Cy Young Award. Because of that, I do not ascribe his uptick in play to PED’s like many are alleging (including the intoxicated gentleman walking behind me on the Clemente Bridge after the game on Tuesday), but rather to either a general maturing or improved coaching. While I’m willing to admit that Arrieta is a fantastic pitcher without the benefit of artificial enhancement, I do think he will begin to pitch at a less superhuman level. For the season, he is currently 6-0 in six starts with a 0.84 ERA, stats and performance that definitely put him on track for his second straight Cy Young Award. However, he currently has a .176 BABIP (abnormally low) and he has a FIP and xFIP that are, while still very good, are much higher than his ERA (2.78 FIP and 3.03 xFIP). Because of this, I expect his performance to regress to normal ace levels.

Can the Cubs be Caught?

Not just Arrieta, but the rest of the Cubs pitching staff has led them to a 20-6 start that puts them six games ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the race for the NL Central title just over a month into the season. Many national media outlets were anointing the Cubs as not only the division champs, but World Series champs, before the season even started. While the Cubs’ hot start is making them look smart right now, it is still early in the season, less than a quarter of the way through, and the Pirates and Cubs have only played three of their 19 games in 2016. However, the Cubs have built up an impressive advantage and the Pirates pitching staff currently cannot hope to keep pace with Chicago. While I don’t expect the Cubs to have a .769 winning percentage through the entire season, only partially because that would equal an unprecedented 125 wins, I do think that is unlikely that the Pirates will be able to overtake them by the end of the season.

Cubs Fans

I would also like to take this opportunity to just mention that Cubs fans have become insufferable in a relatively short period of time. I sat in left field on Tuesday night when Arrieta pitched and had pockets of Cubs fans surrounding me. There was one guy in a Sammy Sosa jersey in the front row that had to be told to sit during the game by an usher. Most annoyingly was a woman who gave such loud and shrill cheers between literally every pitch regardless of outcome that I feel even her home fans would have gotten sick of her in short order. While these are anecdotes, I have gotten the overall impression that some Cubs fans become have entitled and insufferable in a very short period of time without having won anything in literally over a hundred years. It’s possible that they got this attitude from the fans of their traditional rivals in St. Louis, but I think it has more to do with the attention they’ve gotten from the national media. In any case, this unfortunate development will likely continue for the foreseeable future as the Cubs will likely be a thorn in the Pirates’ side for years to come.

Jon Niese Disappoints

When Neil Walker was traded to the New York Mets, it was expected that the player he was traded straight up for, Jon Niese, would be under a microscope this season given Walker’s popularity among Pittsburgh fans. While Niese’s results were good to start with, going 3-0 through his first five starts, his peripherals were less than stellar. He had a 5.08 ERA and a 5.78 FIP in those 5 games and was giving up 2.22 home runs per nine innings. While he did not give up any home runs in his start against the Cubs, his subpar peripherals finally came back to bit him as he gave up six Earned Runs and five walks over only five innings of work. Niese’s struggles have already been written about on this site, so I don’t need to go into too much detail, but I will say that while I did not expect Niese to be an ace I expected much more out of him. Probably the worst thing about this though is that it gives a certain segment of Pirates fans who were (are) obsessed with Neil Walker reason to hate on the front office, though they do that anyways.

Pirates Unlucky

While the biggest reason that the Pittsburgh Pirates got swept was due to their disappointing pitching staff (especially compared to the Cubs currently unbeatable staff) the Pirates offense did not do them any favors. Pirates’ batters went two for 19 with runners in scoring position and left 22 on base over the entire series. As I’ve said before and will say again, clutch hitting is not real despite what some uninformed commenters will call in to say on the radio. Stats like that will tend to even out over time, just as they did after the Pirates did poorly in similar situations during the second series of the season in Cincinnati but flipped the script in subsequent series. If anything, the Pirates poor hitting in these situations can be prescribed to a combination of bad luck and the excellent pitching of the Cubs.

Pirates Pitching

As I mentioned earlier, the Pirates pitching, particularly their starting pitching is dreadful this season. Many are pointing to the cheapness of the front office in not getting another starter. While the fact of the matter is that Niese, as mentioned above, has been nowhere near as good as was expected and that shouldn’t be pinned on the front office, I at least was expecting the Pirates to sign another middle of the rotation starter throughout the offseason. When that didn’t happen, I was disappointed but was still confident in the combination of Francisco Liriano and Gerrit Cole at the top of the rotation. Unfortunately, neither has been anywhere near the top of their game thus far this season with Cole’s recent weak start coming to mind. The fact of the matter is that no one would be nearly as upset over the poor performance/uncertainty at the back end of the rotation if Liriano and Cole were doing what we all expected them to do. While Liriano has inspired some confidence of late, Cole is supposed to be the ace of this rotation and he is currently pitching like a middle of the rotation starter. Working in the Pirates’ favor is that Cole is still only 24 years old and should not be considered a finished product and Jameson Taillon at least will likely be adding some depth to the pitching staff at some point this season.

Next: MLB Draft: 2016 Top High School Arms

Relax

Everyone needs to relax. Despite the pitching struggles, this is still a good baseball team that has room to improve. I’m optimistic that Andrew McCutchen will soon be hitting like his old self and at least some members of the pitching staff will step up. Combined with Taillon and/or Tyler Glasnow potentially being meaningful contributors this season and the imminent return of Jung Ho Kang, I expect the team to only get better as the season goes on. I still believe that this team will win around 85-90 games, which will hopefully be enough to make the playoffs again. Unfortunately, the Pirates have the misfortune of being stuck, once again, in an incredibly tough division. I would be surprised if the Pirates don’t end the season with their fourth straight winning season and are competing for a playoff spot right to the end.

Series Result: Pirates swept 0-3

Season Record: 15-13 (2^nd in NL Central)

Series Record: 5-4

Prediction Result: Correctly predicted a Pirates series loss (3-6)

Next up: The Pirates travel to St. Louis to take on the Cardinals for the first time since the 2016 Opening Series