Pittsburgh Pirates Report Card for week of 4/28-5/4

Bullpen: C-

It’s hard to evaluate the Pirates bullpen this week, as out of the seven games on the road trip, the ‘pen was only tested in two of them, as these games saw plenty of blowouts. Sadly, the ‘pen and didn’t fare well in either test.

On Sunday, an injury to starter Chad Kuhl forced the firemen into action early. The result was not a pretty one, as five relief pitchers combined to allow six earned runs- five of which given up by the struggling Daniel Hudson in his .1 innings of work.

Hudson’s rough run continued at Great American Ballpark Monday night when Hurdle called on him to keep the ballgame tied at 3 in the bottom of the tenth. He did not get the job done, and the Reds won it on a walk-off from the great Billy Hamilton.

So, while the Bucco bullpen had a pretty relaxed week- heck, they weren’t needed at all on Saturday, on the two occasions in which they were required to come up big, they did not do it. The struggles of Hudson, in particular, are concerning, as he is supposed to be a critical back-end guy. I still like the bullpen as a whole, but it will be interesting to see how they perform if the starting pitching regresses.