Pittsburgh Pirates home stand review for 8/1-8/8

Starting Pitching 

The horrid start to the week left fans wondering what in the world happened to Jameson Taillon?

After an excellent first half, the promising second-year man hit a little wall, allowing 17 runs in two outings. Jamo returned to the bump for Sunday’s series finale with San Diego, and after the Padres had put up a two-spot in the first inning, it looked like this disturbing trend would continue. Taillon settled down, however, and finished the afternoon having allowed just those two early runs in 6.1 innings. Considering his snakebit past, Taillon’s health is always a concern. Hopefully, Sunday’s performance is the JT we’ll see, by and large, for the rest of this season.

Trevor Williams’ surprisingly solid 2017 continued last Wednesday night. Although he faltered in the sixth, Williams still turned in 5.1 innings of quality work, allowing two earned runs (one of them was an inherited runner) and keeping the Bucs in the game. As mentioned above,
Williams pitched the best game of his young career Monday night. The emergence of Williams as a reliable starting pitcher looks to be one of the positives to take into 2018.

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Just as Williams did the night before, Chad Kuhl gave fans hope for the future with a dominant outing last Thursday night. Kuhl pitched seven shutout innings, continuing his solid run of form. Kuhl retook the bump the next Tuesday. Although he faltered in the sixth, Kuhl shut the Tigers down for five frames, continuing his dominant run of form.

Both Williams and Kuhl are proving themselves to be more than just serviceable as back-end starters, and they are making their case for being part of the Pirates plans for 2018 and beyond.

Ivan Nova’s struggles continued Friday night. Although Nova’s stat line of one earned run through six innings might make it appear as if he had a good evening, those who watched probably saw things a little differently.

It is true that an error by David Freese contributed to three San Diego runs in the fourth, but so did Nova allowing a dinger to the light hitting Carlos Asuaje, which brought home two of those tallies. Aside from the four total runs Nova gave up, the Padres made plenty of hard contact against him, and that has been a disturbing trend for quite some time now.

Gerrit Cole didn’t have his best stuff Saturday night but still turned in a respectable six innings of work, allowing three runs. Cole has been the Pirates best pitcher in the second half, and they will need him to be for the rest of 2017, 2018 and hopefully many years going forward.

So to recap, the Pittsburgh Pirates got excellent showings from Williams and Kuhl, a mix of beautiful and terrible from Taillon, as well as performances from Cole and Nova that left a lot to be desired. Of the eight starting pitching performances that we saw this homestand, five were excellent, one was awful, and two were mixed. While it wasn’t perfect by any stretch, the emergence of the Pirates young back-end starters is enough for me to give the pitchers an excellent grade for this report card.

Grade: A-

Offense

Since Taillon allowed eight runs, we don’t need to discuss what the Pirates offense did last Tuesday night.

The next night was little better. Despite facing a starting pitcher who came into the night a 7.86 earned run average, the Bucs managed a lousy two runs. To make matters worse, those tallies came after Reds starter Robert Stephenson left the game. Andrew McCutchen had two hits, tho. So that’s something positive if expected.

Right from the get-go, the Bucco bats were on in the series finale. The Pirates scored two in the first, two in the third, and finished things off with two in the seventh to compliment Chad Kuhl’s best start of 2017. Four different players had multi-hit nights, with Starling Marte and David Freese each producing three hits. Arguably the best part of it all was that John Jaso broke a month-long hitless streak with a little poke in the seventh.

After struggling to get much going against journeyman Travis Wood Friday night, the Bucco bats came alive in the seventh inning. Trailing 6-4, a three-run pinch-hit jack by Gregory Polanco gave Pittsburgh the lead, and it never looked back, scoring three more times in the frame to put the game out of reach.

Saturday was similar to what we saw in the Cincinnati series in that an awful pitcher dominated the Pirates. Dinelson Lamet allowed one hit over 5.1 innings of work. Nothing more needs to be said about that.

Although the Bucs scored four runs against another scrub in Clayton Richard, it would have been fantastic if they had gotten just one or two more tallies to put the game to bed before extra innings. Granted, this would have eliminated the possibility of Serpico’s heroics, but a pitcher as poor as Richard has been this season should not be throwing six innings, and it almost cost the Bucs.

The bats couldn’t get much done against Jordan Zimmerman Monday night, but one run was all they would need. Fortunately, they added two more in the seventh when Jaso hit a two-out, two-run homer to put the game out of reach.

After a Marte single had started the scoring and a McCutchen homer gave Chad Kuhl some breathing room, the Pirates starter helped his cause with a two-out, two-run single in the fourth that pushed the lead to 4-0. The Bucs added two more runs to end the homestand on a positive note offensively.

Despite scoring six or more times on three occasions this week, the offense struggled with starting pitchers that it should not have had a hard time with. Richard, Lamet and Zimmerman should not have done as well as they did against this team. If the Pirates have any hope of catching the Chicago Cubs and winning the NL Central, they will need to take advantage of tomato cans on the mound.

Grade: C-

Bullpen

Joaquin Benoit’s Pirates career did not get off to a promising start Wednesday night. The old man allowed a go-ahead solo home run to Reds rookie and already Pirate killer Jesse Winker that proved to be the game winner. Bringing the 40-year-old Benoit in was a head scratcher by general manager Neal Huntington, as the Pirates would be better off with youngsters like Steven Brault and Edgar Santana at their disposal. Hopefully, Benoit is still somewhat serviceable. To add insult to injury, Felipe Rivero allowed two runs in the ninth which put the game out of reach.

After a quiet series finale, the ‘pen was put back to work in the series opener with San Diego. Benoit’s inauspicious Pirates career continued, as he allowed two earned runs in his .2 innings of work. The Bucs came back to win the game, but there is no reason that Benoit should be on this team.

Daniel Hudson’s horribly underwhelming run continued Saturday night. Coming in to work the eighth with the Bucs down 3-2, Hudson allowed a two-run bomb to Dusty Coleman to eliminate hope for another rally.

Sunday further proved that even Rivero is human. The relief ace took a 4-2 lead into the ninth, so the contest looked like a formality. It was not so. Rivero allowed two runs to tie it and didn’t even get a chance to finish the inning.

After a quiet Monday night, the Bucco bullpen was impressive in the final game of the home stand. It took Rivero, A.J. Schugel and George Kontos a combined 25 pitches to secure Tuesday’s win. The addition of Kontos, in particular, has been a positive thus far.

Despite doing its job in the final two games of the home stand, the bullpen continues to be shaky. Things have looked considerably better in the two games that Kontos has been on the team, and hopefully, that is a sign of things to come. Nonetheless, the ‘pen has been a detriment to the Pirates all year long, and as with the offense, that needs to change.

Grade: C- 

Overall

This home stand was hard to get a handle on. Yes, the Pirates won five of the eight games they played, and yes, they ended the stretch on a three-game win streak. At the same time, when the three opponents you face are a combined 43 games below .500, going 5-3 in that stretch isn’t something to throw a parade over.

Losing two of three to the poor pitiful Reds is not acceptable. Every Pirate fan knows about the struggles this team has had with Cincy over the past four seasons, and it continues to be aggravating. Luckily, the Bucs ended that series on a high note and have played good baseball for the most part ever since. Going 6-2 or 7-1 on this home stand, however, would have been much sweeter than 5-3. I think that is something that everybody can attest to.

Next: Ivan Nova Needs to Reverse His Recent Trends

The important thing to take from all of this is that, somehow, the Pittsburgh Pirates are only 3.5 games out of first place in the Central. While I still do not expect them to win the division by any stretch, it looks more and more apparent by the day that this team could be in it till the bitter end.

In short, if the Pirates have any hope of making the playoffs, going 5-3 at home against three crap teams will not cut it.

Overall grade: C