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

Another home stand is in the books. This week, the Pittsburgh Pirates hosted the Cincinnati Reds, San Diego Padres and Detroit Tigers for eight games at PNC Park. Starting the stretch a disappointing 2-3, Pittsburgh rebounded to take its final three games to finish the home stand with a 5-3 record.

The stretch got off to a pathetic, yet all too familiar start. The Pirates were curb stomped by the Reds last Tuesday night in an 8-1 laugher that included a three-run homer by Billy Hamilton. 

Wednesday night brought more disappointment. Although the contest was somewhat exciting until the ninth inning, the result was the same, as the Bucs fell, 5-2.

The series finale gave us a glimpse of what Pittsburgh should have been doing to the stinky Reds all year long. The Bucs clicked on all cylinders and won 6-0.

Next on the horizon were the hapless San Deigo Padres. The Bucs continued their momentum through a long series opener Friday night, as the combination of a two-hour rain delay and an offensive showcase made the contest a little more eventful than it was supposed to be. A six-run seventh inning propelled Pittsburgh to an important 10-6 win.

Frustration reared its ugly head again Saturday night. The Pirate offense only managed one hit off of tomato can Dinelson Lamet. A pair of late runs off the San Diego bullpen was not enough, and the Bucs fell 5-2.

The series ended in exciting fashion. What looked to be a pedestrian Pirate victory turned into one of the more exciting games of the season. Felipe Rivero’s first blown save of the campaign was a blessing in disguise, as the returning Sean Rodriguez sent the city into a frenzy with a walk-off bomb in the 12th to give Pittsburgh a refreshing series win.

Next up were the Detriot Tigers. The good vibes from Sunday carried over to Monday night, thanks to the continued success of starting pitcher Trevor Williams. The kid is alright, and was more than alright Monday, allowing no runs and just one hit in seven innings of work. Juan Nicasio and newcomer George Kontos did the rest, aided by a pinch-hit jack from John Jaso, and the Bucs cruised to a 3-0 win.

The final game of the home stand saw another three-run W. Six well-pitched innings from Chad Kuhl, along with Andrew McCutchen’s 23rd homer of the campaign propelled the Bucs to a 6-3 win, ending the stretch on a high note.

This home stand saw plenty of highs and lows, and I will break them all down, discussing how the Pirates performed in the key facets of the game using a “report card” format. Let’s get into it.

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-

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.

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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