Pittsburgh Pirates road trip report card for 8/9 – 8/16

Another Pirates road trip is in the books. This week, the Bucs traveled to Detroit for two games with the Tigers, then to the great white north for three with the Toronto Blue Jays, and finally to Milwaukee for two more with the Brewers. Boy, was this stretch an ugly one.

After an encouraging end to the last home stand, the road trip started in ugly fashion. Justin Verlander was in command, Ivan Nova wasn’t, and the Pirates’ bullpen imploded to make for a 10-0 Tiger romp Wednesday night.

The Bucs rebounded the next day. Three hits by Adam Frazier, along with home runs by Josh Bell and Sean Rodriguez contributed to seven runs. This was enough to back eight strong innings from Gerrit Cole for a 7-5 win.

Next on the horizon was three games with the Blue Jays. The series got off to a positive start Friday night.  A combination of quality work from Jameson Taillon and some not-so-quality defense from Toronto propelled the Bucs to a 4-2 win.

The last two games in Canada were not kind to Pittsburgh. Neither Trevor Williams nor Chad Kuhl had their best stuff, and it led to consecutive lopsided losses.

After an off day Monday, the Bucs returned to action for a two-game set with the hated Brewers Although Nova looked like the pitcher we saw at the beginning of the season, the Pirates offense could not get much done against Zach Davies and the Bucs lost another one, 3-1.

Wednesday’s contest was particularly frustrating. Although the Pirates had leads of 4-0, 5-4 and 6-5, they could not hold on and fell 7-6, ending the road trip with an awful 2-5 mark.

There were limited positives, and an abundance of negatives to take from this past week. Here is a breakdown of all of it, written in a “report card” format.

Pitching 

After a hot start to the season, Ivan Nova has cooled down. That was evident last Wednesday. Despite allowing a lot of smashed baseballs Nova should have ended the evening with a decent stat line of three earned runs over six innings. For whatever reason, Clint Hurdle decided to let him pitch the seventh, and that resulted in three more Tiger tallies.

Nova took the ball again Tuesday night in Milwaukee. As mentioned above, he was excellent. Nova pitched six innings, allowing just two unearned runs, and falling victim to poor defense from Josh Bell and little offensive support in the 3-1 loss.

I’m not sold on Nova at all. But Tuesday was a step in the right direction. Hopefully, he ends the season with a decent enough stat line so the Pirates can get a decent return for him in a trade.

If there is a player who defines what 2017 has been like for the Pirates, it’s Gerrit Cole. As with the team overall, Cole has been up-and-down all year long.  This week was a perfect example of that.

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Last Thursday was one of Cole’s good days. He threw his seventh consecutive quality start allowing three runs over eight innings, and leading the Pirates to victory.

The following Wednesday was one of Cole’s bad days. Despite being spotted a 4-0 lead, he allowed four earned runs. To make matters worse, Cole’s year long home run troubles are continuing, as all four of the runs he allowed came by way of the long ball.

To be blunt, if Cole pitched better, the Bucs would have won the game and left Wisconsin with a series split. But it was not to be. It’s getting harder to trust Cole to be the consistently dominant pitcher that we’ve been hoping for.

After a rough stretch, Jameson Taillon was stellar for the second straight outing Friday night. Jamo pitched six innings, allowing just two runs, leaving with a 4-2 lead that the bullpen preserved.

Trevor Williams and Chad Kuhl have both been solid recently. Sadly, they each took a step back last weekend. Williams struggled Saturday, walking four men and allowing four runs. Kuhl hit a speed bump Sunday, allowing five first inning tallies. I wouldn’t make much of one rough outing each for these guys. Both Kuhl and Williams have been bright spots in what has been a frustrating season, and they are earning the benefit of the doubt.

So to recap, the Pirates got three excellent outings, one subpar performance, and three clunkers. The rotation has been a positive for the most part. But this is a young staff, and this week showed that these pitchers still has plenty of room to grow. The starters were inconsistent, which is fitting for this season.

Grade: C-

Offense 

After not getting anything done against Verlander Wednesday night, the Bucco bats jumped all over Drew VerHagen in the series finale, touching up the Detroit starter for six runs over just 3.2 innings. The runs would prove to be vital, as the Tigers made it interesting with two tallies in the ninth inning before Felipe Rivero buckled down to nail down the 7-5 W.

Upon heading to the great white north, the Bucs had a tough assignment Friday night in Blue Jays ace Marcus Stroman. Although Stroman pitched well, going eight innings without allowing an earned run, the defense behind him let him down. Big time. Two errors from second baseman Rob Refsnyder played a leading part in Pittsburgh’s four-run third inning. That was all the offense the Bucs needed.

The Pirates scored a total of four runs in the next three contests. Chris Rowley, J.A. Happ and Zach Davies – none of which are impressive – silenced the Bucco bats for the most part, and that is a big reason why Pittsburgh struggled in those three games.

Pittsburgh’s offensive attack finally woke up Wednesday afternoon. So of course, the starting pitching and bullpen stunk to negate that performance. Josh Bell had three hits, while Starling Marte and Chris Stewart added two apiece to contribute to six runs. Sadly, the rest of the team ruined it.

Overall, the offense didn’t accomplish a lot this week. Not counting either weekday afternoon game, or Friday night’s goofy third inning, the Bucs scored a total of four runs on this road trip. That’s not okay.

Gregory Polanco’s recent return to the disabled list won’t make things any easier, either. Aside from Bell and Andrew McCutchen, there hasn’t been a lot of consistency from this group. That will need to change for this team to remain somewhat in the NL Central race.

Grade: D

Overall

The Pirates began this road trip with a big opportunity to gain some ground. They were facing two sub-.500 teams and a club that came into the series having lost six of its past eight. The Bucs had a lot going for them but ended the trip with a horrendous mark of 1-5.

It’s hard to say anything unique about this team as a whole. I’ll bet that nobody has referenced Katy Perry on Rum Bunter in a while, so here it goes:

They’re hot then they’re cold. They’re yes then they’re no. They’re in then they’re out. They’re up then they’re down. On this road trip, the Pirates were cold, no, out and down.

The Bucs are 5.5 games out of first place and are playing awful baseball. So, it would be hard to blame fans for losing hope at this point. This is not a good baseball team and not one that is easy to get excited about. At the same time, it seems that whenever the 2017 Pittsburgh Pirates are on life support, they fight back, and give us fans reason to care. This is both exciting, and frustrating.

On the one hand, meaningful baseball late in the season is fun. At the same time, weeks like this make me want to hibernate until next April.

Next: The Bucs Need New Approach Offensively

Things look horrible. They’re not hitting well, the starting pitching comes and goes and the bullpen hasn’t been trustworthy all year. As we’ve seen in 2017, however, things look the darkest right before the dawn. We’ll see how much longer this holds true.

Overall grade: F