Pittsburgh Pirates homestand report card for week of 5/3 – 5/8

With the latest Pittsburgh Pirates homestand now in the rear view mirror, it’s time to dish out some grades for the team

The most recent Pittsburgh Pirates homestand started with a beat down, ended with a collapse and featured some exciting baseball in between. So, in short, it had a little bit of everything!

Pittsburgh started a six-game stretch against the AL West Friday night and lost to Josh “Mike Piazza” Phegley and the A’s, 14-1. The Bucs gutted out a 6-4 win Saturday night and ended the series Sunday with a three-run walk-off homer from Starling Marte, capping a four-run 13th inning.

After an off-day Monday, the Texas Rangers came to PNC Park. Behind a gutsy bullpen and a Gregory Polanco homer, the Pirates earned a gritty 5-4 victory on Tuesday night. Pittsburgh should have earned a sweep of the quick two-game series on Wednesday afternoon, but thanks to their manager and Michael Feliz, fans watched a 6-2 lead quickly, and painfully, turn into a 9-6 loss in just two innings.

Here is a breakdown of how the Pirates performed this week in the game’s key areas. This is my first “report card” article of 2019. Here it goes.

Starting pitching

Given the circumstances, it’s hard to complain about the job the starting rotation did this past week.

It’s not easy for any pitching staff to lose arguably its top two starters in a seven day window. That’s what the Pittsburgh Pirates had to deal with when first Chris Archer and then Jameson Taillon went on the injured list.

While it wasn’t pretty, the starting pitchers dealt with it the situation reasonably well.

The home stand got off to a rough start. Joe Musgrove got shelled Friday night in a blowout loss against Oakland. This was followed by a mediocre outing from Trevor Williams Saturday.

Things got better from there, however.

Jordan Lyles continued his excellent 2019 with 6.2 innings of one-run ball Sunday. While Steve Brault and Nick Kingham hardly resembled Koufax and Drysdale, the two came into a tough spot as emergency starters and gave the Pirates a chance to win.

So, while there was only one standout performance over this short home stand, given what the Bucs rotation was up against, I think a solid “B” is a fair grade.

Offense

It wasn’t quite banner stretch for Bucco bats. However, it was not awful, either.

The offense started the Oakland series with a quiet performance Friday (as if it mattered) and went 10 innings without scoring in Sunday’s series finale. Saturday night, the bats didn’t get much done for six innings outside of two Josh Bell bombs. In the seventh, however, a two-run triple by Kevin Newman started the clutch hitting trend that would continue for the rest of the homestand. The hit also proved to be the hit that was the difference in a 6-4 win.

Tuesday night against Texas, the red hot Melky Cabrera continued this trend with a two-run, pinch-hit double, giving the Pirates a lead they wouldn’t give up. The bats then put up six runs Wednesday afternoon, but thanks to Clint Hurdle, that ended up being for naught.

The lineup still isn’t at full-strength as Corey Dickerson is still on the IL, as is Lonnie Chisenhall who was expected to be the fourth outfielder as a key bench piece. As for the healthy players, Jung Ho Kang and Francisco Cervelli have been awful, Colin Moran has been underwhelming and while he looks to be turning it around, Starling Marte’s overall performance has left a lot to be desired.

Pittsburgh probably won’t be an offensive juggernaut at any point in 2019, but if nothing else, this week showed that the bats are capable of timely hits. Which was a welcome surprise after their early season woes with RISP. Hopefully, it continues to do that over the impending 11-game road trip.

Managing

Oh, boy. While it’d be easy to make this section an all-out burial of Clint Hurdle, let’s be fair for a second. The Pirates manager was a big reason the team won Tuesday night.

He pulled Brault at the perfect time, and from there, pushed all the right buttons in running his bullpen. As good as Hurdle was Tuesday, however, he was equally terrible Wednesday.

Between Sunday evening and Wednesday afternoon, Kyle Crick and Felipe Vazquez had thrown 29 pitches between them. Yet, for some reason, Crick was deemed unavailable Wednesday. Vazquez was available, but Hurdle inexplicably saved him for the ninth inning. As a result, Feliz gave up a game-tying grand slam, and all hell broke loose.

In the ninth, with the game now tied thanks to Hurdle’s gaffe in judgment, the skipper didn’t use baseball’s best closer either, and the Pirates allowed three runs and lost the game. In between, he let Tyler Lyons bat in a tie game. Yeah.

I badly want to give Hurdle an F and feel I would be justified in doing so. Because of his brilliance Tuesday, however, we’ll go with a D-.

Hopefully, moving forward, Hurdle will be better.