Pittsburgh Pirates: Grading Series Loss Against the Tigers

The Starting Rotation

Friday night, Chad Kuhl made his first start since June 2018 and he was dominant. In 4 innings of work the only hit he allowed was a solo home runs. He threw just 56 pitches, and struck out seven Tiger batters.

With Kuhl cruising, manager Derek Shelton made the maddening decision to pull him for Steven Brault to stick with their piggybacking plans. Shelton did the same thing to Brault in a start at Wrigley field last weekend when he had pitched 3 perfect innings, but, luckily, that decision did not come back to burn the Pirates as Kuhl pitched well. Pulling Kuhl, as we will get into more later, however, proved to be a disaster.

Moving forward, Shelton and the Pittsburgh Pirates just need to roll with Kuhl as a starting pitcher. He looks as healthy as ever and has the stuff to be a very good MLB starter. It’s time to ditch the piggybacking.

Saturday afternoon Derek Holland made his third Pirate start. He allowed 5 runs on four home runs against the first five batters he faced. This was the first time in Pirate franchise history that they allowed four home runs in the 1st inning of a game.

While Holland battled to get into the 6th inning with the Pirate bullpen taxed, his final line was ugly. In 5+ innings of work, Holland was charged with 9 runs on 13 hits, a walk, five home runs, and six strikeouts.

Sunday, scheduled starter Joe Musgrove was scratched due to an ankle issue. This led to the game being a bullpen game for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Verdict 

The Pirates wound up only have two starting pitchers take the mound in this series. One was dominant, while the other had a historically bad 1st inning. As a result, the overall grade meets somewhere in the middle.

Grade: C