Lineup: Starling Marte CF, Josh Bell 1B, Cutch RF, Gregory Polanco LF, David Freese 3B, Fran Cervelli C, Josh Harrison 2B, Jordy Mercer SS & Jameson Taillon P. Starling moved to leadoff and J-Hay is back; guess his calf has loosened up after being bopped.
 |
| J-Hay is back in the lineup (photo Dave Arrigo/Pirates) |
Pitchers: Jameson Taillon (0-0, 0.00) gets his second start; he built off a nice rookie campaign with seven shutout innings against Boston. He wasn't overwhelming, but he showed maturity and moxie by working between some raindrops without letting an inning get away from him. JT was 1-0/3.27 in two starts against the Reds last season. Rookie Davis (0-0, 12.00) is indeed a rookie. The 23-year-old righty got a rude introduction to MLB hitters when the Phils chased him after three innings in his first big league start, homering twice. He became a Red as part of the Aroldis Chapman deal and has just 24 IP at the AAA level (0-2. 7.50) and seems to be in the show out of necessity rather than merit at this point. Fun fact: Rookie Davis' real name is William Theron, but his dad dubbed him "Rookie" at birth, back when young Mr Davis was the rawest of rookies. Guess pap was a baseball fan; if he followed college hoops, we might be facing "Diaper Dandy" Davis today, lol.
Notes:
- Starling Marte has hit safely in five straight games. Fran has a five-game on-base streak.
 |
| Felipe has been a busy guy (photo Dave Arrigo/Pirates) |
- The Bucco bullpen has been called on 21 times (Felipe Rivero worked five straight games before getting a blow last night) and tossed 25-2/3 IP in the first six games, slashing 1-1-2/3.86. The workload is fairly heavy (the Pirates are 18th in the number of relief outings but 8th in IP) as the starters average just five frames per game. Some seven-inning starts would do wonders for the pen.
- The hitting, both in getting aboard and especially in power, is off to crawl. The Pirates BA is .237 (MLB - 17th), walk rate 8.2% (MLB - 27th) OBP .309 (MLB - 18th), slugging % .309 (MLB - 27th) and ISO .072, the worst in the league. Small sample size to be sure, but geez... (stats from Fangraphs)
Hello Ron,
ReplyDeleteIs there any way of tracking what a hitter is doing currently and has done with RISP?? I'm sure there is but I can't find it anywhere. Anyways my point is the Pirates are Horrible with RISP & especially with 2 out, bases loaded with no out etc;. Anyway to compare them to rest of teams avg's in same situations?? And once again 22 is absolutely killing them by being what 0 for 12 so far this year in such situations and not even putting the ball in play. Cutch is Horrible is those "clutch" situations. I mean Horrible. I would guess he's under a .150 Avg in those key moments. Thanks in Advance if those stats are retrievable
Hey Mike - yah, Cutch is hitting just .200 with RISP. In his defense, he's been up 7 times with RISP with a hit and two walks. But I agree that until I see him shooting balls into RC again instead of pull jobs, he's not nearly the hitter he was. He did hit a couple into center last night, so maybe he's snapping out of it a bit. The team, btw, is pretty poor at RISP - the Bucs hit .218 w/RISP and like Cutch have walked more (13) times than gotten hits (12). Maybe there's a mindset problem involved.
ReplyDeleteBTW, if u want to find the RISP numbers, for the team go to Baseball Ref's team page (http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/PIT/2017.shtml), click on "batting" in the menu bar, then "batting splits" and scroll to the "bases occupied" box for RISP, with both overall and situational results. Pretty much the same for a player - open his BR page, click the menu bar's "splits" option, pick the time frame and scroll down to "bases occupied."
Thank you! BTW, look at tonight's box score, Pirates 0 for 9 with 10 men LOB thru 8. And I can't bear to watch the BTM of 9th.Once again- can't even get a single knock from anyone all game when really needed. Plus very rarely does this team ever manage to even get a sacrifice fly with a man on 3rd with one out, just horrible how bad they are with those situations
DeleteSadly.....Had to look. Ended up 0 for 10 with/RISP and 11 men LOB. Very typical of the Bucs. It's going to be a very very long season....In a bad way unfortunately
ReplyDeleteIt's not just RISP, Mike. Starling, Freeser, Fraze and J-Hay (that was a surprise) are off to decent starts; the rest of the regulars are all hitting below .250. Hope they heat up with the weather, or you're right - long season in store for the faithful.
ReplyDelete