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| His hit streak is still alive at 16 games - image via Pittsburgh Pirates |
A single and error got Fraze to second with an out in the fourth, but he advanced no further. A walk, grounder and single put the Brew Crew ahead with Michael Feliz on the hill (Lyles may not be hurt but was at 92 pitches). The fifth was scoreless, with the only action a two-out Milwaukee double. The Pirates weny without a peep in the sixth against Alex Claudio; Ric Rod gave up a walk in the Brewer half. Junior Guerra was tapped for a rap in the seventh; Ric Rod gave up a knock and a walk with an out. Frankie came on to calm the seas. Jeremy Jeffress tossed a 1-2-3 eighth while Manny Pina's pinch-hit homer gave Milwaukee an insurance run. Liriano served up a one-out double, and Clay Holmes finished the inning with the bases loaded, yielding a pair of walks in between a pair of K. Josh Hader struck out the side in the ninth to seal the deal for the Crew.
Another start that fizzled quickly and the offense finally had a day where they ran out of juice, putting just two runners aboard in the final six frames. It's up to Steven Brault to be the stopper as the Bucs try to salvage a game tomorrow afternoon.
Notes:
- Fraze and K-Man each had two hits; no other Bucco reached base more than once.
- The newly recalled Bucs: Corey Dickerson played five innings and went 0-for-3 with a K; JHK came in at SS in the seventh and went 0-for-1 with a whiff, and Michael Feliz gave up a run on two hits and a walk with two strikeouts in two innings.
- It could have been worse - the Brew Crew stranded 13 runners and were 2-of-14 w/RISP; the Bucs were 1-of-7.
- Today was the sixth time in the last 12 games that the Pirates starter hasn't made it to the fifth inning. The Bucs are 0-6 in those starts.
4 comments:
There just isn't enough pitching right now, and that's all there is to it. If Trevor Williams comes back on schedule and can stay in one piece the rest of the season, that will certainly help. But Archer has been awful (and no, his last start doesn't count because he dodged numerous bullets in that outing) and we will be fortunate if we see Taillon again this season.
I am cautiously optimistic that Mitch Keller will be of some help this season, but all in all you would think the Pirates could have stashed a serviceable major league arm in Triple A as the sixth starter. I know they had a few guys who would meet that description on hand in spring training, but of course most of them have opt-out clauses and so they want to go where they have a better chance of seeing time in the big leagues. Even so, the lack of starting pitching depth was an epic fail by the front office this past offseason.
I think the Pirates could still finish around .500 or maybe a little bit better than that, but only if Williams and Keller can bail them out over the second half. This season could get pretty ugly, pretty fast, otherwise.
Exactly my gripe, Will. They knew going in that they had very thin reserves - I had some hope (misplaced) in Kingham, but Brault is Jeff Locke 2.0 and it takes quite a leap of faith to consider JT Brubaker/Rookie Davis your top two AAA guns until Keller got past learning a slider/Super Two. And don't ask about the pen; there were a million guys floating around as last camp cuts. The FO really botched the spring roster build. Tough to adjust during the season, especially this year when a bunch of clubs are dredging for pitching help.
I think you could do worse than Brault as your long man / wave the white flag guy in your bullpen, and he does help the bench a little bit because he is not a bad hitter for a pitcher. But a good team would only start him in an emergency, and a strong pitching staff would certainly not include both him and Nick Kingham. Again, our GM should have had at least one reliable veteran arm at Indianapolis, even if he was a four-A type of guy, to fill in for a few starts if injuries hit---which they have. Surely there must have been an acceptable candidate available this spring? Weren't there any not-terrible veterans who were coming off injury and who needed to rebuild their value and who would have been willing to go to Triple A as long as they would get the first call when the big club needed an arm?
There were, Will.That whistling past the graveyard was either poor evaluation of the talent on hand or a pocketbook issue for the FO; maybe both. We'll see if they learned anything from this year's pitching cluster.It seems like most of the promising arms are still in the lower levels and you can only fast-track (which goes against organizational philosophy) so much.
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