Speaking in the sort of abstraction that I usually avoid, games like today’s seem to be exactly the kind of game the Pirates of past seasons just don’t show up for and that drives me off of a cliff. They followed up a rough Friday game with a great Saturday effort and now they’ve got a nice chance to take a second straight series here to open the season.
Today Dan McCutchen gets his first (only?) start of the early season before heading to the minors for at least a short while to make room for Joel Hanrahan. I’ve written this before, but McCutchen is probably a slightly better version of Josh Fogg; the Pirates will have to score some runs today because the Diamondbacks are certainly going to score some off of McCutchen. The D’Backs are sending Edwin Jackson out for his second start of the year today. Jackson was decent against the Padres in his first start (5 innings, 5 hits, 3 runs, 5 Ks, 1 BB), but he needed 94 pitches to get through those five innings. He throws gas, so if you want to take last night’s shelling of Dan Haren’s fastball as a sign rather than an early-season anomaly, maybe that’s a good thing. Jackson’s kept his walks per nine under 4.0 the last two seasons, though, so he’s not exactly like Kershaw as a guy we can wait out and expect that he’ll bury himself.
The Pirates lineup is kind of late coming today, but with a righty on the mound there’s a good chance that Ryan Church and Delwyn Young will both find themselves in the lineup, though I’d be hesitant to sit Clement the day after he launched a home run. I’ll update when the lineup goes up. (UPDATE: Church in right, Jones at first, Young at third, Jaramillo catching, Doumit, Clement and LaRoche out. Delwyn at third should be a real adventure.)
Game is at 4:10, Clemente/Cangelosi update is under the break.
Not sure what this is? Check here and here. Short version: in the comments pick the Pirates you think will be most and least valuable in today’s game. If you haven’t jumped aboard yet, it’s been a lot of fun through so far and now’s as good a time as any to join in.
With a varied offensive assault and a strong seven-inning start, Zach Duke take’s last night’s Clemente mantle with Akinori Iwamura coming in second behind him with his two hits (including his big two-run homer) and a walk. Appeal2smail and apk both picked Duke and only ndbrian had him as the Cangelosi, while there were several people who picked up points for Iwamura. The Cangelosi of the game was Jack Taschner, who turned a blowout into a non-blowout. No one picked him, though a couple got points for the runner up, a slumping Andrew McCutchen, who’s seventh inning single couldn’t outweigh the outs he made early in the game with runners on base.
I’m going to work on a full post better explaining things the afternoon. Until then here’s the standings update:
- IndianaJohns04, dboz, Woodward – 4
- TomKaikis LRNeub, Joek, UtesFan89, Wizard of Woz – 3
- PatrickHealy, brian2, appeal2smail, apk – 2
- FSU Bucs, Nate, dafletch, Christy, MattB, hisjazziness – 1
- Everyone else – 0
- bwzimmerman, MattB, NSN, Mr. Ando, CoryR, – (-1)
- ndbrian- (-3)
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