What a difference a week makes, huh? With tonight’s win, the Pirates have won six of seven, they maintain their 1 1/2 game lead on the Brewers in the NL’s second wild card race, and they pull themselves within 2 1/2 of the Cardinals in the NL Central, which is officially “striking distance” with 16 games left on the schedule. With the Pirates rounding home for a nine-game homestand against the Cubs, the Red Sox, and the Brewers, it almost feels like anything is possible at this point. I would not have guessed that a week ago, but here we are.
Anyway, the big story tonight is that Francisco Liriano absolutely dominated the Phillies in his eight innings of work. He struck out 12 Phillies and only allowed four hits and two walks. In his last two starts, he’s racked up 21 strikeouts against seven hits and four walks in 14 innings. I get that that came against the Cubs and the Phillies, but still, it’s hard to imagine anyone pitching better against the Cubs and the Phillies than Liriano did. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to run some numbers on these last two starts and see if there’s any thing worth getting our hopes up over, but I don’t need to tell any Pirate fan what a difference a switched-on Francisco Liriano could make for the Pirates down the stretch in this season and beyond.
The other thing that I feel like is worth mentioning here is that from what I saw tonight, is that AJ Burnett had pretty good stuff and the Pirates ran his pitch count up and scored four runs on him without much of a problem or doing much of anything exceptional. Really, it was just routine and that’s kind of the point: this Pirate offense is just so good that they can hang a four-spot on a solid starting pitcher without breaking much of a sweat and no one thinks it’s even an interesting think to talk about.
After the Pirates’ 1-0 loss to the Cardinals last Thursday, I wrote some critical things about the pitching staff and how I thought they limited the Pirates’ ceiling on this season even if the Bucs should find themselves in the playoffs (which was a longer shot then than it is tonight). I still think that those things are true, but games like this one are awfully tantalizing. This Pirate team, as flawed as they are, is still capable of a lot of things with their offense if guys like Cole, Liriano, Melancon, Watson, and (to a lesser extent) Volquez, Locke, Hughes, Wilson, and Holdzkom are pitching as well as they can. Last week, it was hard to envision it. Tonight, it’s a little bit easier.
There are at least 16 games left. The Pirates have been frustrating this year, there’s no doubt about that. They’ve been electric, too, though. In spite of all of their flaws, I’ll admit it; I’m just a little excited to see where this season goes from here.
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