There is no room for context on Opening Day, which is probably the best and worst part about the whole thing. In a few weeks, this game will be just another data point, but for today, it’s all we have and so it’s hard to not scrutinize everything that happened in it.
There was plenty of good, of course. Josh Harrison more or less picked up where he left off in 2014 and the top of the Pirate order keyed in on Kevin Gregg in the exact way that you’d expect a good offense to key in on Kevin Gregg. The culmination of that was Andrew McCutchen’s game-tying two run homer, but the inning could’ve been a lot more than that if Marlon Byrd didn’t rob Gregory Polanco of extra bases on hitter earlier. Tony Watson’s eighth inning was rough thanks to Todd Frazier’s three-run homer and his ERA will suffer from it for a while, but he’s a reliever and it’s early in the season.
The best news today was that Francisco Liriano was excellent for the Pirates. When Liriano was dealing with all of his minor health issues last year, I took to checking his fastball velocity every night to see how it compared to his 2013 velocities, because for much of the summer his fastball was just slightly off. Today, he hit 96 on the gun and averaged 93+, which is more or less exactly where he needs to be to be successful. Besides his balk and the uncharacteristic home run allowed to a lefty, Liriano was excellent, striking out seven, walking three, and holding the Reds to two runs on two hits in his seven innings. He wasn’t quite as good as Johnny Cueto, but hey, who is?
Instead of focusing on Watson (though, to be honest, it’s always worthwhile to be suspicious of relief pitchers, because they tend to burn out quickly), I suppose it’s much more worthwhile to take a minute and appreciate the way the Pirates tied the game in the eighth inning. With Cueto out and Chapman looming, pretty much everyone watching (well, listening to, in my case) the game knew that the Pirates needed to score off of Kevin Gregg to have much of a chance to win. The Pirates responded by teeing off on Gregg. Andrew Lambo lead off the inning with a 13-pitch at-bat that ended in a warning track fly out to center. Josh Harrison followed with a single, then Gregory Polanco laced an opposite field line drive that should’ve been a double, if not for Marlon Byrd’s leaping catch. With all of that happening, Andrew McCutchen stepped up and tied the game with a two-run homer before your brain could even say, “Hey, ‘Cutch is up, you don’t think …”
Anyway, it’s one game. We’ll have more context soon. The worst part about this actually that there’s not more baseball until Wednesday.
Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images
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