In our daily Wake-Up Call, we get you ready for the day with a complete look at all things Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pittsburgh Pirates find themselves back home at PNC Park today after a five-game road trip.
Yesterday’s result, an uninspired 8-2 loss to the Tigers, raised a significant amount of questions that one would not expect from an early-April loss.
Juan and done?
While Juan Nicasio struggled mightily in his start yesterday, needing 94 pitches just go get through three very ineffective innings, his demotion from the starting rotation is far from a reality. Going into the season, the book on Nicasio was his lack of control. The hurler averages 3.5 BB/9 for his career, so it should not have been a surprise to see him walk five in this three innings.
Some pitchers can simply get by on their “stuff” and be “effectively wild.” It may be fair at this point to label Nicasio as a pitcher who simply can’t get by on stuff without control. His flaws seem to be entirely correctable, but for the young pitcher to breed confidence in fans and the organization alike, he will need to string several quality starts together.
McCutchen is slumping
If we remove the opening series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Andrew McCutchen is mired in a 3-for-20 slump, with just one extra base hit. He has been unlucky at times, with just a .178 .BABIP during that time frame, but the fact is, he is just not squaring up on many balls right now. His hard-hit percentage of just 22.2 is the second-lowest of any Pirates regular, second only to Jordy Mercer‘s 21.7 percent figure.
Most observers, myself included, have full confidence that McCutchen will start hitting balls more soundly. For a team that needs to stack more wins in April than in previous years, the sooner the better.
Yesterday’s player of the game
Even during losing efforts, Pirates Breakdown will put out a poll asking readers for a player of the game. Yesterday’s result should be pretty obvious.
It's time for the #Pirates player of the game fan Twitter poll following disappointing loss.
— Jason Rollison (@jrollisonpgh) April 12, 2016
Make sure to watch for this poll on our twitter feed after each game.
Baseball talk on the web
- FanGraphs has an interesting piece on the changing approach to changeups.
- Though it’s still early, MLB Daily Dish identifies several teams that should get into the trade market sooner rather than later.
- From a fantasy baseball perspective, Francisco Cervelli is thriving, according to Today’s Knuckleball.
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