Pittsburgh Pirates Takeaways and Throwaways – Hot Bats on a Cool Night

The Pittsburgh Pirates, finally home at PNC Park after a 10-day roadtrip where they went 4-4, came in hot against the Atlanta Braves easily taking the first of a four-game series 8-5. This was exactly what the Bucs needed to do given the abysmal 9-28 start by the Braves.

Takeaways

• The bats were working tonight – Gregory Polanco, Josh Harrison, Francisco Cervelli and Matt Joyce did the heavy lifting for the Pirates. The Bucs went up early in the first scoring three runs, with Polanco and Freese scoring another two runs in the bottom of the third, then a Harrison triple scoring Joyce in the sixth and finally Joyce nabbing a two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh.
• The Pirates made it to tonight, May 16, 2016, before the first error was recorded at first base. Kudos to John Jaso, Sean Rodriguez and David Freese for manning that corner well compared to the numerous errors at that position last season.

Throwaways

• Pitching – even though Jonathon Niese kept the Braves to a shut-out after 5 – he left the game after six with two runs to his name. And he was as Niese as he has been – steady, but still wonky enough to make us nervous every single inning. In fact, he allowed the lead off batter to reach base in five out of six innings, walked two and gave up a 2-run homer off the bat of Jeff Francoeur (his first of the season). The bullpen didn’t help. Neftali Feliz delivered a clean seventh with one strike out. But Cory Luebke, fresh off a DL stint, gave up three hits including a 2-run homer to Kelly Johnson in the seventh that brought the game to within 3. This is the first two home-run game for the Braves since opening day – and going into this game, the Braves had only nine home runs for the season going into tonight. There was no reason Melancon should have had to work on a night when the Pirates scored 8 runs against a Braves team with such bad numbers.
• Andrew McCutchen is like a Katy Perry song of late – Hot and Cold. He went 0 for 5 for the night with two strikeouts, a forced out, pop out and fly out. Bucs broadcasters were musing in Chicago that as the weather warms, so does Cutch. Let’s hope that’s the case – although the weather doesn’t look to be blistering in Pittsburgh any night this week. Of course, if everyone else’s bats keep working the way they are, he can take a little longer to warm up.

W – Jon Niese (4-2)

L – Williams Perez (1-1)

S – Mark Melancon ( 12)

Line of the Night

Matty Joyce, who played right field tonight, had three hits, three RBIs and a two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh. He’s now batting .372 with 15 runs in 43 at-bats with five home runs for the season.

Up Next

Juan Nicasio is expected to toe the rubber for the Pirates against the Braves’ Aaron Blair. Nicasio is 3-3 for the season, while Blair is still looking for his first win, sitting at 0-2. Game time is 7:05 p.m.

Finally – a special Pirates Breakdown congrats to Starling Marte and his wife, who welcomed a baby girl, Tiana, to the family today. Marte is expected to be on paternity leave until Thursday. His leave brought fellow Dominican Alen Hanson up for his debut in the show. Hanson pinch hit in the sixth, where he struck out.