Every week in “The Little Things”, we cover examples of fundamentally sound baseball by the Pittsburgh Pirates. These are not necessarily clutch hits or big strikeouts, but instead are the small things that you can control as a professional baseball player.
After losing a disappointing three games on the road to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Pittsburgh Pirates finished the week by taking two of three from the New York Yankees at PNC Park. This particular week the Pirates played some sloppy baseball, committing errors at the most inopportune times. However, there were examples of solid, fundamental baseball during the week. In particular there were three plays, all involving Josh Harrison, that deserve recognition.
Get on base any way you can
To start the week, Harrison had just come from the Chicago Cubs series where he was beaned in his last two plate appearances on April 16th. He attempted to steal second after both of those and was successful once, eventually scoring. In the April 17th game at St. Louis, he was again hit in his first two trips to the plate. In that two game span, Harrison’s on-base percentage jumped from .342 to .378.
This is a guy that really, really wants to get on base, however his 2017 stat line of being hit by a pitch 6 times and walking only once is not a great way to sustain a high OBP, at least not with all your bones intact.
Great relay limits the damage
In the April 18th game against St. Louis, the Pittsburgh Pirates trailed by a score of 1-0 when The Cardinals’ Jose Martinez lead off the 5th inning with a single. Greg Garcia followed that up with a scorcher to the right field wall. Martinez scored easily and Garcia tried to stretch an easy double into a triple. Frazier collected the ball and made a solid throw to Harrison. Harrison must have had some instinct that Garcia would try for third, because he went farther out into right field than normal to receive the relay. He then made a quick turn and threw right on the money to David Freese to nail Garcia at 3rd. Instead of a runner at third and no outs, it was bases empty and one out. That’s a change in run expectancy from about 1 to 0.65 – a huge shift.
Bunt single and an extra base
In the April 21th game against the New York Yankees, Jordy Mercer led off the game with a home run against CC Sabathia. The last thing the Yankees were expecting after that shot was a bunt single, but this is exactly what Harrison did on the first pitch he saw. It was not a perfectly executed bunt, but it was good enough to get him to first base. McCutchen then hit a grounder through the hole into left field and Harrison took third, narrowly beating the throw. If Harrison would have been thrown out, he would have made the dreaded first out at third, but he was safe, so in this case his judgment was good. Harrison would go on to score on David Freese’ infield single.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]This is a guy that really, really wants to get on base.[/perfectpullquote]Those were some good examples, but there were, unfortunately, numerous examples of poor fundamental play in the last week of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball. For example, in the April 22nd game against the Yankees, the Pittsburgh Pirates made two errors in an embarrassing inning where they allowed 5 unearned runs to score. We won’t even go there.
Can’t score a runner from third with less than two outs
Instead, we will look at the many instances where the Pittsburgh Pirates failed to score a runner from third base with one or no outs. For a team that does the small things right, this should be as fundamental as it gets. A good team should score that runner at least two-thirds of the time. It takes a lot of work to get a runner to third in that situation and to waste it is a borderline sin.
Here are all the examples from the last week alone where the Pirates failed to score the runner from third with less than two outs.
- April 18th at St. Louis Cardinals: In the 9th inning, the Pirates had the bases loaded with only one out and Phil Gosslein came to plate with the Pirates down 2-1. All he needed to do was hit the ball into the air in the outfield. The speedy Alan Hanson was on third and would have come home on any fly ball. Instead, Gosslein hit it on the ground and directly at the pitcher. Hanson was forced out at home and the Pirates would end up losing the game 2-1.
- April 22nd versus the New York Yankees: In the bottom of the 7th inning, David Freese was batting with one out and Andrew McCutchen was on third base after stealing second and getting moved over on a Gregory Polanco groundout. Freese did manage to hit it in the air but to shallow right field and McCutchen was left stranded.
- April 23rd versus the New York Yankees: In the bottom of the 1st inning with the bases loaded and nobody out, Gregory Polanco struck out swinging for the fences when he should have just tried to lift the ball into the outfield. Freese came up next and, thankfully, hit a sacrifice fly to score a run.
- Later in the 7th inning of the same game, Jordy Mercer came to the plate with the bases loaded. Mercer did manage to hit it in the air to the outfield, but not far enough to score the speed-challenged John Jaso from third. Josh Harrison followed Mercer and hit a line drive on a rope, but right at the Yankees shortstop. The Pirates were holding onto a slim 2-1 lead at this point so these runs were desperately needed at the time.
Josh Harrison fundamental player of the week, but not without warts
We would like to recognize Josh Harrison for his many fine examples of fundamental play. True, he sometimes gets picked off first and had a two-run error this week, but he also made a huge difference in key Pirates wins with his bat, glove, arm and legs. He went 6 for 16 for the week with a stolen base, raising his season batting average to .291 and his OBP to .371.
He also had an error in the ninth inning of yesterday’s game that could have been deadly if Tony Watson did not shut the Yankees’ attack down. These can’t be ignored.
But looking at the season as a whole, Harrison has been a steady practitioner of fundamental play.
And for that reason, Josh Harrison is our Pittsburgh Pirates fundamental player of the week.
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