In watching Sunday’s Opener against the Cardinals, I kind of felt like the Pirates were clicking along in mid-season form against a team playing their first game of the year on a cold Pittsburgh April afternoon. The Pirates very quickly reminded me tonight that drawing conclusions based on one game is dumb by doing some very bad things in the field. With the Pirates holding a 2-0 lead in the top of the third, Starling Marte charged in on a Steven Piscotty single to come up throwing to the plate, but forgot to pick up the ball. The error allowed at least one run to score and possibly allowed a second when Matt Holliday drove in a run with what otherwise could’ve been an inning ending double play. In the fifth, with the Pirates already trailing 4-3, Gregory Polanco misplayed a Piscotty single into a triple, then Piscotty scored on a Jordy Mercer throwing error with Holliday back up at the plate.
Happily, none of this really mattered, in large part thanks to the offensive efforts two of the guys cited above for early-season defensive incompetence. Polanco tripled in Francisco Cervelli and scored on his own in the second to give the Pirates an early 2-0 lead, Andrew McCutchen doubled in John Jaso to restore the Pirates to a 3-2 lead after Marte’s gaffe, the Pirates tied the game at five thanks to a rally that utilized a Cardinal error (by Aledmys Diaz in his big league debut) and a Polanco sac fly, and they finally won in the 11th when Mercer singled in Polanco (who was on second after a walk and a misplay at short by Jedd Gyorko that was ruled a hit).
Most of the Pirate work on offense came against Michael Wacha, who they worked for 98 pitches and hit awfully hard in his 4 1/3 innings of work. They were summarily shut down by Tyler Lyons, Seung Hwan Oh, Kevin Siegrist, Jonathan Broxton, and Trevor Rosenthal (they literally did not reach base against any of these guys) before finally scoring on Seth Maness in the 11th.
That means that most of what we have to talk about for the Pirates tonight is both Jon Niese and then their own bullpen, which was similarly excellent. Niese’s line is ugly, but he was greatly hindered by the ugly plays from Marte and Polanco. His fastball velocity was actually quite good tonight and he used his cutter to generate a bunch of swings-and-misses to chalk up seven strikeouts in his five innings of work. I’m going to wait for more than one start before going back to his fastball location, but seven strikeouts (coupled with one walk), six ground outs, and two flyout in five innings seems like a strong start to build off of for Niese, even if the Cardinals put five runs (four officially earned, you could argue that only the Jedd Gyorko homer was directly attributable to him, but then, he also gave up a homer to Jedd Gyorko) on the board in five innings tonight.
The main part of the bullpen looked excellent. Arquimedes Caminero had some shaky stretches in the spring, but threw 100 mph smoke tonight coupled with a ludicrous 93 mph slider. Tony Watson seemed to be in trouble after allowing a leadoff Kolton Wong single, but a horribly dumb Matt Carpenter bunt bailed him out (by preventing him from facing Carpenter). Neftali Feliz hit Yadier Molinda, but got a great double play started by David Freese, and then struck out Gyorko with 96 mph heat. Mark Melancon also benefitted from a dumb bunt, this time by Wong after a leadoff double. Kyle Lobstein somehow befuddled the Cardinals for two innings with 87 mph sinkers.
Two wins against the Cardinals is a good way to start the season.
Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
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