This was like three crazy games all rolled into one. Things started off nicely enough with James McDonald cruising. He matched his career high with eight strikeouts in six innings. He was really in the zone with his curveball today and he did a great job playing the curve (average speed: 76.5) off of his fastball (average speed: 92.5) and vice versa. In McDonald’s last two starts, he’s now got 13 strikeouts and three walks allowed in 12 innings. It’s true that the Astros and Padres are probably factors too, but he definitely seems to be finding a groove after his rough start.
Of course, the offense wasn’t really able to get McDonald any sort of cushion. They strung some hits together in the first inning and had a great chance in the fourth, but had only mustered a 2-0 lead by the time McDonald was removed at the end of the sixth. It’s easy to question such a quick hook for McDonald in hindsight, but he was creeping up on 100 pitches and seemed to be close to hitting the wall in the sixth. When Hurdle made the decision to bring Resop in in the seventh, I thought it was the right call.
Of course, things immediately went straight to hell. Chris Johnson took Resop deep to lead off the seventh, then Bill Hall singled, then Humberto Quintero doubled him in on a ball that Andrew McCutchen bobbled when he had a chance to hold Hall at third. After an incredible April, Resop has had a pretty rough go of things in May. Hopefully it’s just a rough patch and he’ll get things straightened out. Whatever happened with him, things really hit the fan when Joe Beimel came in. With Quintero, who is not fast, at second and nobody out, the Astros sent Angel Sanchez in to pinch hit for Happ in what was clearly a bunting situation. Still, Neil Walker didn’t get to first base all that quickly, which caused Brandon Wood to double-pump on his throw, which created an opening for Quintero, who broke for third with the pitch, to round home and head for home, which caused Walker to rush his throw home and as a result not get an out at first or the plate. This is at least the second time in the last couple weeks I’ve seen the Pirates screw up a bunt down the third base line with a runner on second. Unless I’m mistaken, it’s happened with all sorts of combinations of first and third basemen on the field. Quintero breaking for third is a complicating factor, but Wood still fielded the ball with plenty of time to get an out at first without risking a run scoring. What took Walker so long?
The frustration didn’t end there. Carlos Lee lead off the eighth with a screaming line drive into the left-center gap that Andrew McCutchen made a fantastic, back-handed, sliding catch on. Except that he didn’t convince the umpire of it and instead of coming up throwing, he threw his hands up in disagreement. While that happened, Lee took second. He then moved to third on a botched pickoff play at second and scored on a sac fly. The bullpen (especially Resop) did itself no favors today, but the defense (with an assist from the umpires) made pretty glaring mistakes on the quote-unquote “little things” today that suddenly had the Pirates in a 4-2 hole.
And then just as quickly as the frustration bubbled up, Neil Walker singled, Steve Pearce drew a walk, and Ryan Doumit annihilated a 1-0 fastball from Fernando Abad for his second clutch, monster home run from the right side of the plate this week. Of course the guy that walks up to the plate to Danzig gets the big hit on Mother’s Day.
(hold on while I shake my head sadly here for a minute)
Of course, plenty of people are making a big deal about the Pirates getting to 17-17 (Greg Brown gave a, “If you’re not a Pirate fan you just don’t understand why this is such a big deal but it is” speech on the radio broadcast which seemed ludricrous to me since we’re not even a quarter of the way into the season), but that’s really not something I’m thinking about at this point in the season. What I like is that the Pirates have played very well since getting swept out of Miami in mid-April. They’ve won four of five series (9-6 total against the Nats, Giants, Rockies, Padres, and Astros) since then and even in their six losses, they’ve been in the games. Right now, the club is 17-17 and they’ve scored 127 runs and allowed 139. Last year they hung around .500 through 30 games (they were 14-16), but they’d been outscored so hilariously (109 runs scored, 184 allowed) that everyone knew that they couldn’t keep up with that sort of pace. Over their next 30, they went 9-21. This team is playing much differently than that club, though, and I’d be pretty surprised if they slumped that badly over the next month. They’re certainly frustrating to watch sometimes and it’s worth wondering how long the pitching staff can keep going, but it’s also pretty clear that they’re a better club at this point in 2011 than they were in 2010.
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