Pittsburgh Pirates Prediction Machine – Time to Play the Kids

And here we are again at the Pittsburgh Pirates Prediction Machine – a regular article where we predict key Pirates performances for the upcoming week and then look back to see how accurate those predictions were.

Speaking of looking back, last week the Pittsburgh Pirates had an awful week, but the Prediction Machine was a perfect 4 for 4.

The Pirates, who spent the last seven days at PNC Park, started the week by losing two of three to the St. Louis Cardinals.  They followed this up by losing 3 of 4 to the Cincinnati Reds, the last of which was an 8-0 drubbing where they allowed 13 hits and left 10 runners on base.  Even though the Pirates fell out of contention for the post season, there were still some memorable performances from some of the cornerstones of the Pirates lineup.  Some of our predictions about these key players were spot-on.

 Last Week’s Predictions:

We forecasted a losing record for the week:  After getting swept by the Milwaukee Brewers at home, the Pirates naturally seemed deflated.  From there they hosted the Cardinals and barely avoided being swept again.  Luckily, Jung Ho Kang didn’t want to go down without a fight.  The next series was more of the same, with the Pirates losing 3 out of 4 to the Reds, giving them a record of 2-5 for the week, making our prediction correct.  The Pirates are 2-12 in their last 14 games and every day they are finding creative new ways to lose.

We expected Jung Ho Kang to return in style:  Kang came off the DL for the St. Louis series and promptly bashed three home runs.  Overall he was 12-23 for the week at the plate and hit four home runs.   We didn’t know how many at-bats he would get so we would have been happy with one extra-base hit.  Kang literally knocked this one out of the park for us.

We thought Jordy Mercer would get on base:  Jordy Mercer somehow turns his August hitting struggles into quality September at-bats.  Given his past performance, we expected Mercer to start getting on base at an increased clip – eclipsing his career OBP of .336.  He did that by getting 9 hits and 2 walks in 30 at-bats for an OBP of .344 for the week.

We predicted Josh Harrison would continue to excel as the lead-off hitter:  Harrison is in the middle of one of his hitting binges.  We expected him to stay hot with hits in at least 4 out of 7 games this week.  Instead, he had hits in every game in which he played and had multiple hits in 4 of them, making our prediction correct.  Unfortunately, Harrison hurt his groin in Saturday’s game and his future status in uncertain.

Overall, we went 4 for 4 with our predictions.  Since we don’t like to mess with a good thing, we’ll stick with four as the number for this week.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Last week the Pirates had an awful week, but the Prediction Machine was a perfect 4 for 4.[/perfectpullquote]

Predictions for the week of September 12^th:

The Pittsburgh Pirates are on the road all week (Sept. 12-18).  First they visit the Philadelphia Phillies for four games, then travel to Cincinnati for four games (the first three of which fall into our prediction-making dates).  They are facing another slew of right-handed pitchers, which judging by their recent record against RHP, does not bode well for their chances to win a lot of games.  The only lefty they will see in the week is Cincinnati’s Brandon Finnegan, who just held the Pirates scoreless over five innings of work.  This makes for pessimistic expectations, even though both of their opponents have losing records.

We will see effective spot-starts from recent call ups:  Alen Hanson, Pedro Florimon and Jason Rogers were all called up to the big leagues when rosters expanded on September 1^st.  Given that the Pirates have fallen out of contention for the post-season, we expect to see each of these players get a spot start at their respective position(s).  For teams with losing records, this is the point in the season where the coaching staff wants to see more from players that might make the opening day roster next year.

The Pirates will win or split the Philadelphia series:  These two teams have only played one series this year and the Pirates won two of those three games.  The Phillies have the worst run-scoring offense in the National League by a wide margin.  The Pirates have an on-base percentage of .331 versus the Phillies’ .295 – all of which says the Pirates should score a lot more runs than the Phillies.  We think this will translate into a series split or win for the Bucs.

Joey Votto will devastate Pirates pitching:  Joey Votto has turned a slow start into a fine season at the plate.  He is currently fifth in the NL in batting average at .315, but he absolutely crushes Pirates pitching with a slash line of .349/.482/.535 so far this season.  We think he will continue to create nightmares for Ray Searage’s pitching corps by getting on base at least five times in the first three games of the series.

Revenge on Finnegan:  The Reds’ Brandon Finnegan pitched well against the Pirates last week, but this was likely an aberration as the Bucs have hit LHP well all year.  Lightning will not strike twice and the Pirates will score at will in their upcoming matchup.  We think that Finnegan will be knocked out early and when he is, the Pirates will already have at least three runs on the board.

We are sticking with just four predictions for the week ahead in Pittsburgh Pirates baseball.  After a perfect 4 for 4 week, we are hoping to make it eight in a row.

Photo Credit – Daniel Decker Photography