Welcome to another edition of The Pittsburgh Pirates Prediction Machine, in which we make predictions about five Pirates performances in the upcoming week.
We will also take a look back at the previous week’s predictions to see how each panned out.
Last week (Monday, June 27 through Sunday, July 3), we said we were optimistic that the Pirates offense would be humming and that they would win five of the six games they played. The lost a close game to the L.A. Dodgers, split a two game series with the Mariners in Seattle and swept the A’s in Oakland. Their offense was indeed humming, scoring an average of 5.8 runs per game and their 4-2 record for the week made our prediction 80% accurate.
For this week (July 4 through July 10), the Pirates celebrate Independence Day at St. Louis, kicking off a four game series. Immediately after, they host the Cubs at PNC Park for three games. This will be a tough stretch of games for the Bucs heading into the All-Star break. They will face Carlos Martinez, Mike Leake, Jaime Garcia and Adam Wainwright in St. Louis and Jake Arrieta, John Lester and Kyle Hendricks when they play the Cubs. There are no easy days this week so our five predictions are a little more downbeat.
Neise versus Lester will be a high scoring affair. Lester had proven to be a mere mortal in his last two starts and we all know how Niese gives up the long ball. The Cubs and the Pirates both have better hitting stats across the board against left handed pitching. This matchup of lefties will result in a combined eight earned runs before they are both pulled from the game.
Adam Frazier will come back down to Earth. Since his callup on June 24, Adam Frazier has been a spark plug for the Pirates offense. He has gone a ridiculous 7 for 14 at the plate with a double, triple and only one strikeout. Opposing teams will have video of him now and will have a refined pitching approach against him. Expect him to have a week where he bats .250 or less and works on adjustments of his own.
Jameson Tallion will get his curve on. When Tallion faces the Cardinals on July 5, expect him to use his curve ball as an effective strikeout pitch like he started doing against the Mariners last week. Tallion should register at six strikeouts or more on the day, many of them with his killer curve.
Liriano will outpitch Arrieta for three innings. Yes, Francisco Liriano will outduel the great Jake Arrieta early on in their expected matchup on July 8. Liriano will have less earned runs and more strikeouts than Arrieta through the first three frames. After that, it is likely that Arrieta will prevail, but his recent struggles put the final outcome in doubt for the first time in a long time.
McCutchen will continue his record strikeout pace. McCutchen is averaging a little over one strikeout per game and there is no compelling evidence that this will change in the near future. His struggles to connect on fast balls over the plate have been covered before and, unfortunately, this will lead to at least six more strikeouts this week.
That’s our five predictions for this week. Be sure to tune in next week and see how we did.
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