Pittsburgh Pirates Prediction Machine – Cole and Cutch Get it Going

Welcome to the Pittsburgh Pirates Prediction Machine

The Pittsburgh Pirates Prediction Machine, a weekly article in which we make predictions about five upcoming Pirate performances, has been running now for a couple of months.  During that time, we’ve correctly predicted 17 events.  An additional three predictions were never able to be tested due to the player in question going on the DL or not playing in a particular game.  Removing those, we end up with 17 correct predictions out of 30 total predictions made, for a “batting average” of .567.

Like the Pirates record, this is not bad, but can definitely be improved upon.

So, without further ado, here is a look back at the previous week’s predictions to see how each panned out.

We expected to see the Pirate offense return against the Brewers:

The offense definitely returned, with the Pirates taking the series and scoring 13 runs after scoring only 3 in the Washington series.  We predicted that they would return to their season average of 4.7 runs per game, which equates to 14 runs for the series.  Even though we got the spirit of this one right, technically, we missed it by a run, which is like hitting a hard line drive right at someone –  it’s still an out.

We thought John Jaso would get things started right.

We expected Jaso to bat leadoff for most of the games and face hittable, right-handed pitching.  We predicted that he would get on base in his first at-bat at least twice this week.  Although he didn’t bat leadoff in every game, he did hit a double in his first at-bat in two games this week.  He has been slumping at the plate and getting moved down in the order seems to have done him some good.  We called this one correctly.

We were sure Matt Joyce would have a big week:

We thought Joyce would get opportunities as a pinch-hitter and a spot starter against six straight right handers.  Given that, we expected him to balance a few strikeouts with at least two extra base hits.  He had two huge home runs and ended up going 4 for 7 with 4 walks.   That is a Barry Bonds-like OBP of .636 for the week.  Nice job Matt!

We predicted that Jameson Taillon would scuffle a bit:

We said Taillon would have a good game against the Brewers, but that he would walk at least two batters and strike out 5 or less.  He had 3 strikeouts and no walks and gave up only 1 earned run.  Although this made our prediction wrong, it did seem like he struggled in that start.  As we said, maybe it’s a good sign that our expectations are high.  His start against the Phillies was much better in the strikeout department (7 K’s) as he was dealing his curve ball in a way that we have not seen before.

We also thought Andrew McCutchen would continue to strikeout:

We expected at least 5 more strikeouts from Cutch given his struggles at the plate so far this season.  After the first two games against the Brewers, he had 4 K’s and we were thinking that our prediction was way too low.  Then a funny thing happened.  He didn’t strikeout at all in the next three games, making our prediction delightfully wrong.  You have to go back to April 8-10 to find three consecutive games without a McCutchen strikeout, so perhaps this means something.

Overall we were 2 for 5, although it felt more like 4 for 5.

This week’s predictions

This week (July 25 – 31), the Pirates host the Seattle Mariners for two games and travel to Milwaukee to face the Brewers for a three game set.  They will face Felix Hernandez (RHP, blonde goatee) and James Paxton (LHP) from the Mariners and a familiar slate of Junior Guerra, Chase Anderson and Matt Garza from the Brewers.  It should be an interesting week with plenty of high expectations.  Speaking of that, here are our predictions for the week.

The Pirates will mash LHP.  The only lefty starter the Pirates face this week is James Paxton and they will hit him hard, scoring at least 3 runs by the 4^th inning.  The Pirates slug 24 points higher against LHP than they do against RHP and this game will be no exception.

Gerrit Cole will be more efficient:  Cole has burned up a lot of pitches early in his last two starts after coming off the DL.  Expect him to be more focused and efficient in this game, throwing more strikes and able to work well into the 6^th inning.

Josh Harrison will come up big:  Harrison has been in an extended two-month long hitting slump where he is barely hitting above .200.  However, he has a hit in six of his last seven games including a walk-off triple last week against the Brewers.  We think he will come up with a big hit in a tight contest this week, turning the tide for the Pirates in that game.

Milwaukee will win the series opener:  Milwaukee will pitch Junior Guerra (2.85 ERA) against Jeff Locke (5.54 ERA).  I think that pretty much says it all.  Hopefully the Pirates will still win the series.

Andrew McCutchen will get more hits than strikeouts:  Yes, you read that correctly.  Amazingly enough, Cutch has only had one month this season (May) where he registered more hits than strikeouts.  On the season he has 90 hits and 100 K’s.  We think he actually looked different in the Phillies series and maybe, just maybe, he will start hitting line drives to right field again.

That’s our five predictions for this week.  Be sure to tune in next week and see how we did.

Featured image credit – Daniel Decker Photography