Pittsburgh Pirates Prediction Machine – NL Central Test

Welcome to the Pittsburgh Pirates Prediction Machine – a weekly article in which we identify five areas of importance for the Pirates and then make interesting predictions about them.

In addition to making predictions about the upcoming week, we also take a look at last week’s predictions to see how we did.  Last week the Pirates hosted the Houston Astros, losing two out of three and then traveled to Milwaukee where they swept the Brewers in four games.  Watching the Pirates this year is like riding on a roller coaster – a soaring high followed by a steep plummet to the lowest of lows – and then back up again.  At least it’s exciting!

Last Week’s Predictions:

We expected Josh Bell to come back down to Earth:  Bell has injected new life into the Pirates offense, hitting .400/.515/.600 in 13 games so far.  Prior to last week, he had only one strikeout and two walks.  Given that opposing pitchers are starting to see more video of Bell, we expected to see a couple more strikeouts.  Instead, Bell defied the odds and struck out only once and manage to walk five times.

We thought the Pirates would win the Houston series:  The Pirates have played the Astros tough ever since they became an American League team so we predicted a series win.  Unfortunately, this did not happen as the Bucs dropped the deciding third game 5-4 behind another sub-par performance by Gerrit Cole.  This was a series they could have won but weren’t able to get the big hit at the right time.

We predicted that the Pittsburgh Pirates would win at least two games in Milwaukee:  We were tempted to predict a 3-1 result given the pitching matchups, but we never saw a sweep coming.  The Pirates had a great finish to the week, exercising their Milwaukee demons in grand fashion.

We expected Jordy Mercer to continue trading slugging for average:  We noticed a trend when examining Mercer’s performance over time.  About this time of year, he starts to favor extra base hits at the expense of getting on base.  So we made two predictions – that he would hit well below his career average of .259 – and that he would get at least two extra base hits.  Both these ended up being correct as Mercer was 4 for 24 (.167 BA), but had two home runs (one of them a grand slam) and a double.

We even predicted the wild card standings:  The eternal optimists here at the Prediction Machine thought the Pirates would gain some ground in the race for the wild card.  We thought they would be between 1 and 2.5 games back of the 2nd wild card spot at the end of the week and as of games played Sunday, August 28th, they are only one game back.

Overall, we went 4 for 6 (four correct and two incorrect predictions), bringing our season total to 33 for 54.

Predictions for the week of August 29th:

This week the Pirates travel to Chicago for a three game date with the division-leading Cubs, then return home to host the Milwaukee Brewers again for three games.   The Pirates are 3-9 against the Cubs so far this year, their worst winning percentage against any National League team except the Miami Marlins.  After a four game sweep on the road, the Pirates are now 7-5 on the season against Milwaukee.   It’s going to be a tough week for the Pirates, starting with a game in Chicago against Jake Arrieta.  So, it is with a sense of foreboding that we make our predictions this week.

Brault versus Arrieta will play out like you would expect:  Stephen Brault, with his 10 innings pitches and 3.60 ERA will face 16 game winner Jake Arrieta on the road.  This game will pretty much go as you would expect with Arrieta dominating the Pirates.  By the time Brault leaves the game, there will be at least a three run differential in favor of the Cubs.

Pirates Offense will be stressed in Chicago:  The Pirates offense is averaging 4.55 runs per game for the season and 5 runs per game over the last week.  The Cub’s starting pitching is very stingy, so we don’t expect the Pirates to score more than 11 runs in the series.

Starling Marte likes right handed pitching:  Starling Marte actually hits RHP better than lefties.  His batting average against righties is .305 versus .294 against LHP, but his slugging percentage is a whopping 52 points higher against RHP at .452.  He has also hit .341/.400/.512 against Milwaukee this season.  Given this, we expect a good week for Marte, where he will beat his season slash line of .303/.358/.442 in at least two of those three stats.

Jameson Taillon bounce back:  Taillon had a rough start against the Brew Crew, allowing 4 runs in the first inning, arguably his worst start of the year.  We think he will get some revenge on the Brewers in his next start, where he will strike out at least six batters.

Tony Watson will close on the closer role:  There has been a lot of chatter about Tony Watson’s supposed lack of capability in the closer role.  In the end, the closer role is about not allowing 9th inning runs, and Watson has done a good job of that, allowing only 1 ER in his last 7 appearances.  The issue has been that those appearances have been more exciting than many Pirates fans would have liked.  He’s allowed too many hitters to get on base and we’ve heard “the tying run is coming to the plate” way too often.  This week, we think Tony will pitch like a true closer, with no blown saves, and allowing no more than 1 ER.

And there you have it.  Five predictions for the week ahead in Pittsburgh Pirates baseball.  Be sure to tune in next week to see which ones were strikes and which ones we bounced in front of the plate.

Photo Credit: Gina Riley