In a new feature, we give you five predictions for the upcoming week in Pittsburgh Pirates baseball
This is a new weekly article that slices, dices and analyzes the Pittsburgh Pirates and makes predictions about five Pirate performances in the upcoming week. Predictions come in all shapes and sizes. You can stay generic and always be right – “the Pirates will continue to get on base”; or you can be more specific and make it more measurable and fun – “Jordy Mercer will hit at least two doubles”. Here at Pirates Breakdown, we prefer the fun way, which means we can always tell if our predictions are right or wrong. In that spirit, at the beginning of each future Pirates Predictions, we will take a look back at how each prediction panned out.
For the week of Monday, June 6 through Sunday, June 12, the Pirates face the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals at home with a quick one-day road trip to Colorado sandwiched in between. The Pirates are slated to face a slew of talented right handed pitchers, which will definitely influence our predictions. So without further ado, here they are.
Francisco Cervelli will have a big week.
Although he is hitting only .234 against righties versus .333 against lefties this year, he is historically good against both. In 2015, he hit .291 against righties and .310 against lefties. This year, he started strong in April batting .321 but had a woeful May , hitting only .198. It seemed at times like he was trying to guess the pitches instead of identifying the pitch and reacting. He has been sitting for two games, resting his injured foot. Cervelli will use this time to refocus on the hitting approach that worked for him in April and come out of the gates strong, hitting over .400 for the next 7 games.
Cole Figueroa will make the most of a spot start.
Given the Pirates infield injuries and the opposing right handed pitchers, Figueroa figures to get a spot start somewhere in the next week. Expect him to make the most of it. He hit .296 over the last two seasons in AAA and now has 20 at-bats in the big leagues. He’s past the butterflies-in-the-stomach phase and ready to break out. Look for him to have two hits in his spot start.
Juan Nicasio will bounce back.
Even though Nicasio has lost his past two starts, he has turned in better performances in many ways. Last week, he had a rough first inning against Texas, allowing three runs, but settled down nicely after that. He had a similar bad inning against Miami, this time in the third, again allowing three runs. Otherwise, he pitched well in that game. He seems close to figuring it out and regaining the form with which he opened the season against St. Louis. In that game he went 6 innings, allowing one earned run. Expect him to repeat this performance on Tuesday in a pitcher’s duel against Jacob deGrom and the New York Mets.
Jaso’s June hitting woes will continue.
Lately, John Jaso has seemed to lack confidence at the plate. He hangs his head when he strikes out or grounds out weakly. It’s as if he is feeling the weight of the Pirate fan base on his shoulders in the recent losing streak. Jaso is supposed to eat right-handed pitchers for breakfast, but he is about to face a daunting group. Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Michael Wacha, Carlos Martinez and Mike Leake are all on the schedule. Jaso is a career .265 hitter and he won’t do better than that in the next week against these tough right handers.
Neil Walker will have a memorable homecoming.
True, Walker is not currently a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates, but we can’t let his first return trip to PNC Park go by without a prediction. He will definitely be the center of attention in the Mets series at PNC Park – a place where Neil Walker is very comfortable. He will face two left-handed pitchers in the series in John Niese and Francisco Liriano. You might remember Walker as having minimal power from the right side, but this year, he already has five home runs as a right-handed batter. That’s five more than he hit last year as a righty. This is clearly something he has worked on and it will be on display in PNC park. Even though Walker may not collect a lot of hits, expect him to belt two home runs in the series.
Well, that’s it for this week’s Pittsburgh Pirates Predictions. Check in with us next week and find out how we did.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
