Pittsburgh Pirates Takeaways & Throwaways – Colon, the Ageless Wonder

The Pittsburgh Pirates fell to the Mets tonight by a final score of 6-4. It wasn’t pretty until the 9th as Bartolo Colon dominated the Pirates as he continues to be an ageless wonder and the Pirates lost two out of three in the series.

Takeaways

• Andrew McCutchen managed to bust his 0-17 slump in the fourth inning with a double to left field. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. It’s only one hit, but the confidence that comes with busting a slump is often worth more than the hit itself. He also singled later in the night and hit a solo shot to left.
• Josh Harrison continues to play a solid defensive second base for the Pirates. Early on in the game, he made a nice dive to his left and threw to first for an out. He’s made a few nice plays this series, and has been an upgrade over Neil Walker defensively this season. While he hasn’t been stellar defensively as a whole this year, he’s been good recently. And there’s no reason to complain about his bat either.
• And hey, at least the back-end of the rotation is getting rest. Mark Melancon hasn’t pitched since June 10th, and Tony Watson and Neftali Feliz have pitched only once since then. With how Watson and Feliz have struggled at times this season, and with Watson and Melancon being used excessively over the past few years, this could be a silver lining to the recent bad play of the team as a whole.

Throwaways

• Neil Walker owned the Pirates tonight. He had 3 RBIs via a two-run shot in the third and a double in the fifth. He’s having a great year offensively, and good for him. Maybe he’s experiencing the contract year phenomenon, but I hope he gets paid this off-season, and he will, by some team. I can see that contract not working out well for that team with Walker’s injury history.
• Juan Nicasio, like Jeff Locke, is not worthy of being in the Pirates rotation if the team has aspirations of competing for a playoff spot this season. Nicasio continues to show that he’d be better off in a long relief role, as he only lasted 4.1 innings tonight and has only gone more than six innings once this season. By moving to a long relief role, both the rotation and the bullpen should improve. Hopefully that move comes when Gerrit Cole returns to the rotation sooner rather than later.
• Nicasio’s problems tonight speak to the broader issue for the Pirates: their starters can’t pitch deep into games. This not only shows that the starters aren’t good right now but it also negatively affects the bullpen. Outside of the starting rotation, middle relief is the biggest problem for the Pirates. Better starting pitching will also lead to better middle relief, in that they’ll be used less often.

Line of the Night

A.J. Schugel – 2.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 SO, 0 HR

This is the second quality outing in a row for Schugel after he pitched four scoreless innings against the Cardinals back on June 10th.

Next Up

The Pirates hope to get back up above .500, but their schedule doesn’t get any easier from here. Tomorrow at 2:20 PM the Bucs go to Chicago to take on the Cubs. Francisco Liriano (4-6) returns to the rotation as he faces off against Jake Arrieta (10-1).

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