Treading water

Pedro Alvarez’s time as a Pirate is likely drawing to an end, so it’s nice that he gave us an ultimate Pedro Alvarez Game before his departure. In the fifth inning, Alvarez and Jeff Locke botched a pretty simply looking Corey Dickerson ground ball resulting in a “single.” Cristhian Adams tripled in the next at-bat to give the Rockies a 3-2 lead. In the sixth, Ben Paulsen hit a ground ball to Alvarez that he misplayed into another “single,” resulting in a 4-2 Rockies lead. In the eighth inning, Alvarez hit a monstrous three-run homer to give the Pirates a 5-4 lead.

This year, Pedro Alvarez is more or less the exact same hitter that he was in 2012. That year, he hit .244/.317/.467. This year, he’s hitting .243/.314/.470. His 113 wRC+ this year is the same as it was in 2013, when he led the NL in home runs. He’s striking out a little bit less, but he’s the same hitter. In 2012 and 2013, he was a decent defensive third baseman. In 2015, he’s one of the worst defensive first baseman in recent history. He’s headed for the American League this winter without any question, because there’s no way a National League team can support his glove any longer. But every once in a while, he tees off on a bad pitch and gets the Pirates a win in a game that maybe they wouldn’t have otherwise won. It’s just particularly poetic that the reason that they wouldn’t have otherwise won this game yesterday is because of his defense.

For a really brief moment in time after Alvarez’s homer, it looked like the Pirates were going to make up a game on the Cardinals. The Brewers ran out to a 3-0 lead on the Cards and Taylor Jungmann looked like he was pitching against the Pirates. That changed in three pitches in the fourth inning: Jhonny Peralta hit a three-run homer to tie the game, and two pitches later Stephen Piscotty hit a solo homer to give the Cards a lead they wouldn’t surrender. The Pirates have won six games in row since falling five games behind the Cardinals with a loss last Friday. The Cardinals have won five games in a row.

The Pirates now go to Wrigley Field for a weekend series for what is now almost certainly a preview of this year’s Wild Card Game. They’re 6-10 against the Cubs this year and have lost their last three. They are currently 3 1/2 games ahead of the Cubs, which means that a sweep by the Cubs wouldn’t move the game from PNC Park to Wrigley Field, but it’d nearly accomplish that given the remaining schedules of the two teams. Gerrit Cole makes his next-to-last start of the season this afternoon. He will certainly be the pitcher chosen to face Jake Arrieta in the Wild Card Game, and he pitched well against the Cubs at PNC last week before coming a bit unglued in the seventh inning. He has, in fact, run out of gas in about the seventh inning in three straight starts now — the only run he allowed against the Cardinals on Sunday Night Baseball a few weeks ago was in the seventh, then there was the Cubs start, and last weekend against the Dodgers he served up a home run to Scott Van Slyke in the seventh. This is worth watching, I suppose. This is his fourth start against the Cubs this year, which I’m mentioning now because I’m going to tell you at some point that the Pirates’ best hope against Jake Arrieta is their familiarity with him after seeing him five times (counting Sunday’s game, which hasn’t happened yet). The Cubs will start Jon Lester today. Lester dominated the Pirates last time out.

The Pirates and Cubs start at 2:20. The Cardinals play the Brewers again at 8:15. Ariel Pena starts against Carlos Martinez. Pretty much every game is a must-win from here on out until the Cardinals clinch or the Pirates catch them.

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