Pirates 4, Cardinals 1

by Charlie on Aug 19, 2008 11:44 PM EDT Comment 9 comments

The ninth inning of this one may feel important right now--Yadier Molina gift-wrapped three runs for the Pirates with an inexplicable string of poor defensive decisions, and then John Grabow and T.J. Beam made the bottom of the inning way too exciting--but the real story here was Ian Snell. Snell looked as good as he has all year: his fastball touched 97, and his slider was so filthy that Skip Schumaker struck out on a pitch that almost hit him in the knee.

During the broadcast, Bob Walk had a good point about the Pirates' recent, uh, turnaround:

OFFENSE
July: .802 OPS
August: .652 OPS

PITCHING
July 5.74 ERA
August 3.78 ERA

Obviously, a lot of that has to do with trading Jason Bay and Xavier Nady and adding Jeff Karstens to the rotation, but it isn't just that; that doesn't explain Snell's start tonight, or Paul Maholm's good recent pitching, or Jason Davis. On the other side of the ball, Ryan Doumit and Nate McLouth have hit very poorly, which may be partly because Bay and Nady aren't there to protect them, but it's also probably partly just fatigue. Some of the offense's poor performance also probably has to do with the Bucs facing a number of very good pitchers (Johan Santana, Brandon Webb, Dan Haren, Edinson Volquez). Either way, these are trends to keep an eye on.

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Hitting

The poor hitting is also because they just have younger, more inexperienced guys in the lineup. Andy LaRoche and Pearce will be decent hitters someday, but just not RIGHT NOW. Getting these ABs out of the way now is going to pay big dividends as soon as next year. The first 150 to 200 ABs are rough ones for a lot of hitters.

by EStreet on Aug 20, 2008 12:14 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Doumit must be exhausted

Not starting for a year really kills a catcher’s stamina.

by Vlad on Aug 20, 2008 8:58 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

McLouth,Doumit....

Guessing that’s it’s mostly fatigue from their most extensive big-league action to date. McLouth has played most every game in center,and didn’t even get a little rest during the All-Star break. Doumit has caught a season’s worth of games for the first time in his career. I would look for both to be fine eventually….

by rissaldar on Aug 20, 2008 9:34 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

September callups

September callups should give McLouth and Doumit days off, I think you will see a lot of Morgan, Moss, Pierce and LaRoche, I don’t expect McCutchen or Walker, Walker is on the 40 man, but I think the Pirates want to see more of LaRoche at third. Paulino, Bixler, Gorzelanny, Ohlendorf will surely be called up.

by leadoff on Aug 20, 2008 12:16 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

It would be neat

to see Walker catch some games instead of Chavez. Obviously that would never happen—Walker is a third baseman now and hasn’t caught it a while—just saying it would be cool to see if he could ever serve as an emergency backup since the games don’t mean anything.

by DITO on Aug 20, 2008 1:12 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs