Karstens, Pirates Shut Out Cardinals
by Charlie Wilmoth on May 8, 2010 9:47 PM EDT
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PrintThis was an exciting game. Jeff Karstens was extremely efficient in shutting down the Cardinals for six innings, which was good, because the Cards' pitcher Jaime Garcia had a very funky breaking ball and just generally looked very tough to hit. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Pirate who looked the best against Garcia was Steve Pearce, who singled in the second (after barely missing a double down the line) and walked in the fourth. Pearce also made a terrific play in the eighth, running a full 50 feet toward home to catch a pop-up bunt by Brendan Ryan. Pearce is solid defensively and he has a very good idea what he's doing against lefties; I really think he can be a valuable part-time player for the Bucs.
Anyway, the Pirates had a 1-0 lead in the fifth when they got a huge gift from home plate ump Marty Foster. Ryan Ludwick tried to come home on a single by Colby Rasmus. Lastings Milledge's throw was offline toward third, and Jason Jaramillo caught it and whirled around to make the tag. The TV replay wasn't completely clear, but Jaramillo definitely missed Ludwick by at least a few inches. Foster called him out anyway.
In the next inning, the Pirates pinch-hit for Jeff Karstens with Jeff Clement with two on and two outs. This was a somewhat weird decision, given that Karstens had only thrown 74 pitches, Clement has struggled recently, and the pitcher was left-handed. Foster, perhaps in a weird acknowledgement of the mistake he'd made at the top of the inning, called two strikes on Clement that weren't in the zone, and the Pirates didn't score.
Fortunately, the Pirates' bullpen made that irrelevant. D.J. Carrasco and Jack Taschner combined to pitch a scoreless seventh inning, and Joel Hanrahan notched a righteous swinging strikeout of Albert Pujols to finish the eighth. Cards third baseman David Freese gave the Pirates an insurance run as a gift. After Milledge walked and stole second, Pearce grounded out to Freese, who had wandered right into Milledge's path and had Milledge dead to rights, but Freese threw to first anyway. Milledge then came up on a single by Jaramillo. Octavio Dotel pitched a scoreless ninth, striking out the last two batters. Awesome game.
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Karsten with 200 avg
Clement, of 1 for 20 hitter, bats for Karsten ???? Give Clement $1000 and let him go to a local batting cage for practice. This is MLB , not a training grounds for Mgr Russel.
Great inning by Hanrahan, too
He took care of their best hitters in the 8th. The strikeout of Albert was beautiful.
Honestly...
I like the way Russell has been using Hanrahan and Meek. They have been coming in the most crucial parts of the game and delivering. Dotel may indeed turn out to be the best reliever but right now it’s Meek and Hanrahan and they are getting the job done. Nice win for the Bucs.
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
whispers Don’t wake Albert.
Charlie, just a typo I noticed: You wrote that Jaramillo missed the tag by a few “minutes”, but I’m pretty sure you meant inches.
All in all, a pretty exciting game. I was focusing more on the penguins, but once that ended I immediately switched to the bucs to watch us pull off the shutout.
Not quite as much fun in person...
…as it probably was on TV. Cold and windy, hard to concentrate on the game:
Still, a win’s a win.
by Vlad on May 8, 2010 10:59 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
I was there too
But it was harder to concentrate for me because I was both listening to the Pens game most of the time and keeping score. The cold didn’t help, of course.
Now my back hurts.
Couldn’t concentrate on the game? You must be one of those casual fans that goes to the park for the fireworks!
Well, there was this strange chattering sound...
…coming from my teeth. Kept breaking my concentration.
While Dotel and Hanrahan's ERAs are bloated . . .
they, combined with Meek, have 53ks in 41.2 innings pitched. Considering Dotel and Hanrahan should see their HR rate normalize, that’s looking like a pretty nasty back end of the BP.
Look at that summary!
Charlie, dude… that’s an incredible summary of the game. Nice!
Help us Mike LaValliere, you're our only hope!
Thanks. To be honest, I’m rarely as enthralled by the game as I was tonight.
by Charlie Wilmoth on May 9, 2010 1:53 AM EDT up reply actions
Karstens
Thought removing Karstens was the right decision. Don’t know how many times I’ve seen pitchers such as Karstens be allowed to hit in that situation and then get shelled when they return to the mound. Got six superb innings; no need to press our luck.
I agree it made little sense to use Clement as the pinch-hitter. Would have gone with Doumit, and had Clement be the emergency catcher if needed.
Yeah. In isolation, I’m fine with the decision to remove Karstens. I didn’t understand replacing him with Clement, at least not against a lefty.
by Charlie Wilmoth on May 9, 2010 1:54 AM EDT up reply actions
I do feel like Karstens could have potentially pitched another inning or two. But you’re right, Bolton—there’s no guarantee they’d be good innings. He could tire, and anyway, Jeff Karstens after pitching six shutout frames is still just Jeff Karstens.
by Charlie Wilmoth on May 9, 2010 1:59 AM EDT up reply actions
It’s crazy that in these two games the Pirates pitchers have only allowed one run that I would definitely pin on them, and it came in this game where the Cardinals scored 0, not yesterday when they scored 4. I guess that’s how things go for the St. Louis offense when you hold Pujols to 1-8 over two games.
Charlie
You do realize you used the word “extremely” twice in the first two lines and then later referred to the Pujols K as “righteous”… Have you been watching reruns of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey?
But seriously, good write up. As soon as I move out of the country, the Pirates start playing entertaining games.
This is a good write-up of the game. The only point I’d argue was Freese’s “gift” run. It seemed to me that Pearce had hit the ball pretty sharply – so much that my initial reaction was, single!. Getting Milledge out would have required a run-down play and with only 1 out, getting Pearce out at first was a guarantee. It’s entirely possible that a run-down could have resulted in Milledge out at third and Pearce at second resulting in the same outcome. (disclaimer, I was paying much more attention to the Pens at the time).
i hardly ever enjoy this blog; however this was well written… please more like these so i can read and enjoy! Let’s go Buccos!
Absolutely unnecessary brutal honesty yay
by Charlie Wilmoth on May 9, 2010 9:59 PM EDT up reply actions
Karstens
I agree that removing Karstens was a good move. I think going longer than 6 innings with what was at the time a 1 run lead was tempting fate. Especially given the work the bullpen has been doing.
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