North Shore Nine

Pirates capped off a their week wining 3 of 4 in Chicago, after dropping two of three versus the Brewers in Milwaukee. However, the importance of the week was the combination of awakening bats and downright nasty starting pitching. With the addition of solid defense and good base stealing the Pirates might be starting to put all the pieces together.

In this weekly recap, we will look at each of the three major categories—Offense, Pitching, and Defense/Baserunning—and grade how the Pirates played.

Offense:
The Offense scored 30 runs this week, which appeared like an outpouring after the last month and a half. This even accounts for the Saturday night pitching duel that ended in the 1-0 loss at the hands the on the field umpires as well as those in New York. There was two sets of standouts offensively this week for the Pirates, three starters and two role players. To start with the role players, both Joey Bart and Edward Olivares had good weeks offensively. Alas in small sample sizes as Bart had 7 at bats and Olivares managed only 12. Both managed to make the most out of their limited at bats getting on base at or above a .333 clip. On the starter front, Nick Gonzales, Andrew McCutchen and Jared Triolo all had good weeks. Both McCutchen and Gonzales hit a pair of home runs each and were really striking the ball well. If both can continue to hit the ball as they were this week it would help the offense as a whole to get better. Triolo also hit a home run this week, but more importantly looked a bit more comfortable at the plate. At times this year he has looked lost or frustrated at times, this week even with his six strikeouts his at bats looked better than they had been. Oneil Cruz struggled this week after a very hot previous week, though in the Sunday game he was crushing balls again even without a lot to show from it. Jack Suwinski also continues to struggle; however, he did manage a homer off of Jameson Taillon on Sunday, hopefully he can get going to help the offense. The Pirates continue to stay in the playoff race, and the longer they do the more and more they will not be able to sit idle as players struggle. Expect to see changes beginning soon if certain players continue to struggle.

Pitching:
Paul Skenes and Bailey Falter both pitched brilliant shut-out ballgames. Mitch Keller and Jared Jones pitched well and got wins in their starts. Quinn Priester made his last start for a bit in the majors, pitching well but not good. Martin Perez was hung out to dry and ended up having his roughest start in a Pirate uniform. But it was very encouraging for the starters, especially the Young Bucs of Skenes and Jones pitch well. The fact that Keller is back on track after a rough start is more than encouraging. Not to mention the fact that Falter is statically one of the better starters on the team. To put that in context, Falter is second amongst starters in WHIP at .98 and 1st in OBAA at .203. He is also 2nd in ERA. It is possible that these rankings will slip when Skenes gets enough innings pitched, but even then it is very impressive for a SP that most fans did not want to see at all this year. Out of the pen this week Kyle Nicolas had a great bounce back week. Striking out four and allowing only one hit and no walks over two innings pitched. Colin Holderman had a solid week out of the pen only giving up an unearned run. Hunter Stratton also had a very good week pitched 1.1 innings and striking out three without a walk or hit surrendered. David Bednar got tagged for a loss on a blown call at the plate, which skewered his stats and his overall weekly performance.

Defense/Baserunning:
The Pirates committed three errors this week, Cruz had one on a fielding play at SS, Yasmani Grandal had a pair on throws as well. None of them cost a win so while you had to see your Catcher and Short stop committing errors you can almost excuse it. On the other side, the Pirates stole six bases this week and didn’t get caught once. As mentioned previously the Pirates need to steal more bases. While a small sample size, the fact they stole this many and scored as many runs as they did could be a coincidence, or it could be the missing part of the equation. It will be an item to watch moving into this week’s games. Aroldis Chapman was back to his dominant form this week pitching a pair of clean innings while striking out walk and walking none. The only two RP who struggled were recently called up Carmen Mlodzinski and Ryder Ryan. Both have pitched rather well during their respective times in the majors, so nothing of overall concern there. If the pitching can continue the overall outlook for the Pirates continues to be on the brighter side.

At 22-26, the Pirates are still only 2 games out of the Wild Card. If the offense can continue to score, and the starters continue as they did this past week it could spell disaster for opponents. Three against an injured Giants team followed by a three pack versus the Atlanta Braves could be a good litmus test for how the Pirates are coming together. You will have to tune in next week to see how it went.