North Shore Nine

The week after disappointment rang across the fandom hope was renewed after a exciting of week of baseball at PNC Park. The Pirates took 2 of 3 from both the Dodgers and the Twins and were arguably a single player away from a perfect week. Regardless they gained 1.5 games in the Wild Card hunt, are looking good and getting some national attention.

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 Pirates scored 30 runs over their six games this week, a good showing from the resurgent offense. Of those that got a regular workload this week the standouts were, Bryan Reynolds, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Nick Gonzales and Oneil Cruz. Cruz led the team this week with two homeruns and was 2nd with five RBI’s. He also did well to only strikeout four times this week, while drawing a pair of walks. Gonzales led the team with RBI’s at 7 and was very consistent at the plate, as he has been since his recall. Reynolds led the team in hits this week and looked relaxed at the plate, a good sign if he can keep it up. Hayes also looked like he is settling back in after his IL stint, it will be important for these four to continue hitting. Equally important to the team this week albeit in limited at bats, Rowdy Tellez. With only 13 AB this week he hit .462/.500/.846 with a OPS of 1.346. Now there is no way that can continue but the mini breakout will be a huge confidence boost, hopefully it will lead to more regular good at bats from him. The catchers both had horrendous weeks at the plate, as did Connor Joe and Jack Suwinski. Pirates really need Henry Davis and Jack Suwinski to get going at the plate, anther send down for them would be bad all around.

Pitching:
The Pitching this week was a very much, hot or not type of group. Jared Jones got two starts this week and even while walking six over 11 innings he did very well to buckle down and limit damage. Mitch Keller threw six shutout innings against a good team. Paul Skenes gave up a pair of homeruns to the best team money could but and still pitched very well and earned the win. Bailey Falter got beat up a bit but still pitched relatively solid. The bullpen would have been phenomenal this week, if it wasn’t for two players. Kyle Nicolas continues to struggle to get outs and not throw wild pitches and walk everyone on the opposing team. A literal definition of a Jekyll and Hyde pitcher if one has ever existed. It shouldn’t be long until he is sent once again down to AAA to work some things out. The other problem pitcher this week, will hopefully not make it to St. Louis for Tuesdays game, though we all know he will. Ben “oops all runs” Heller pitched in two games this week throwing 76 pitches over his two innings of work. During those innings of work he gave up 9 hits, walked 1, hit 4 with pitches and gave up 12 runs 11 earned while striking out three. In the end he has a .600 batting average against, a 5.00 WHIP and an ERA of 49.50. It was a Hellish week for him to say the least. To end on a positive note with the pitching. David Bednar is once again “that dude”, and in four innings this week Aroldis Chapman only walked one guy while striking out six. If that pair and Colin Holderman do what they did this week, and Holderman has done all season, then maybe the backend of the bullpen will be what it was expected to be at the start of the year.

Defense/Baserunning:
There were four errors committed by three Pirates this week. Connor Joe committed two to book end his week, on a throw and one on a fielding play. Nick Gonzales also committed a throwing error this week, however made more than up for it with some other stellar defensive plays. Henry Davis also continued his poor week at the plate with an error on a throw behind it. On the base stealing side the Pirates swiped 8! this week. Hayes had three, Michael A. Taylor had two, and Cruz, Olivares and Reynolds each had one. There appears to be a correlation in weeks where the SB count is high, and the Pirates win total is as well. The Pirates need to start even more liberally stealing bases to help score more runs. It was fortunate that the errors did not cost them games this week but that won’t always be the case. The defense needs to be shored up before it starts to cost them wins.

At 31-34, the Pirates are now only a 1/2 a game out of the Wild Card spot for the NL. The Bats are clicking, the bullpen is clicking, and the rotation had a three headed hydra at its front. The Pirates at least for the time being, are once again exciting to watch and are “Can’t Miss TV”. They go on the road this week to face St. Louis and Colorado. With as tight as the NLC is at the moment those first three against the Cards are very important. If they can win that series, it will set them up nicely for a weekend in the Rockies.