The Pirates went out with a whimper on Friday night, losing to the Giants 5-2 and falling to 21-18. The offense was unable to generate anything substantial, as Robbie Ray dominated through 6 innings and the bullpen mopped up the rest. Carmen Mlodzinski pitched fairly well, but Justin Lawrence spearheaded a 3 run 7th inning for the Giants, which proved too much for the Pirates to overcome. Tyler and Dinardo talked all about this game on the NS9 Postgame show found here:
Here are our 3 takeaways from tonight’s disappointing start in the Bay.
The Offense is Ice Cold This Week
Tonight was another tough day for the Pirates’ lineup, as this is the 4th game of 5 that they have failed to score more than 2 runs. By some miracle, the Pirates have still managed to go 3-2 during this stretch, so this cold front hasn’t hurt them too much. They have been saved by some timely home runs, primarily Brandon Lowe in Arizona and Marcell Ozuna tonight, but the overall picture has been pretty bleak. Since Sunday’s win against the Reds, the Pirates have struck out 39 times over 5 games and have seen lots of whiffs from most pitchers they have faced. This isn’t terribly surprising, as their best hitters like Cruz, Ozuna, Lowe, and Reynolds are all guys who are prone to swinging and missing a lot. The offense will have its cold streaks, like every team in baseball, so it is nice that during this stretch the pitching has picked up the slack enough to make them a .500 team. That said, it is clear that the Pirates are going to be weaker against left-handed pitching. If the Pirates make an NLDS appearance, nights like tonight will embolden teams to spam lefties at the Bucs until they prove that they can hit them. For right now, it seems like a glaring weakness that needs to be addressed at the deadline so the lineup can be patched.
Why Does Justin Lawrence Keep Pitching in 1 Run Games?
Don Kelly has to use every single pitcher he is given on the 26-man roster, so I do sympathize with his plight. However, Just Lawrence simply cannot be receiving the baseball in 1-run games until he shows an ability to get people out consistently. Tonight was a 2-1 ballgame after 6 very good innings from Carmen Mlodzinski. Taking out Mlod was the correct move because he was getting hit hard and was lucky to only have given up 2 runs. Lawrence has pitched multiple times in 1-run leads or deficits, and the results have been painfully similar to how he’s pitched all year. Lawrence surrenders 3 earned runs in the 7th, failing to record even a single out. Those 3 runs pushed the Giants’ lead to 5-1, and there was basically no hope for a comeback. Almost everyone else in the bullpen has performed better than Lawrence this season and deserves to be in high leverage more than he does. Yohan Ramirez is the name who comes to mind to replace Justin, as he has been on mop-up duty and pitched extremely well in that role. Let him earn the high-leverage situations before Soto/Santana because Lawrence has been directly costing us games by blowing up in close games.
Salmon Season Starts in May?
Marcell Ozuna so far has been one of the worst position players in the entirety of baseball. At the end of April he was sporting an abysmal .467 OPS and was hitting worse than Tommy Pham and Rowdy Tellez were during their first month as a Pirate. Ozuna was the sole Pirate who had a good game today, going 2/3 with a home run and reaching base 3 times. Since the calendar flipped to May, Ozuna has improved his OPS by over 120 points to a .593 OPS. Ozuna waking up and being the hitter the Pirates committed 12 million dollars to would be a massive jolt of excitement into a floundering offense. Over his last 7 games, the Big Bear is slashing .333/.419/.593 with 2 homers. This could be an example of fool’s gold like his one good week in April, but his at bats are finally looking competitive. Even without Ozuna, the Pirates have managed to put together a top-half offense. With the National League heating up with the best teams in baseball surrounding the Pirates, a competent Marcell could be the X factor needed to push the Pirates into contender status.
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