The Pirates routed the Cubs 12-1 Tuesday night to hand the Cubs their 10th straight loss. The Bucs offense ripped 15 hits including two home runs from Spencer Horwitz and Esmerlyn Valdez to lead the offense. Braxton Ashcraft fired 6.1 innings with one run allowed for his 4th win of the season. Jim and Cody recapped this win on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti’s Bros. You can watch/listen here:
Here’s my 3 takeaways from this 12-1 victory…
Now We’re Talking…Let’s Get Hot
The Pirates jumped on the Cubs right away in this game with five runs in the first inning. The Pirates continued to add on as Braxton Ashcraft did his thing and shut down the Cubs. The Pirates now have won three straight games and are 29-26 while the Cubs have now lost 10 consecutive games. With this win, the Bucs have caught the Cubs in the standings and can pass them up tomorrow and possibly the Cubs. This is what I’ve been banging the table for. Get hot and start stacking wins, and doing it against a divisional rival is even more sweeter. With how talented this rotation is, it’s hard to believe it hasn’t happened yet but you can go on some runs in a season with a pitching staff like this.
The Pirates won a tight 2-1 game on Memorial Day and then come right back out and blow out the Cubs in this game to keep the train rolling. Wednesday they’re a slight favorite with Bubba Chandler facing old friend Jameson Taillon and then Thursday Paul Skenes makes the start in the series finale. Keep winning, take advantage of a Cubs team that’s reeling and don’t let them get up off the mat. Win four, five or six straight…maybe you lose one but then come back and win the next three or four. That’s how you stack wins and put together a nice record. We’ve seen this team hover around .500 which seems like that’s this team’s floor, but now it’s time to keep rolling and pass some teams up in the division.
Pirates Don’t Seem Too Concerned with Ashcraft’s Innings
We’ve heard a lot about Braxton Ashcraft’s innings total this season from fans and what limit for the season he has and how he’s trending to hit his max high in innings by midseason. But here’s the thing…Tuesday the Pirates were up 9-1 after six innings. Ashcraft had six innings in the books of one-run ball at 82 pitches. It was the perfect spot to call it a day for Ashcraft and put in the bullpen since you’re up 9-1 and not push Ashcraft too hard since you had a big lead. It was a great opportunity to save an inning or two from him. But the top of the 7th started and there was Ashcraft pitching to the Cubs still. Ashcraft got Dansby Swanson to strike out swinging for his 5th strikeout of the game. He then gave up back-to-back singles to Pete Crow-Armstrong and Nico Hoerner before being lifted from the game for reliever Brandan Bidois.
I was very surprised that the Bucs brought Ashcraft back out to pitch the 7th inning. So if the Pirates are bringing him out for extra innings with a 9-1 lead on May 26…maybe they’re not as concerned about his innings limit as the fans are? And if they aren’t worried about it, why are we exactly? Last season Ashcraft threw 69.2 innings with the Pirates and he’s not at 68.2 innings so far this season. Add in his innings overall between Triple-A and Pittsburgh last season and he tossed 118 innings which was the most innings he’s thrown in his career. I wrote about this before, but Ashcraft’s innings have been relatively efficient and easy going as in he hasn’t allowed very much traffic on the base paths which have kept his innings more stress free and not as high pressure. He’s just been very, very good on the mound and limiting his opponents. Maybe just maybe that plays a role in how the Pirates see the innings he has thrown so far this season and are letting him go until they see him laboring or running out of gas. But so far so good for Braxton, and the Pirates are continuing to give him the freedom to pitch and dominate.
Outfield En Fuego
In this 12-1 victory, the outfield trio of Bryan Reynolds, Oneil Cruz and Esmerlyn Valdez led the way. They went 10-for-13 with six RBIs, four runs scored, two doubles and a home run. Valdez homered for the second time in as many games as he once again feasted on a lefthanded pitcher. For a lineup that’s been struggling against lefthanded pitching, this was a nice turnaround as the Pirates lit Jordan Wicks up for eight runs in 4.1 innings. Exactly what they should be doing against a pitcher that was called up from the minors and hasn’t had much MLB success in three stints.
I said on The NS9 Report this week that Jake Mangum shouldn’t start once this homestand with Jhostynxon Garcia and Valdez here and so far so good. The next thing I asked for was for Marcell Ozuna to sit a couple times this week. You can DH Cruz or Reynolds and get Garcia in the lineup with Valdez. Let’s start doing that next. Ozuna went 1-for-5 Tuesday night with one single and two strikeouts. He just hasn’t been driving the ball with just five hits in his last nine games with only one extra base hit. Sit him a couple times this homestand and let’s give Garcia and Valdez some run.
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