Joey Bart and the Pirates took revenge on the Giants tonight as they pummel San Francisco in a 10 run win on Saturday night. The Pirates were carried by yet another elite outing from Braxton Ashcraft, every single Pirates starter got a hit, and 25 total runners reached base in one of the weirdest baseball games played this season. The Pirates have secured a .500 record on this west coast road trip and have improved to 22-18 on the season. Click the links below to watch Neil and Tyler talk about the game in extensive detail:
https://toolbox.marketingtools.apple.com/en-us/apple-podcasts/us/podcast-episode/1000767016640
Braxton Ashcraft Remains Elite
Braxton Ashcraft has now pitched 118 innings of major league baseball and, in that time, has posted an ERA of 2.74. He strikes out more than a batter per inning and has maintained an impressive pitch mix over the course of his brief career in the majors. Tonight emphasized how good his pitch mix can be, because over his 7 innings he relied on what had been his worst pitch this season by far. Coming into tonight, his slider’s run value was -3, the only one of his pitches that was in the negative. Tonight that same slider carried him to an easy 7 innings that only got cut short because the game was uncompetitive. He only threw 18 balls the entire night, and the Giants hitters had no answers to his stuff. Ashcraft continues to impress, but I am willing to start entertaining discussions on if he is A-caliber. He has been everything we expected Bubba Chandler to be, and he is the clear choice for game number 2 of a playoff series. What makes this more impressive is that he is number 2 on one of the best pitching staffs in baseball.
Chicks Dig the Small Ball
The Pirates have been able to win several games this season by hitting the ball over the fence once or twice, while for the majority of the game, the offense generates nothing. However, this is now the 2nd game in a week where the Pirates have scored well into double digits and haven’t hit one home run. They were surely aided by the Giants conveniently forgetting how to play defense in the 7th inning, but they also hit 10-22 with RISP and hit plenty of extra base hits to supplement the attack. This is significant to me because we have shown the ability time and time again this season to score in a variety of ways and still win baseball games. Perhaps this simple thought comes from being scarred for life by the 2025 Pirates, who were unable to do any of these things, so basic competence is a big win for me. This is now the 8th win of the season where the Bucs have beaten their opponent by 5 or more runs. Even though the offense cooled off a lot this week, they have been able to weather the storm and show that the early offensive success isn’t a fluke. This is a lineup that, when healthy, is easily in the top half of the league, and with Joey Bart and Marcell Ozuna heating up, it could even be a special lineup.
Nick Gonzales Continues to Impress
Nick Gonzales collected another 4 hits tonight and raised his batting average for the year to .323, a figure that approximately 0 people predicted would happen. It also puts him top 10 in baseball in batting average as of tonight. While frustrating that he continues to hit balls that die at the warning track, he has been an invaluable part of the Pirates’ early season success. When Gonzales was drafted, he was praised for his hit tool that was supposed to be able to win him batting titles at the major league level. Development isn’t linear, so it has been a welcome surprise that his hit tool has kicked in as a key cog in the Pirates’ offensive machine. Baseball seasons are very long, and to reach the playoffs, every team needs to have success stories that no one predicted would happen preseason to make that goal possible. We see it with every one of our divisional rivals on a yearly basis, and it feels really nice to be on the receiving end of this blessing with a guy like Gonzales this year.
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