Saturday, May 31st, 2008 by Adam Wagner
Two solid starts, two different results
The Pirates’ starting pitching has been ridiculously inconsistent thus far this season, but in the past two games, one against Cincinnati and one against St. Louis, they managed to squeeze two quality starts out of their rotation in a row, kind of an amazing accomplishment. Unfortunately, only one of the games was a victory, as the Pirates beat the Reds 7-2 on Thursday night and the Cardinals defeated the Pirates 5-4 on Friday night.
Dumatrait started in Cincinnati against his former team and furthered the case for himself being Neal Huntington’s best pickup as a GM yet and maybe one of the best non-trade acquisitions of this decade for the Pirates by turning in seven quality innings for a team that desperately needed them. By striking out nine during the outing, Dumatrait showed an instinct for striking batters out that has been conspicuously absent from the rotation this year, especially considering the continuing demises of Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny.
Dumatrait has provided a steadying influence on the rotation and is probably leaving Reds’ fans to wonder “Why did we dump this guy?” right now even as Pirate fans can’t help but wonder “Why wasn’t he in the rotation to start the year?”
The offense was also excellent on Thursday, beating up Aaron Harang (Who is one of Billy Beane’s two only major mistakes as Oakland’s GM, the other one was Jeremy Bonderman.) for six runs in four innings. Of course, Harang was pitching on three days of rest, but beating up one of the best starters in baseball under any circumstance is a good thing.
Jason Bay and Xavier Nady were the catalysts, again demonstrating that the Pirates’ outfield can be aptly described as one of the best in all of baseball. Bay hit a two-run home run in the fourth inning that was one of the final hits that Harang was permitted to surrender, while Nady hit a home run off of reliever Jeremy Affeldt in the fifth inning.
On Friday night, the outfield again played a vital role for the Pirates’ offense as Nate McLouth’s 13th home run of the year gave the Pirates a 1-0 lead in the first inning. Unfortunately, the offense was incapable of scoring again until the ninth inning, thereby wasting a solid effort from Zach Duke.
Duke threw six solid innings, giving up three runs, two of them earned, and managing to only allow seven base runners, an oddly low number. The bullpen, however, took the game away from Duke as Tyler Yates gave up two runs in the seventh inning, allowing the Cardinals to take a 5-1 lead and rendering the Pirates’ three-run ninth inning moot. Yates has stunk recently, just not getting hitters out and seemingly surrendering runs every time he pitches. The Pirates, and not many other teams in baseball for that matter, are not good enough to have a pitcher like that on the roster.
It is worth noting that the RBIs in that inning came off of the bat of Jason Michaels, who has quietly been very good off of the bench since being acquired from Cleveland, further demonstrating that Neal Huntington has put together almost the ideal bench with Michaels, Chris Gomez, Doug Mientkiewicz and Ronny Paulino/Raul Chavez.
The magic number is now down to 53, but two good starts in a row could be a sign of things turning around. Maybe. Of course, the next three games are being started by Paul Maholm (who can’t pitch away from PNC Park), Ian Snell (who can’t get hitters out) and Tom Gorzelanny (who will be happy to survive the first inning).
It will take a little bit of skill and a lot of luck for the Pirates to win over the next three games.
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