Sunday, June 1st, 2008 by Adam Wagner
The best and the worst of Pirates’ pitching
The best and the worst of the Pirates’ starters have been on display in St. Louis this weekend as Paul Maholm had a solid outing on Saturday night en route to a 14-4 Pirate win while Ian Snell had a disastrous one on Sunday en route to a 7-4 Pirates’ loss. The Pirates’ starters have been openly up and down thus far, with Maholm, Zach Duke and Phil Dumatrait all being able to have good starts while Snell and Tom Gorzelanny are walking disasters and this weekend series was just an example of that issue.
On Saturday, Maholm was given the early lead by an Xavier Nady three-run double as well as a Jose Bautista RBI single. Nady’s double gave him 45 RBIs on the season, good for fifth in the National League.
Luis Rivas, who is suddenly trying to impersonate Hanley Ramirez when he plays the shortstop position, extended the lead by hitting a grand slam in the third, making that his third home run in less than a week. Rivas also hit a triple in the game. Two other home runs came off of the bats of Ronny Paulino and Freddy Sanchez. It is worth noting that Paulino has 18 RBIs, which is three less than Bautista’s 21, but that Bautista has 154 at bats and Paulino only has 109. That speaks more to how bad Bautista has been than how good Paulino has been.
Rivas was only in the lineup because Jack Wilson pulled himself about a half hour before game time with a not-quite healthy calf, demonstrating that he may have come back from the injury a bit earlier than he should have. A healthy Wilson is a huge addition to the club, but an unhealthy Wilson is just a player taking up a roster spot, unfortunately.
The story of the game, however, was not Rivas, or even Bautista, who had his first career four-hit game. It was Maholm, who went six and two-thirds innings while only surrendering one run on four hits. He also struck out five batters. It was vital for Maholm to have a solid start on the road since he had been flat out awful away from PNC Park to this point in the season. Maholm becoming a good number three is vital to the future of the Pirates’ rotation, but even more important is Snell or Gorzelanny regaining their #1 or #2 stuff.
Unfortunately, Sunday was not Snell’s day to rebound from his recent disappointments. Snell only managed to last four innings, giving up six runs and throwing ineffective pitches. Somehow Snell just isn’t getting the job done right now and it’s very odd since this is the same pitcher who had an extraordinary tendency to bounce back last year and seemed to have an abnormal amount of mental toughness, even if he was a little looney. Now, he just flat out stinks.
The Pirates need to figure out what is going on with him and make whatever changes, be they physical or mental, to make him be effective again. The reality of the situation is that if the Pirates are going to be good, they need Snell to be good. He’s the ace of the rotation and if he isn’t pitching well, the rest of the team is going to have serious issues.
On the bright side, Snell was only really awful for one inning, meaning that the pitcher was generally focused and pitched a decent game. Unfortunately, he still gave up the six runs and, therefore, had a terrible start.
After Snell was pulled, the bullpen managed to give up only one run over five innings, as John Grabow surrenedered one in the seventh. That is excellent work from a unit that is expected to throw about twenty innings each time around the rotation and it will not continue if they keep being called on to throw that many innings.
The Cardinals’ defense was sparkling today as Rick Ankiel (yeah, he plays the field, too) made a highlight reel catch to rob Xavier Nady in the second, diving on the warning track to catch the ball. There were also four or five other excellent plays by the Cardinals that shut the Pirates’ offensive efforts down, making today one of those games where the Pirates had to wonder what they needed to do to win the game.
Despite the Cardinals’ excellent defense, the Pirates managed to stay in the game, scoring four times, three times off of Braden “Babe Ruth” Looper. The Pirates actually scored the first run of the game on a Bautista single, but then the five-run Cardinals’ second inning occurred, making a deficit that the Pirates would be unable to dig themselves out of. Sanchez hit a sacrifice fly in the fifth that scored a run, while Nate McLouth was hit by a pitch in the sixth inning with the bases loaded to bring around a run. The fourth run was scored on a Bautista double in the eighth inning, but the Pirates couldn’t bring him around despite there being no outs when he hit the double..
The magic number is now down to 52 and will almost surely drop again tomorrow after Tom Gorzelanny gets shellacked again tomorrow.
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