If you have not been paying close attention - and I have not with this move to Washington - the Pittsburgh Pirates are competitive for the first time in nearly 20 years. Yes, in a weak division, to be sure, but they are above .500 after the All Star Break which is unheard of, and only a couple of games out of first place. The five years prior to this I had the Baseball Package and watched a lot of Tigers and Dodgers (of course), but I also sort of adopted the Pirates as a third team simply because I loved watching their stadium on TV. Maybe not the best of reasons, but I can think of worse. Last September, Robert Winant and I went to Pittsburgh for a long weekend and I just can't say enough great things about that city and the ballpark, both of which are fantastic. We attended two games vs. Arizona (Kirk Gibson, manager) and I'm happy to report the Pirates went 2-0 on our night/day doubleheader (visit to Capitol Grill Steakhouse wedged in between on Saturday evening; we sat beneath an oil painting of Mr. Rogers (seriously)).
Anyway, as I said, I haven't been paying close attention to them this year, but I noticed the other day that Joel Hanrahan had 30 saves and I thought to myself, well, that likely has quite a bit to do with their success. And then I went in and looked at his numbers, and if you haven't seen them they are very impressive - his 30 saves have come in 31 chances; he's striking out less than a batter an inning (about .8), but his K to W ratio is nearly 5:1; he's allowed 42 baserunners in 47 innings (.89); he's allowed one HR; his ERA is 1.15.
Not saying it's happening just because of him, of course, but he's a huge part of the reason, and I wanted to draw attention to that. Robert, if you have time, care to weigh in on any other key contributors? You are likely more familiar with what else is going right on that team...
Key contributors? Cutch, of course. The only guy hitting worth anything on that team is Andrew McCutchen. Neil Walker isn't embarrasing himself with the stick, but there's not much else going on for the Bucs in that department. Ronny Cedeno is playing a solid shortstop, but the rest of the contributors are a bunch of journeyman pitchers. It doesn't necessarily bode well for the their second half chances that they'll need the Paul Mahomlms, Charlie Mortons and James McDonald's of the of the world to keep them from falling back to the bottom of the pile. But we can dream.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the oil painting, let's not forget the lovely statue of the mud monster himself. We can't post photos here can we?
Sadly, I don't think photos can be posted here, no. However I would say that when we move over to infectionbylight.com, which has been established but i have to migrate stuff over, we should be able to do that there, yes. Because all should see the mud monster himself, that seems obvious to me.
ReplyDeleteOh i do like that Cutch, i do. their manager, Clint Hurdle? sat him down earlier in the year i think for not running a ball out, and Cutch said afterward Hurdle was right to do it.
the journeyman pitcher scenario does not bode well, you are correct.