Jeff Karstens Leads the Way to 2nd Place for the Pittsburgh Pirates

More random thoughts from Bucco Central:

Last night, Wandy Rodriquez brought his 3.25 era and 7-2 record into PNC Park and the Pirates laid 5 runs on him, none bigger than Brandon Wood’s 2-run dinger in the 2nd inning. Your battling Buccos added on more runs, but really, Wood's homer would have done it because Jeff Karstens was,once again, masterful.

As we round the bases into the All-Star break, consider these facts about these Pirates:



-- Wandy Rodriquez has been a huge pain in the private parts for the Pirates. From 2008 up until last night, his career record against the Bucs was 5-1. From the ‘08 season through the ‘10 season, his era against the Buccos was a microscopic 1.85, having given up only 7 earned runs in 5 games.

-- In recent memory, conferring an MVP award on any member of the Pittsburgh Pirates seemed a bit like putting Serge Lutens lipstick ($75 per tube) on a honey badger. But this year, there are several strong contenders, and I’d argue that you could give Jeff Karstens an MVP award right now with a strong case to lean on. He was wonderful again last night.

One of the things I love best about Karstens is that he makes teams beat him, which is to say, he doesn’t issue free passes. He’s got just 18 walks all season (and a handful of those are intentional, I think). His era is the 10th lowest in all of MLB. Of the nine pitchers in front of him with lower era’s, only Roy Halladay has issued fewer walks (17.) Kids at home, take this as a lesson: make hitters hit because there's a good chance they'll make an out.


-- I was at Sunday’s game, the opener of this series versus the Astros. Afterward, starter Paul Maholm said it was the kind of game they typically lost in the past. I had the exact same thought walking back to my car that day. After giving up three runs, only two of which were earned runs (really, all three came across the plate as a result of fielding blunders), the Pirates battled back. The Astros put up a flukey run in the 1st inning, but Michael McHenry singled home Lyle Overbay to answer in the 2nd. The Astros put up 2 runs in the 3rd (both on errors), but Chase d’Arnaud, Andrew McCutchen and Overbay answered in the bottom half of the inning. Like I said, the club had zero ability to counter-punch last year. You don’t win many games like that, as they proved.


-- The franchise won a total of 16 series in all of 2010. With the win over the Houston Astros last night, the Pirates have clinched that series (regardless of the outcome tonight), giving them 17 series victories in 2011.


-- Two of those series wins came against the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox, respectively. The Phillies rolled into town in first place in the NL East, sporting a 34-23 record. Then promptly lost two to the Pirates. The Red Sox came to town three weeks later, in first place in the AL East, with their garish 41-31 record. They promptly lost two to the Pirates.

I would point out that, according to the USA Today, the Phillies have the 2nd highest payroll in MLB at nearly $173 million and the Red Sox are right behind them with the 3rd largest payroll at nearly $163 million. The Pirates go to battle with the 3rd lowest payroll at about $45 mil.


-- Just a quick reminder, but the Pirates won a total of 17 games on the road last year. Seventeen, like the friggin’ magazine. By June 14th of 2011, the Pirates had 18 road wins. I don't know what it means, but I like it.

More later.

Here's What .500 Looks Like, the June Edition

I don't think we're going to see that same, ugly implosion we saw last June. No sireee.

Is everybody else having fun with this? Because I sure as hell am.

On Paul Maholm, Balks and Missed Opportunities

I like the unusual occurrences, the kinds of screwball plays that don't happen all that often -- like a great run down, the use of the infield fly rule or the triple play. This is why I love balks. Love. Them. You don't see them very often. They're tricky, slippery little suckers, nebulous movements that happen in a blink of an eye. So I usually revel in the rare balk.

But I was not at all happy yesterday to see my friend the balk arrive at Citifield in the bottom of the 8th inning. Jose Veras' balk moved pinch-runner Willie Harris over from 1st base to 2nd base, which then allowed Mets Skipper Terry Collins to insert Josh Thole mid-at-bat for Chris Capuano. It was like dominos falling. Capuano was there to bunt Harris to second, but with Harris already at second, Collins was freed up to put a real hitter in there. With Thole at the plate, and after having committed a balk, Veras went temporarily insane, threw a wild pitch that put Harris at 3rd and then walked Thole. Instead of a man on 2nd and one out, the Pirates were up against men on 1st and 3rd and no outs.

The Deadliest Balk.


But, as deadly as all that was, in all honesty, the Pirates should never have been in that situation with the game tied in the 8th inning after building a 7-0 lead and chasing Mets starter Mike Pelfrey after just five innings.

The problems really started for the Pirates, not in the ill-fated 8th, but in the bottom of the 5th inning when Paul Maholm was still on the hill.

I have been critical of Maholm in this space, some of it is probably unfair, but some is justified. If I'm being completely fair, he's not a bad pitcher and, in fact, when he's good, he can be very good, a very sturdy starting pitcher. That said, Maholm goes from reliable lefty to bum in about one hot second. When he has his stuff, he's a good ground ball pitcher, but when he loses his stuff -- and it happens in a blink -- he's tossing grapefruits up there like Fat Jimmy Anderson.

I think this is why it's so easy for me to pick on Maholm. When the wheels come off for him, he gives up huge innings. Not one and two run innings, but four and five and six run innings. He seems to be a good guy. He wants to pitch well. He wants to carry the team. And his coaches want to believe in him. I get all of that and I think it's why every skipper who has come through here has made the mistake of sticking with Maholm too long and having it come back to bite the team in the ass.

Some pitchers can battle through a rough stretch and come out the other end. Not Maholm. When he gets in trouble, his curveball doesn't just hang, it positively dangles. As soon as opposing batters start hitting the ball in the air -- even for outs -- he's done. Which is why Clint Hurdle's spidey-sense should have been tingling in the bottom of the 5th -- as all three Mets' outs came on fly balls. Deep fly balls, too, not pop ups. As soon as you start seeing that from Maholm, don't think 'Paul Maholm,' think 'Fat Jimmy Anderson,' because you don't have much longer before he's going to flame out spectacularly.

After Maholm opened the 6th by giving up a double to Carlos Beltran and then walking Jason Bay, it was already too late for him.

So I'm reconsidering my criticisms of Maholm, trying find some balance. This one is on Maholm and Veras, but equally so on Ray Searge and Hurdle (both of whom I greatly love already). Know your pitcher.

Maholm doesn't battle out of trouble.

He pitches great.

Or he pitches like ass.

There's just no middle ground. First sign of trouble? Get the bullpen humming. It's just that simple.

What really frosts me about it was that it was such a great opportunity to take three out of four from the Mets, a franchise in complete disarray, but instead they lost a gut-punch game and now have to face the mighty Phillies. I would have felt a lot better about this weekend's series with that extra win under the Buccos' belts.



[Photos courtesy of mlb-baseball-blog.com and mlb.com]

The Pittsburgh Pirates: Playing Baseball Like They Care

But still -- it's not enough.

It would be nice to believe that grit and effort will get you through to the promised land with a bunch of has-beens, never-weres, and never-shoulda-beens because they just want it more than the other guys. What a wonderful world it would be if you could simply 'Braveheart' your way into the MLB playoffs.It would be grand if it were actually possible to just "win the whole fucking thing," as Tom Berenger says in 'Major League,' out of spite and sheer bull-headedness. But those are movies and it's a fantasy to believe that you can win a World Series (or even your division), just because you want it more. Sure, you need desire, will and resilience. You need guys who believe and who put in the effort necessary to win.

But you also need starting pitching, relief pitching and a shut-down closer. You need speed on the basepaths and power in the batters box. You need a bunch of guys who can actually, you know, hit a curveball.

And you need a skipper to pull it all together.

The Pirates have the last element, I believe. I believe Hurdle is a good manager. I believe he might even be a great one. At the very least, he's interesting, awake, seems to give a shit, is willing to take some chances and, also, is a guy who stressed fundamentals in spring training. These are all good things. Hurdle is a monumental improvement over John Russell. Hurdle is both engaged and engaging; Russell was comatose. On his best days.

But, really, without a significant improvement in on-field talent, how many wins can a manager account for? I'm saying seven, maybe 10 at the outside. If you put Hurdle in the Pirates dugout last year, that roster might could have won 64 games (maybe 67) rather than 57. They were a bad team. That fact was exacerbated by the presence of a bad manager.

But, aside from the coaching improvement how much different, how much better are these guys? Let's look at the bats first, then the arms.

This is last season's opening day line up: 1. Aki Iwamura (2B), 2. Andrew McCutchen (CF), 3. Garrett Jones (RF), 4. Ryan Doumit (C), 5. Lastings Milledge (LF), 6. Jeff Clement (1B), 7. Andy LaRoche (3B), 8. Pitcher (in this case, Zach Duke and yes, Russell had so little confidence in his short-stop that he had him batting 9th), 9. Ronnie Cedeno (SS).

Of course, even the inert Russell had the sense to sit Iwamura (and his knee-brace, and his .182 batting average. Face of futility = Iwamura) after a while and bring up guys like Alvarez and Tabata. But even with those mid-season moves, the Pirates ranked 29th in runs, 29th in batting average, 28th in on-base percentage, and 27th in slugging percentage.

This year's batting order is much improved if for no other reason than the absence of Iwamura. The 2011 opening day batting order looked like this: 1. Jose Tabata (LF), 2. Neil Walker (2B), 3. McCutchen (CF), 4. Lyle Overbay (1B), 5. Pedro Alvarez, 6. Doumit (C), 7. Jones (RF), 8. Cedeno (SS), 9. Pitcher (in this case, Kevin Correia).

This year's line up should rank much higher in all categories. But even though they are better, are they that much better? Today, they are 29th in run, 25th in batting average, 26th in slugging percentage, and 24th in on-base percentage (that increase might be due solely to the great play of Tabata in the lead-off spot.) Hurdle thought they'd be better than those stats. Heck, we all did. Not that we expected the 1933 Pittsburgh Crawfords mind you, but we did expect to see more lively bats and more runs. The bats may yet turn a corner, crack into the middle percentages for runs scored and on-base percentages. Let's hope so.

Even if the bats wake up, even if Alvarez can actually hit a breaking ball once in a lunar cycle, will it make that much of a difference in terms of record? Unless Clint Hurdle can go out and pitch, how many more wins can we expect him to generate?

Kevin Correia, with his career 4.52 era is expected to anchor the Bucco rotation. Well, he's an improvement over having Zach Duke as your staff 'ace,' and, except for his last outing against the Brewers, he's looked pretty good, which is to say, he'd be a great acquisition if he were your #3 or #4 pitcher. That would be fantastic. That he is the staff ace, tells you something about the rest of the rotation.

Paul Maholm. Well, enough said, enough seen, enough. Enough of Paul Maholm.

The best thing that may have happened to the Pirates is an injury to Ross Ohlendorf. Journos who were at spring training report that Karstens looked better than Ohlendorf anyway, so Ohlendorf v. Karstens in the line-up? What's the difference? It's just an arm to put out there every five days and probably not an arm that should be in an MLB uniform, other than as a long-reliever anyway.

The interesting guys are the four and five pitchers: Charlie Morton and James McDonald. Folks seem to be excited about the potential of both of these guys. And even though I haven't quite seen what those folks are seeing, I'm going to reserve judgment on both of Morton and McDonald until I see more from them.

So, to break down the starting pitching: we have two guys we know are pretty bad but show just enough that the team doesn't quite want to give up on them (Maholm and Ohlendorf); one guy we know is pretty good -- not great, but good (Correia); two guys who are question marks (McDonald and Morton); and one guy who is a long-reliever dressed up as a starter (Karstens).

I think Hurdle will get everything he can from these guys. I love the way his staff handles base-running. I love the aggressive attitude. But when you have to rely on guys like Maholm and Meek, Crotta and Karstens (I assume he'll pitch in Ohlendorf's absence?), the team would have to score upwards of eight runs every night.

On opening day, I predicted 64 wins, which would be a seven game improvement over last year's finish. Even though they've hit a pretty rough patch in the past week, I'm going to upgrade that to 66 wins, just based on my opinion of Hurdle and what I've seen from Tabata as a lead off man. Is that enough improvement for Pittsburgh fans? What kind of record would satisfy you?