Ponderings

Nothing like another horrible round of duscussion on the #1 Cochran Sports Showdown to get my blood boiling. The topic of "what's wrong with the Pirates" came up, and a number of reasons were chucked out by the talking heads there, including:

~LaRoche isn't hitting.
~Sanchez isn't hitting.
~Nobody besides Doumit is doing anything at the plate.
~No pitcher besides Snell or Gorzellany is pitching well.
~The bullpen is being exposed.

Let's take a look at all of these possibilities, shall we?

Sure, LaRoche is hitting an atrocious .167, with a .566 OPS, but there are signs of life. First of all, there's an interesting split to be had. Adam is hitting 5 for 11 (.456) in three games since sitting out, and 12 for 49 (.245) since the day he hit his third home run (the last game against the Dodgers). That isn't fantastic, but it's still an improved .636 OPS. Matter of fact, there have only been six games all year where he hasn't reached base. Not a huge stat, but worth noting. There are certain signs of life for Adam, and things are looking up.

Sanchez not hitting? Sure, his average is only .258, but don't throw in the towel just yet, people. He hit a 1 for 19 slump in the first five games of the last homestand, but he's hitting .311 with a .738 OPS otherwise and .367 with an .820 OPS in the last seven games. So give the man time. He won't be what he was last year, but he'll still be good (more on that later).

Nobody besides Doumit doing anything at the plate? It would sure seem that way considering Doumit is the only Pirate hitting above .288 right now (.456 avg and 1.302 OPS in nine starts). However, there are signs of life. I already pointed out LaRoche and Sanchez showing signs of life in the past week. Another example is Jose Bautista.
The morning of April 28th, Bautista was hitting .289 and had nine doubles in his first 80 at-bats. Very encouraging. He also was managing a meager .307 OBP, due in no small part to drawing ONE walk in his first 81 plate appearances. That has turned around - somewhat - recently. In the last nine games, Bautista is hitting .185, but has a .666 OPS in that stretch, due to six walks in his last 33 plate appearances. He is now on pace for 86 walks instead of eight. Now he just needs to get hits AND walks at the same time.
What about Paulino and his ghastly .217 average? Paulino started the season hitting .138 in the first seven games, and is hitting .254 since then. Still not great though, right? How about the last 10 games, where Ronny is hitting .271 with an .885 OPS. Five of his last six hits have been doubles or home runs. This is another very good sign.
Little bit worried about Duffy. He's 3 for 30 in his last seven starts, during which his average has dropped from .286 to 237 and his OPS has dropped from .749 to .652 - let's hope this is just a slump (one that broke with his home run Sunday?) and not a regression.

No pitcher besides Snell and Gorzellany...hmmm...

Snell - 6 starts, 5 quality starts
Gorzo - 6 starts, 5 quality starts, one just shy
Duke - 7 starts, 4 quality starts, one just shy

O.K., so that statement is only partly wrong. Duke seems to have righted the ship since his bad outings against the Giants and Brewers. Snell and Gorzellany are great. Maholm is....still figuring it out? His complete game, even if it was against Houston, shows that the ability is there. It's merely a matter of him doing it, inning after inning.

Armas is my bone to pick here. He has now made five starts. Even if I give in to the whole "the first two starts were so far apart" yadda yadda...that still leaves three starts made on regular rest. In those three starts, he made it past the fifth inning once, gave up less that three runs twice (one by the sheer grace of Jonah Bayliss saving his ass)...he has labored. Consider this - Armas has pitched part or all of 24 innings in his five starts, and has thrown 460 pitches. That's 19 pitches per inning. If that's the Armas we know and love (the one true quality start against Chicago is the only outing where he threw less than 19 pitches in more than one inning), that's 95 pitches in five innings.

So what, right, the next best option is Chacon. Wrong. Bryan Bullington and John Van Benschoten have made 12 starts between them (JVB made #6 tonight). The combined line for the two of them - 12 GS, 70 1/3 IP, 51H, 13R, 11ER, 2HR, 4HB, 29BB, 44K...1.41 ERA, 1.14 WHIP.

They aren't striking guys out particularly frequently (more Bullington, JVB has 25 K's in 32 2/3 innings), but their numbers are still drastically better than Armas, Maholm, or Chacon.

If San Francisco calls up their rookie to replace a struggling veteran because he was dominating AA , there is NO reason why one of them should get called up now to replace Armas, and the other should get his shot if Maholm doesn't fix his ship.

Forget the bullpen. They've had a few specific bad outings lately, but that happened last year too. This post is getting long anyways. On to other things...