An Organizational Good Day (14-26)

The Pirates escaped tonight. Malholm pitched a good six innings, but struggled in the 7th. JR made a questionable decision to go put in Meek with a 7 to 3 lead. Was their really no one else in the bullpen that could not have gotten out of the 7th? Meek allowed one of the inherited runners to cross, but put out the fire. But then Meek began to run out of gas in the 8th. A two out double plated two runs to get the game to within one run. Finally with two on, Meek got the last out of the inning. Hanrahan had no problems getting his three outs and the Pirates win 7 to 6.

The game did see McCutchen beaned in the neck. No concussion and probably no DL, but expect a missed game or two.

The problem with the current Pirates was illustrated nicely in this game. Walker had four RBIs in a game where they scored 7. Tabata scored twice and added an RBI himself. One of those runs was also going to be McCutchen, but it was Young who came in for McCutchen when he got beaned. That is five of the RBIs came from the top three guys. The offense is almost all located there. Jones failed to do anything. Milledge got a timely hit after an Alvarez walk that proceeded a Snyder base hit that scored both of those guys and that was the scoring. Alvarez when he is hot can do stuff, but right now he is not. Milledge is lacking power so most of his hits go without benefit to the team. Snyder is new, so we will see if he can turn Milledge into an asset at the bottom of the line up. And it should be noted that in this game Snyder produced at the bottom of the line up and the Pirates won. If they get production from someone other than the big three, they win the game.

The Pirates minor league teams did rather well tonight.

The GCL Pirates took a game today 4-3. The big hit was Cayonez’s double that scored two in the eighth. He scored later that same inning to take the lead. The big story in my mind however is with the pitching. Cliff Archibald, a 2010 36th round JuCo arm, struck out 7 in five innings without giving up a walk and one run. In fact he has only given up two walks all year. Barrett Phillips, who has been a strikeout machine this year and you may remember was undrafted signing last year, got the win after throwing three scoreless innings, and striking out three.

The West Virginia Power won 10-6. Evan Chambers had three RBIs as did Baker. Cunningham had three runs scored and McPherson gave up two runs in five innings, both were solo homeruns. He struck out three walking one.

The State College Spikes lost by the same score. Mel Rojas and Alberto Santos both had three hits and one RBI. Zack Fuesser actually looked pretty good. He gave up two runs in his four innings striking out two and walking two. He is only twenty and has a 3.77 ERA.

Bradenton crushed their opponents 11-5. Leech pitched good. Sterling Marte went 2 for 4 with a run scored and Latimore hit a homer.

Altoona pulled out an extra inning win 3-2. Yung Chi Chen scored all three runs and the walk off hit came from Chase D’Arnaud. The other two RBIs went to Harrison who was 2 for 4.

Altoona won the first game of the night in a close manner as well by the score of 4 to 3 thanks to a three run 4th inning. D’Arnaud went 2 for 2, Mercer went 1 for 3 as did the recently acquired Lambo and Harrison. Wilson continued his good season earning his 9th win actually raising his ERA to 3.13 over 6 innings. He struck out 4.

Indianapolis won a game 5 to 3. Four of those runs were in the first inning when Ciriaco knocked in a run as did John Bowker. Brandon Moss added an RBI in the first and then scored on a throwing error. The added one more later and Jeremy Powell got the win.

The Domincian Summer League Pirates also won in extra innings completing the almost sweep for the Pirates organization today. It was a good day.