PITTSBURGH — The Pirates mustered very little offense against Miami starter David Phelps in a 3-1 loss to the Marlins Saturday night. In Phelps’ six innings, the Pirates got just two hits and two walks and never really threatened to do a lot of damage.
Pirates’ manager Clint Hurdle said that Phelps was able to run his two-seamer one way and the cutter the other, paining the black on both sides of the night to keep the Pirates’ hitters off-balance.
“You don’t see it a lot,” Hurdle said. “He was on top of his game. We weren’t able to push back at all. [Josh] Harrison had three hits, [Jordy] Mercer had one. They’re hitting way to far apart. That’s my fault. If I could have bunched them, maybe something could have happened. Whether you like it or not, their pitcher was better than our offense today.”
Hurdle was obviously joking about having Mercer and Harrison too far apart in the lineup. In fact, they were only separated by the pitcher’s spot. But on a night where the Pirates’ offense sputtered to the tune of four hits and 13 strikeouts, I thought it was an appropriate night to check in on how the Pirates’ new lineup construction has done.
Breaking Down the New Lineup
Pieces of the new lineup were put in play during the Pirates’ three-game series with the Cincinnati Reds Aug. 5 – 7, with cleanup hitter Gregory Polanco joining the fray after returning from a shoulder injury Aug. 8.
The Pirates have played 14 games since Aug 5 and are 9-5, so something is working. Throwing out the three starts against left-handed pitchers, I took a look at the typical Pirates lineup and how each player is faring in their new spot.
1. Josh Harrison: 10 games, 47 PA: .302/.319/.419, 8 Ks, 0 BB
2. Starling Marte: 11 games, 49 PA: .200/.265/.266, 9 Ks, 4 BB
3. Andrew McCutchen: 11 games, 47 PA: .277/.477/.500, 8Ks, 11 BB
4. Gregory Polanco: 8 games, 36 PA: .118/.167/.235, 10Ks, 2 BB
5. David Freese: 8 games, 34 PA: .296/.387/.407, 9 Ks, 2 BB, 2 HBP
6. John Jaso: 7 games, 24 PA: .294/.542/.412, 3 Ks, 8 BB, HBP
7. Francisco Cervelli: 7 games, 24 PA: .389/.500/.444, 5Ks, 4 BB, HBP
8. Jordy Mercer: 8 games, 26 PA: .174/.231/.174, 3Ks, 2 BB
Harrison, while not a prototypical leadoff hitter because of his high strikeouts and no walks, has been hitting the ball well and Andrew McCutchen has started to look like shades of his old self at times this stretch. His .277 batting average in this stretch is 33 points higher than his season mark.
“[McCutchen] has been the hub in the middle of the lineup offensively,” Hurdle said. “Hitting can be contagious and I think that any time a key player can get in a position to do things we’ve seem him to many times before, it can drip on everyone else.”
So far, that hasn’t been the case. Starling Marte and Polanco, seem to have hit a wall at the same time. Both of them are way down from their season-to-date marks.
David Freese, John Jaso and Francisco Cervelli have been solid in through the middle of the lineup, with Cervelli in particular making big strides. Cervelli had a five-game hit streak snapped Saturday night and was 8 for 17 over that stretch.
All of this comes with the obvious caveat of small sample sizes. Players such as Polanco and Marte should be expected to return to their previous form.
Hurdle has says that he wants to be stubborn with this lineup and give it a chance to work itself out over a number of games. Clearly, he intends it to be more than 14. But the point of lineup optimization is as Hurdle mentioned above — getting sequences to fall in an advantageous fashion.
After tinkering for most of the season, it remains to be seen how long Hurdle will roll with this lineup. But with the two players that have been the Pirates’ best hitters all season suddenly slumping, it will be a difficult challenge to accurately analyze the results.
FUN WITH NUMBERS
Mostly for fun, I put the starters’ recent numbers into Baseball Musings’ Lineup Analysis Tool. Here’s what it spit out:
Jaso
McCutchen
Harrison
Cervelli
Freese
Pitcher
Marte
Polanco
Mercer
Don’t expect that one on the wall any time soon.
KUHL CONSISTENT
Chad Kuhl pitched six innings, giving up two earned runs on five hits. It was another solid, consistent performance from the Pirates’ rookie, and he proved that he’s able to do what he does best: keep the ball down. That was the case even when Marlins rookie Xavier Scruggs hit a two-run home run int he fourth inning to push the Miami advantage to 3-0.
“It was down but it caught the plate, so I think that it was just one of those ones that didn’t have a lot of movement to it down in the zone and he’s a good low-ball hitter,” Kuhl said.
But mistake pitch nonetheless, Hurdle was pleased with the process that got Kuhl to through six innings with only 75 pitches.
“In the big leagues, things can happen,” Hurdle said. “Good pitches do get hit up here from time to time. The guy got a ball down and the hitter caught the back side of it. I don’t see any fault to our pitcher. He needed to get the two-seam sink on it.”
