Orioles vs. Pirates, Liveblog

Sorry I'm late! Got stuck at work. Here's your liveblog.

Tuesday Thunder

The rhyming post titles continue.

The Pirates defeated the Yankees today by the score of 12-7. The offense started early and continued often. McCutchen singled to begin CC Sabathia's rough outing. After McCutchen, Cedeno doubled to left and moved Cutch to third. Milledge then brought him in with a single into right field. Garrett Jones joined the party in a big way, with a monstrous home run to deep right center field that put the Pirates up 4-0.

Charlie Morton could have done better to keep the lead, he gave up 3 runs in his 3 innings of work. He had 2 walks, which you don't want to see, but he did throw some good pitches in his outing. His high point was when he struck out Curtis Granderson on 3 pitches. It really didn't matter what Morton would do today, because he could not have possibly looked worse than Brian Burres did. Burres gave up 4 runs in .2 innings including 3 walks. He was awful. But don't fret Pirate fans, he doesn't have a chance to make the team out of spring training. That was all the Yankees would get though. Ronald Uviedo, DJ Carrasco, Donnie Veal, and Anthony Claggett teamed up to shut out the Yankees in their combined 5.1 innings of work.

The same couldn't be said for the Yankees bullpen. The Pirates scored 6 runs off of the relief pitchers today. RBI's after that first inning went to Lastings Milledge (his second of the game), Andy LaRoche, Bobby Crosby, John Raynor, Pedro Alvarez, Steve Pearce, Doug Bernier, and Hector Gimenez. Cedeno, Jones, and Raynor all had multi-hit games. At the end of the contest, the Pirates had another 15 hit game on the board.

Speaking of John Raynor, he has been absolutely no fire this spring. He is now hitting .538 this spring (that's 7 hits in 13 at bats). He is one of the guys battling for the 5th outfield spot, and if he keeps hitting like this I don't think the Pirates will have any choice but to give it to him. He plays great defense and he can fly around the bases. He sure has my vote right now.

The Pirates are back in action tomorrow against the Orioles at 7:05. The game will be on FSNPittsburgh and we will be having another live blog. Be sure to check back here during the game and chat with us!

Monday Slumber

Firstly, the Pirates played 2 games today and lost both. They collected 1 hit in their 6-0 loss to the Yankees and didn't do too much better against the Rays. If you want more details, check out Raise the Jolly Roger and/or North Side Notch.

Secondly, if you saw yesterday's post, you'd realize that this title is really clever.

Thirdly, the Pirates play Tuesday at 1:05 against the Yankees.

That is all.

Sunday Lumber

The Twins weren't ready for what the Pirates brought to the field this afternoon at McKechnie Field, as the Buccos put up 15 runs and defeated the Twins, pushing their spring training record to 2-2-1. Leading the Pirates today was Bobby Crosby, who drove in 4 runs, and Delwyn Young, who drove in 3 of his own. The Pirates got home runs from Crosby and Garrett Jones, who hit his first bomb of 2010 in the 4th inning. It should also be noted that Pedro Alvarez hit a triple today, don't get used to that. The fact that the Twins were playing with a split squad today may have attributed to the beating. I should also mention that I have never heard of any of the pitchers the Twins sent to the mound today. Regardless of that, the Pirates had a great showing at the plate today. They collected 15 hits, which is impressive against any level of pitching.

As for the Pirates on the mound, Ross Ohlendorf made the start and it didn't go exactly how he wanted it to. In the first inning, Denard Span (the lead off hitter) drew a walk off Ohlendorf. Two batters later Justin Morneau drove a mistake pitch a long ways out of the ballpark, and the Twins were on top 2-0. Ohlendorf settled down from then on, and finished his outing with 2 hits allowed in 2 innings pitched, a long with those 2 earned runs. Next in was Chris Jakubauskas, who didn't fair particularly well either. His line looked like this: 1.2 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 SO. After that it was smooth sailing for the buccos. Ronald Uviedo, Vinny Chulk, Bryan Morris, Anthony Claggett, and Ramon Aguero teamed up to shut out the Twins through the final 5.1 innings of the game. Morris and Aguero both pitched perfect 1-2-3 innings, and Claggett struck out the side in his frame.

It was all-in-all a very good effort from the Pirates today. They certainly put on a show for the Pirate faithful watching the game in Bradenton.

We've now played 5 Cactus League games, so before the Pirates start a new work-week, let's take a look at some of the stats from some very important Pirates so far this spring:

Pedro Alvarez: 2/10, 2 R, 1 3B, 1 RBI, 5 SO
John Raynor: 4/10, 2 R, 1 3B, 3 RBI, 2 SO
Ryan Church: 3/9, 1 R, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 2 SO
Bobby Crosby: 3/9, 2 R, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 0 SO
Ryan Doumit: 3/8, 0 XBH, 2 SO
Garrett Jones: 1/8, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 3 SO
Andy LaRoche: 1/8, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 4 SO
Akinori Iwamura: 2/7, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 SO
Andrew McCutchen: 3/6, 1 R, 0 SO

D.J. Carrasco: 3 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 SO
Vinny Chulk: 3 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 SO
Ross Ohlendorf: 3 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 SO
Chris Jakubauskas: 2.2 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 SO
Ramon Aguero: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO
Anthony Claggett: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 SO
Jack Taschner: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 S0
Steven Jackson: 2 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 2 SO
Charlie Morton: 2 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 1 SO
Daniel McCutchen: 2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 SO
Kevin Hart: 1 IP, 1 H, 2 ER, 4 BB

I bolded those last two for obvious reasons, let's hope that one of them steps up and decides to win the job as the Pirates 5th starter. Neither of them have looked good at all in their very limited innings, but we're hoping that will change soon.

You have to be careful looking at pitching stats in spring training because a lot of them can be deceiving. However, the one that I have found to be completely reliable as a check for how a pitcher is performing is walks. The main thing pitchers work on in spring is control, so if they can't keep their walk rates down while they are consciously trying to just that, it doesn't bode well for them heading into the regular season. The Pirates pitchers have done okay with it so far, with the exceptions of Kevin Hart and Charlie Morton, who were pretty much the last two guys we wanted to see struggle with it. They both have less than 3 innings of work so far so it is hardly even worth mentioning.

The Pirates are back in action tomorrow as they have a split squad day. Half the team will face the Yankees in Bradenton and the other half will travel to play the Tampa Bay Rays. Both games start at 1:05.

Sanchez Shines

Tonight was the best Pirate game of the year so far, the main reason for that is the Pirates first round draft pick of last year, Tony Sanchez.

Sanchez did all kinds of things well tonight. First, in the 6th inning, he nailed a would-be base stealer at second. Second, he blasted a solo home run in his first at bat in a Pirate uniform in the 8th inning, which helped the Pirates greatly in their 5-3 come from behind victory. Sanchez also made a nice play fielding a bunted ball to throw a runner out at first.

You can read this same story on pretty much every Pirate blog there is, so I'm gonna phrase it in a way that you haven't heard before : Tony Sanchez is a pimp.

The Pirates were frowned upon for taking him with the 4th overall pick. People said he didn't have the skills to become anything more than an average big league player. They all said that the Pirates only picked him because they wouldn't have to pay him very much, just another typical safe, cheap, wasted draft pick for the Pirates. While it's still extremely early in Sanchez's career, so far he has done nothing but prove all of those things wrong. Scouts rave about his defense, he has the all the tools to be THE BEST defensive catcher in the game when he gets to the bigs. That's not just my opinion, real scouts say it too. In addition to that, his offense is by no means going to keep him off the field. The guy has power potential. We're not talking 30 bombs, but we're talking consistent 15-20 homers a year with an above average catcher batting average. He's not going to Victor Martinez or Joe Mauer, but I really think that if he reaches his potential, he will be a top-5 catcher in the majors.

Tony Sanchez just keeps making the Pirates look smarter and smarter, and it will be extremely fun to watch him the rest of this spring training season. Tomorrow the big league starters will be back out as the Pirates open up their home spring training schedule at 1:05 when they host the Phillies at McKechnie Field.

The "Mc" Speaks

The Pirates lost to the Braves today 4-2. I don't have time to give many details from the game, but the high point of it for the Pirates was Andy LaRoche hitting the Pirates' first Grapefruit League home run this spring. Charlie Morton started the game and had some control issues, just the normal Charlie Morton. Let's hope he works those problems out.

Anyways, Nate McLouth, 50% of the inspiration for this blog's name, made some comments after the game - which were quite interesting. You can check them out Jennifer Langosch's most recent post.

Pirates take on the Orioles tomorrow night at 7:05.