Pirates Game 4 Thoughts: 6-5 Win over the Reds

[Crimson's Ghost]

Weird game, both teams left a lot of guys on base. Errors, base running mistakes, average pitching.....just an ordinary April baseball game. The weather was tough, but they managed to keep playing through that snow/sleet situation early in the game. Always good to win games like these, or any games for that matter. This team felt dead and out of the water, and boom just like that they take the lead on a grand slam in the 8th. I feel like that's how this team is going to be all year, just tough to put away.


-- Francisco Liriano was not very good tonight. He gutted through 5 innings, but 5 hits allowed, 4 walks...just seemed he was in trouble all night long. He manged to avoid the big inning, though. Probably the best thing from him tonight was him having 2 hits. He really transformed himself into a pretty decent hitter. The Reds were patient at the plate, and well that's how you beat a pitcher like Liriano.

-- Ryan Vogelsong picked up the win in a relief effort. He wasn't very good, but not a disaster either. He survived some bad defense behind him, but just didn't look overly sharp. Hard to figure what will happen with him, but he's on the team for now.

-- Neftali Feliz was great again. 1 inning pitched, 2 K's, no walks or hits or runs.

-- Mark Melancon grabbed his second save, and did it in a pretty clean manner.

-- Jaso got on base twice, one with a walk and he got hit by a pitch and scored on the grand slam. Like most of the Pirates, he looked bad at the plate for most of the game.

-- McCutchen was hitless, but reached base twice and scored two runs. Nice catch in the bottom of the 9th for Cutch.

-- Freese grabs another hit for the fourth straight game, but struck out two times. He also had a rough day in the field for whatever reason.

-- Marte is the man of the hour with a clutch grand slam in the top of the 8th inning. He also legged out a pair of infield hits. He's such a talented player, I think big things are in store for him this season.

-- Cervelli manged to bring in a run on a fielder's choice, but otherwise had a quiet day at the plate. He had a bad throw to second early in the game, and that's the second throw this season that has sailed into centerfield on Cervelli. Hopefully it's not a trend.

-- Polanco was 0-4 with three strikeouts. In his most important at-bat he did draw a walk, and it certainly looked like Reds' pitcher Tony Cingrani wanted nothing to do with him.

-- Josh Harrison made some nice plays in the field, but 0-5 with 5 LOB. Not a good day for Josh in his hometown.

-- Jordy Mercer played an excellent game in my opinion. He went 2-4 with a walk and a run scored. He made a great play deep in the hole in the fifth inning, and followed it with a head's up play to back up Freese and threw out Phillips at home. When he makes defensive plays like that, it's going to be hard to take him out of the lineup when Kang returns.

-- Figueroa and Joyce go hitless, as Pirates pinch hitters haven't done much this season. I thought it was a curious decision to even let Figueroa to hit away in his AB. Mercer got on, Figueroa probably should've bunted but he lightly fouled out to third and Jaso HIDP the next at bat. Didn't like how that one played out.




The Pirates come back tomorrow afternoon with a 1:10 matinee with the Reds. I believe the Penguins game is on national TV, so the Pirates should be on TV. Pirates' Ace Gerrit Cole will make his 2016 debut. Coming off a very good season, I'm anxious to see how he follows it up this year. Cincinnati gave him problems last season, maybe he can change his fortunes against the Redlegs starting tomorrow afternoon.

[konjo78]

Are we really going to do this every..... single... game..... people wont respond because just like baseballs season they wont care about every single game reaction. After 1 series it seems 90% of users of this site is over it.

[sparky]

I enjoy your posts. Being overseas I rarely ever catch the games because of the time difference so I love the recaps.

[Manfred]

The outcome of this game can be blamed 95% on the weather and conditions. Your muscles do not like it cold. Why is spring training in Fla./ Ariz., and not in Illinois or NY state? I flipped back and forth on this one, and with 2 outs, none on in the 8th, I flipped away. Missed the best part. If the OP wants to post about each and every game, that's his privilege. Whiners need not respond.

[Crimson's Ghost]

Are we really going to do this every..... single... game..... people wont respond because just like baseballs season they wont care about every single game reaction. After 1 series it seems 90% of users of this site is over it.

Yes, you are in the Crimson's Corner section of the website. So I can post whatever I want really. We're talking about adding a "konjo's kingdom" to the site. Hard time getting that plan past the Bleachercoaches board of trustees though.

[abpk2903]

I agree with most of your points. Harrison did make a nice play to prevent an infield single for Hamilton in the middle of the game. That is important because a single for Hamilton usually means he is on 2nd base the following pitch.

I was watching the game with some friends from Philadelphia last night and they said Feliz "looks like a really good set up man." I explained to them he was probably the 4th or 5th option out of the bullpen. I don't know if they believed me. His stuff did look electric last night, though.

[konjo78]

All im pointing out is how true my statement was in his first post..... baseball season is too long and drawn out that people really become numb to majority of the regular season......


Here we actually had a really interesting game that the pirates won but 0 people are here to talk about it.... this wasnt a tuesday or early in the week, it was a friday (a good day to pay attention to baseball). Its also game 4 not 11, 20, 40 ext. So if the 4th game of the season being very entertaining cant draw a response well its hard to imagine a blow out doing anything at all.

But the post itself has drawn more response to me then the game. Which is exactly as I would of expected because baseball's season is too long and too boring. Why its slowly losing more of the fans every year.

[theoneandonly]

The Pirates are a close second to the Pens in my rank of sporting interests. I love that I have 12 months a year of sporting events on a nightly basis. I can come home from work like 330+ days a year and watch one of the two. I like when the Pens are on National TV and I can watch the Pirates on Root and watch them both simultaneously.

No one on here agrees with you that the season is too long. Why do you care so much about how long it is? I bowl in a league and it's a 30 week season. One of my friends (who doesn't bowl) constantly says how long the season is... why the hell does he care? I don't know. Same thing with you... I don't know why you care so much. Game 4 is just as important as game 44 and 144.... they don't weight them differently. A win now is as good as a win in September.

[Crimson's Ghost]

The owner of the website said "here is your own forum, do whatever you want with it" so I want to talk about the Pirates. So I'm gonna keep doing that, trust me - nobody would lose any sleep if you stopped posting here every time I post a topic.

[konjo78]

The people who agree with me are the millions, and millions, of fans that have lost interest and dont watch the game anymore.

Why should you care? Because baseball understands they are losing fans and have changed their game already.

First was the wildcards. Mlb added a wildcard game because fans were upset on how dated MLB's playoff structure is.

Second is speed of a game. MLB has added dozens of rules now in an attempt to speed up the game. Why? Because fans are tired of the 3 and a half to 4 hour game average.

You can post here every game crimson. It will just to continue to prove my point that baseball is a numbing season that a large majority of people become numb too, even if they dont realize it.