The Pirates climbed all over Mike Burns early on as Delwyn Young hit a three run first inning homer. After two innings, the Pirates led 6-1 and then cruised until the 9th when Jesse Chavez gave up three runs.
Ross Ohlendorf was good enough, giving up a pair of sac flies in five innings. He allowed seven hits and two walks. He gave way to Jeff Karstens who threw three scoreless innings. There were some fireworks as Karstens was plunked in his lone AB, clearing both benches. There was bad blood going back to 4/27 when Karstens nailed Ryan Braun one at bat after Braun had homered.
Braun was at it again as his two run homer capped the scoring off Chavez.
Burns was the loser, lasting three and giving up six runs (four earned).
The Good
Ohlendorf kept the team in the game.
Andrew McCutchen had three hits and scored twice.
Garrett Jones homered again.
The Bad
Bucs hit into three double plays.
The Rest
Felipe Lopez, recently acquired by Milwaukee, had four hits in his Brewer debut.This was his 8th career 4 hit contest.
Jones now has 8 homers in 60 ABs.
Pittsburgh had lost 17 straight to Milwaukee.
+ posts
didn’t Bonilla miss a lot of one season due to injury too? In hindsight it was a definite mistake to let him go in Rule 5 draft but a good move to get him back for Jose DeLeon.
I don’t really know what happened to DeLeon with Bucs, he could have been the Pirates Fernando Valenzuela and he just totally lost ability to win games (wilt under pressure).
But the odds are against Hague being more than an average first baseman,
and joining the company of guys like Joey Votto, Adrian Gonzalez,
Prince Fielder, and the other guys at the top of the list.
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No one expects him to be one of these guys and there is no player on the Pirates roster that is long term, every player at every position can be upgraded, I say this because the players that you mentioned above are franchise players and the Pirates have no franchise players on the major league roster yet, I have said this before the Pirates will be a good team this year because they have a starting roster with good players, and good bench players, one franchise player and one franchise pitcher probably would put them in playoff contention.
Once in a while we have to get away from the stats and just look at the guy play.
Bobby Bonilla’s AA line, .264/.331/.393/.724/11hrs, he only had a couple of bats in AAA, but a guy named Sid Thrift had to have him as a Pirate no matter what. In 1988 Bonilla hit for .274 average, 24 Hrs. and an .842 OPS in the majors.
I think as long as a maturation process is going on with these players it is very difficult to measure just how good they will get, McCutchen is IMO just starting to reach maturity and I think he will be much better than he was when he came up to the major league roster, he is now.
If no one expects him to be one of those guys, then why do people get mad when I call him an average first baseman? Above average is the group that includes those guys.
Also, Bonilla’s AA numbers came at the age of 21. His 1988 season was at the age of 25, and his third year in the majors. Hague will be 26 in 2012 and will be 27 before the end of the season. The odds are slim of Hague seeing a major improvement to his game at this point.
well when I normally think “average” I think school grades like a C. And “above average” is a B, so I’d call Votto, Fielder, Gonzalez something other than “above average.”
What do you think of him being a player similar to Sean Casey?
When I think of average in baseball terms, I think of all of the starters, and average usually falls around the middle of the pack, as in players ranked around 15th.
Tim……….FREE MATT HAGUE!!! 🙂
I wouldn’t mind seeing him at 1b (I like(d) Loney, Grace, Buckner, et al) and McGeeheeheehee at 3b, with Petey getting more ABs in the minors.
Also, this would free up G Jones to be a 5th OFer, occasional 1bman and power PH off of the bench.
Btw, Hague has two HRs this spring. 🙂