Results tagged ‘ Pedro Alvarez ’

Rolling Along!

The Pirates played their first Sunday game of the year yesterday, and didn’t disappoint. After a terrible start from Jimmy Barthmaier, who surrendered 3 runs on 2 hits and walked 3 in two innings of work. The rest of the pitching staff picked him up, giving up only 1 run (thank you Sean Burnett – who also got the win), striking out 3, and only giving up 3 more hits. The offense was led by Nate McLouth, who hit his first spring homerun and 3-run form to put the Pirates on top for good as part of a 5-run 5th innings. The bullpen did the rest from that point and put up all 0′s, giving the Pirates a 6-4 win and a share of first place with a 4-1 record. 

The Pirates are in action as I type here against the Reds. They’re down 1-0 now, Jonny Gomes drove in Brandon Phillips off of Daniel McCutchen. Zach Duke pitched 2 innings, giving up 2 hits, striking out one, but keeping the Reds off the board. It’s not looking good right now for the Pirates though, as they have only collected 1 hit, to Cincinnati’s 6.
Now, let’s take a look at some of spring training’s week 1 studs and duds. 
Studs :  
  • Shelby Ford :  The young Pirate second baseman has started hot this spring, hitting .444 with 3 hits, 2 runs, a home run, 3 rbi, and 2 stolen bases, all of this comes in 5 at bats.
  • Pedro Alvarez : The highly touted Pirates prospect has gone 3 for 7 (.429) with a 9th inning RBI double against the Red Sox, a .500 OBP, and only 1 strikeout.
  • Paul Maholm : Paul only pitched 2 innings this week, but they were a great 2 innings. He struck out 2 and did not give up a hit. 
Duds : 
  • Andrew McCutchen : The possible future face of the franchise has started off just awfully in 2009. He is 0/12 with 7 strikeouts. He’s been on base only twice, but he did swipeone base. 
  • Adam LaRoche : A real shocker here (not!), Adam has collected 2 hit in 9 at bats, which isn’t all THAT horrible, but he has stuck out 5 times, which you never like to see.
  • Jesse Chavez : Chavez has a dismal 13.50 ERA, pitching 2 innings, giving up 6 hits and 3 earned runs. He has struck out 5 batters however. 
While I was typing that, the Pirates added the tying run in their 6th inning, as Ryan Doumit (finally) gets a hit and drives in the hopeful catcher, Jason Jamarillo. 
On another note, I added to my MLB Player T-Shirt collection today. My Brandon Webb and Travis Hafner shirts came in the mail. This is a new collection. so I only have 5 shirts so far. They include : Brandon Webb, Travis Hafner, Adam LaRoche, B.J. Upton, and Nate McLouth
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If you have any good player t-shirts that are in good shapes that you wanna get rid of, I am willing to throw some cash at you, just leave a comment and let me know.
Donations are also accepted  :)
Signing Off, Let’s Go Bucs, Jon.

Game 3

Well the Pirates are off to hot start this spring. Today Tom Gorzelanny will try to continue that hot streak. It would be a really good sign if Gorzo could have a nice spring and gain some confidence heading into the season, where he really will have to show that he’s got potential, or else this team might not have as much patience with him. Last year Gorzo had some moments, but was pretty atrocious most of the time, and he was demoted to AAA for most of the season. Now he is back and trying to impress and make the opening day squad. Personally, I like Gorzo, I think he has the stuff to be a solid MLB pitcher, but he just needs to work on his control, he has some maturing to do as well, so I hope we see good things out of him this spring. Sure, he’s never gonna be a #1 starter or an all-star, but I think he can definitely help the team in the next couple years. Anyways, looking at the bucs lineup for today, there are a lot of familiar names. Let’s lay it out. 

1) Nate McLouth CF
2) Jack Wilson SS
3) Freddy Sanchez 2B
4) Ryan Doumit  C
5) Adam LaRoche 1B
6) Pedro Alvarez DH
7) Jose Tabata RF
8) Ramon Vasquez 3B
9) Jeff Salazar LF
Now that top 5 could quite possibly be how the top 5 will be on opening day. Honestly, I was hoping I wouldn’t be seeing Jack Wilson’s name this spring, but he managed to get a new deal and he’ll be around for atleast one more year. I really wish this game were on TV, or MLBTV so I could see Tabata and Alvarez. These two will be forces for the Pirates in coming years, teamed up with the McCutchen’s, they could provide a winning base for the Pirates down the road. This game’s in the 2nd inning right now. So far, Adam LaRoche has recorded the only hit, looks like Gorzo pitched well in his two innings of work, despite walking 2, he didn’t give up a hit. Looking at it again I can see that the walks were consecutive, which is never a good sign. He worked his way out of the mini-jam and probably feels good about his first start this spring. As for the Braves, there are some familiar names in their lineup as well. I’ve never heard of the pitcher, Kawakami, but I definitely know who Garrett Anderson, Omar Infante, Chipper Jones, Brian McCann, and Jeff Francoeur are. 
So that’s the pre-game and stuff, I won’t be home for the rest of the day to sum this one up, but maybe I’ll hit it up late tonight or tomorrow morning. Leave some comments, lets go bucs.

9th Inning Magic

Well the Pirates played their 2nd spring training game today against the Red Sox, and they frankly did not perform very well through the first 8 innings of the game. Ian Snell started and gave up 2 runs in the first inning (both unearned). The Pirates only collected 5 hits all game long, but they had 2 hits that really counted. The pitching staff did a great job holding the Red Sox, as they shut them out after the first inning. Ohlendorf, Barthmaier, Denny Bautista, Burnett, Yates, and Haigwood combined to pitch 8 scoreless. In the 9th inning, the Pirates scored 3 runs to win the game 3-2. Pedro Alvarez had his first hit as a Pirate that drove in a run en route to the 9th inning comeback win. I’m not exactly sure how it happened in the 9th, because all I can see is a box score and the game wasn’t on the radio, but I’m sure it was an exciting scene (as exciting as a Pirates spring training game can be). So the Pirates have knocked off the last 2 year’s world series winners in a row now, not a bad start to the 2009 campaign. The win is nice and all, and it was good to see some solid outings some of our key bullpen pitchers, but the offense really didn’t do anything until that 9th inning, which isn’t what you want to see. Nyjer Morgan was 0-3, McCutchen went 0-2 with 2 strikeouts, Hinske was 0-2, and Steve Pearce was 0-2 after having a nice game yesterday. It’s great to see Pedro Alvarez get his first hit in that fashion though.

In other news, I have the Indians game on (MLB.TV) and I see that Matt LaPorta has hit a HR, pretty good news for Cleveland there.
But I gotta get to work, happy spring-ing baseball fans
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