McCutchen Puts on a Show, Bucs Win

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Andrew McCutchen drilled a a shot into left field for a clutch two-out rbi double against knuckleballer Tim Wakefield today. Cutch will remember that hit the entire year - perhaps all his life. He'll probably also remember striking out on a Wakefield knuckler he couldn't get a bead on.

After McCutchen's two hits on the day, the rest of the team managed just six hits all day including another Ronny Paulino home run with a man on.

And Brad Eldred was caught trying to steal second by Doug Mirabelli, who is not known to have a great arm behind the plate. If Eldred had made it, I suppose Mirabelli would have taken a hit and opposing teams would have been running on him all year.

That's hilarious.

Tony Armas started the game for the Pirates and was anything but sharp, although he managed to keep Boston from scoring several times from jams he created. Between throwing several wild pitches and not covering the plate with a man on third trying to score when he threw one, and Paulino not being on the same page as Armas a few times and having a hard time blocking many pitches, the battery seemed out of sync.

Despite all that, Armas took home the win which is the name of the game, although that is uncharacteristic for him as he is known historically to find ways to lose even when pitching fairly decent games.

The Pirates sent out John Wasdin, Juan Perez, and Dan Kolb to battle for one of the reliever spots behind Armas and the three of them pitched a no-hitter over 3.1 innings facing the minimum, with Wasdin striking out two of the three batters he faced and dropping his spring ERA to 0.87.

Wasdin seems to be putting on a show but his nickname isn't "Way-Back" without a reason - he sports a career 1.56 home runs allowed per nine innings of work, which is very high. Plus, the average NLCD park the Pirates play in boosts right-hand home run rates to left field by an average of 12%, and three of the parks are over 19%. That makes it highly doubtful John Wasdin will break camp with the team even knowing his best work is as a reliever.

He'll get mauled.

Worth noting is the fact the Pirates have still not centered their lineup and played them together routinely in spring games. Today only four starters even made the trip, which is one above the minimum a team in the spring needs to field. Perhaps it was because Wakefield was starting?

But if Dave Littlefield has any intent of getting this club moving forward as a cohesive unit, some believe he better start putting out his regulars immediately.