The Pirates are coming off a split with their cross-state ‘rivals’, and if you had asked me four days ago which of these NL Central-NL East four game sets was going to be a sweep, I would have bet heavily on the Pirates. But that’s baseball. A lot of their position players have been underperforming this year, including last year’s breakout player Josh Harrison, who has a .200/.244/.325 line on the year, and superstar Andrew McCutchen, who’s only a little better at .231/.319/.372.
Team Leaders
I list the current leader per fangraphs and the best projected leader per fangraphs depth chart projections.
Pirates
- WAR: Cole (1.1), McCutchen (4.2)
- OBP: Kang (.361), McCutchen (.382)
- SLG: Marte (.500), Cutch (.490)
- Defense: Kang (2.8), Marte (4.6)
- BSR: Polanco (3.8), Marte (1.7)
- R+RBI: Marte (44), Cutch (180)
- SP ERA: Burnett (1.60), Cole (3.38)
- SP K/9: Lirano (9.85), Lirano (9.6)
- SP BB/9: Cole (2.53), Worley (2.3)
- RP ERA: Scahill (0.59), Watson (2.95)
- RP K/9: Bastardo (11.47), Bastardo (10.2)
- RP BB/9: Hughes (1.10), Melancon (1.9)
Cubs
- WAR: Rizzo (1.7), Rizzo (3.8)
- OBP: Rizzo (.463), Rizzo (.371)
- SLG: Rizzo (.598), Rizzo (.511)
- Defense: Fowler (3.0), Rizzo (5.2)
- BSR: Bryant (0.9), Fowler (1.1)
- R+RBI: Rizzo (44), Rizzo (192)
- SP ERA: Arrieta (3.00), Lester (3.26)
- SP K/9: Arrieta (9.60), Arrieta (9.0)
- SP BB/9: Hammel (1.17), Hendricks (2.2)
- RP ERA: Ross (0.00)/Rondon (3.00), Rondon (3.46)
- RP K/9: Strop (9.82), Rosscup (10.8)
- RP BB/9: Rosscup (1.35), Rondon (3.0)
Probable Pitchers
Projected ERA, K/9, BB/9 listed for each
Friday: Jeff Locke, LHP (4.09, 6.86, 3.32) vs Kyle Hendricks, RHP (3.77, 6.57, 2.16), 1:20 PM CT
Locke has already faced the Cubs twice this year and they hit him pretty well, scoring ten runs in 8.2 innings. Aside from the Cubs games though, he’s gone pretty deep into most of his starts. He gets lots of ground balls, and based on his BABIP and strand rate it looks like his biggest problem is that too few of them are turning into outs.
I still don’t know what to make of Hendricks. His movement is down and he’s not hitting his spots well, but he seems to keep coming up with okay-ish outings that look better in retrospect. He had his first clean sheet of the year in his last start, and while he wasn’t exactly wowing anyone it felt like Maddon pulled him a little too early. He is a cipher, wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce.
Saturday: Gerrit Cole, RHP (3.45, 8.62, 2.70) vs Jon Lester, LHP (3.26, 8.41, 2.37), 3:05 PM CT
Cole struck out eight Cubs in six shutout innings a few weeks ago and was pulled early as the Pirates had picked up a huge lead. He’s come out of the gate strong in general this year, with every rate stat in his peripherals looking better than last year’s. His game plan is pretty simple – he has a great fastball and you probably can’t hit it.
It will be interesting to see what will happen if Lester is without David Ross in this start I think Montero catches him, since Montero seems to be better at communicating with his pitchers, but given how deliberate Lester is on the mound he seems like a guy for whom a change in routine can really throw him off. I don’t think it will end up being a big deal, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
Sunday: A.J. Burnett, RHP (3.99, 7.70, 3.38) vs Jake Arrieta, RHP (3.36, 9.22, 2.94), 1:20 PM CT
Burnett pitched against the Cubs back on 4/20 (nice) and had a very un-Burnett-like start, striking out only one Cubs batter in six innings and giving up ten baserunners. Somehow they only plated one run on him. While his strikeout rates haven’t returned to what they were in his previous stint with the Pirates, his walk rate has (at 2.60 BB/9 on the season).
I still do a double take whenever I see Arrieta’s 5.1 fWAR for last season. Hard to believe they got this guy AND Pedro Strop for Scott Feldman and AndCounting favorite Steve Clevenger. He hit double digit strikeouts for the first time this season in his start against the Mets last week, and more importantly went eight innings.