• Last night’s game left a lot to be desired, but the one good thing you can say about it is that the results are easy to sum up. Francisco Liriano pitched very well for six innings, but he made two mistakes, the first a hanging slider to Zack Cozart, and the second a first-pitch fastball down the middle to Todd Frazier, and both ended up in the seats at Great American Ballpark. Bryan Morris pitched one very good inning of relief before allowing two more solo home runs in his second go-round, and Mike Leake bedeviled the Pirates, putting them under the influence with his usual mix of off-speed pitches. If it was not already taken by the great Cuban pitcher Manuel Garcia, Leake would be deserving of the sobriquet “Cocaina” for his ability to lull hitters to sleep with his repertoire of junk.

• Ok, that’s about all I’ve got. Oh yeah, Starling Marte made an amazing, diving catch in left field. Did I mention that the Pirates didn’t hit well? Clearly this team lacks any semblance of a coherent, consistent offense, and I expect that more and more of these close pitcher’s duels will be lost as the season progresses, especially if the opponents continue to be as opportunistic as the Reds were last night.

• The 2013 College World Series opened this past weekend, and in keeping with the precedent set in the Super-Regionals, all four games were won by the team considered to be the underdog. I use the term “considered” because while North Carolina may be the #1 seed in the tournament, they should hardly have been favored to defeat North Carolina State and their ace Carlos Rodon. Rodon is a big lefty who effortlessly sits at 95 with his fastball, and features a true wipeout slider that was unhittable down the stretch this season. Whereas Rodon came in looking invincible, North Carolina’s ace lefty Kent Emanuel, a former draftee of the Pirates, came in looking, well, not very good, thanks to overuse at the hands of Coach Mike Fox. Emanuel has been barely able to crack 85 with his fastball, and predictably, he had an early shower. Meanwhile, Rodon melted through the Tar Heels like a knife through butter. The big guy does not have perfect mechanics by any means; he has a short stride and finishes straight up with no follow through, causing his arm to drag a bit and his shoulder to bear the brunt of the force on recoil. But his stuff is major league ready, and had the sophomore been draft eligible he may have gone 1-1. The only concern is the lack of a third pitch. Rodon threw one changeup, an 83 mph floater that was a bit elevated. The pitch has promise, but Rodon could get tagged as closer material if it does not develop. However, with two plus-plus pitches, the team ends up with Rodon will give him every opportunity to be a rotation ace.

• Mississippi State used their persistent offense to wear down Oregon State and their star freshman pitcher, Andrew Moore, in the opener. Their big first baseman, Wes Rea, drove in two runs with a double in the 8th inning to put the Bulldogs ahead, and their closer Jonathan Holder shut down the Beavers with a two-inning save, the final coming via a fly ball hit by to the warning track in right field that would have resulted in a walkoff win by Oregon State in most other ballparks in the world.

• The most interesting game, and perhaps the most telling, was Sunday night’s battle between UCLA and LSU. Make no mistake, LSU is a much better team than the Bruins, and while we all know that a talent difference can take a lot longer than one game to manifest itself in baseball, UCLA’s upset victory in game one had more to with the venue for the event than anything else. TD Ameritrade Park is three years old, and by now it is safe to say that the game of baseball as played there in the College World Series is unlike any baseball you have experienced in your lifetime, unless you are very, very old. It is like traveling back in time to the Dead Ball Era; centerfielders play so shallow that you can’t help but think of Tris Speaker and his record for unassisted double plays. The folks running the show in Omaha could sell extra tickets to standees and pen them in behind a rope on the warning track, as was done at Fenway Park during its inaugural season in 1912, without fear that the extra fanatics would interfere in the proceedings.

• Mason Katz of LSU did hit the one home run that was recorded during the four weekend games, but the Tigers had three other blasts off of UCLA’s Adam Plutko that fell harmlessly into outfielders’ gloves thanks to the park. TD Ameritrade was the big equalizer, and it strongly favors the type of game played by the offensively-challenged Bruins. When you combine the BBCOR bats with TD Ameritrade, you can understand why cleanup hitters are sacrificing in the first inning. Still, LSU almost pulled off a rally against UCLA’s submarine specialist David Berg, one of the best closers in the country. Katz reached first base on a throwing error to begin the 9th inning, and Coach Paul Mainieri had Raph Rhymes ready to sacrifice him over to second. But Berg threw two pitches out of the strike zone, and Mainieri took the bunt sign off, figuring that Rhymes would get a pitch to drive. The problem with this thinking is that Berg is a groundball machine quite capable of getting a double play ball when he needs one, and Rhymes was very double play prone this season. Predictably, it ended badly for LSU. You may never hear me say this again, but taking the bunt off here was a really bad idea. Still, it was a fascinating strategic situation, and an enjoyable game to watch if you like idiosyncratic, distinctive ballparks.

• Indiana surprised Louisville 2-0 behind pitcher Joey DeNato, who was one of the best pitchers in the Big Ten this season. Of course, that conference does not get a lot of respect when it comes to baseball, and prospects from its schools, such as the Pirates’ Alex Dickerson, usually meet with suspicion on draft day, in many instances with good reason. Cold weather colleges are usually disadvantaged, despite their travel schedule, and Indiana was probably the least respected team to make the CWS. Thus far, they have been proving everyone wrong.

• The NCAA Super-Regionals are always exciting, but this year’s version was an over-the-top thriller that  left fans eagerly awaiting the College World Series beginning tomorrow. In fact, we did not even have to wait to the Super-Regionals for crazy finishes; North Carolina, the #1 seed in the country, was almost eliminated by Florida Atlantic in the Regionals, needing two wild rallies to win 12-11 in extra innings.

• The first series of the Super-Regionals pitted perennial powerhouse LSU against Oklahoma, led by their uber- pitching prospect Jonathan Gray, taken third overall by the Rockies in the recent First Year Player draft. The 55-9 Tigers had their hands full with Gray, but broke through in the 8th when JaCoby Jones, the Pirates third-round pick in the same draft, tripled on an 0-2 pitch and was driven home by sophomore catcher Taylor Moore’s double to the right field gap. Pinch-runner Jared Foster scored on Mark Laird’s single off reliever Mark Garza, and that was all LSU starter Aaron Nola needed as he shut out the Sooners on two hits. LSU sent Oklahoma home with an emphatic 11-1 victory in game two, with Jones once again the hitting hero, going 4-4 including a home run that broke the game open for good in the 8th inning. Jones tomahawked an 0-2 fastball out to left field, an almost impossible feat given the pitch location. I will have more on Jones in an upcoming piece on the draft, but there is no doubt that he is the kind of exciting, toolsy player that the current Pirates front office has been drawn to in the past, with little success. Fans of the Bucs can also take a look at third baseman Christian Ibarra, their 32nd round selection, an unlikely signee but an interesting player nonetheless.

• To continue the Pirates theme, Mississippi State advanced to the CWS with a sweep of their series against Virginia. The Bulldogs were paced by shortstop Adam Frazier, who celebrated being taken in the 6th round by the Bucs by going 6-6 in game one, an 11-6 romp. The Bulldogs drilled Cavalier pitchers for 20 hits, including four by Hunter Renfroe, taken 13th overall by the Padres in the draft. In game two, reliever Chad Girodo came into the game with one out in the 3rd and proceeded to record 10 strikeouts in 4.2 innings of work, keeping Virginia in check while his club ran the score up to 6-3. That lead was nearly insufficient, as Virginia scored two runs in the top of the 9th on consecutive errors by the Bulldog infield, both on plays that should have ended the game, including one by pitcher Jonathan Holder attempting to cover the first base bag. Holder finally got the last out, and the Bulldogs had their first spot in the CSW since 2007.

• North Carolina continued their late-inning heroics, surrounding an 8-0 drubbing by South Carolina with two one-run squeakers over the Gamecocks. North Carolina has had a much tougher time of it than many expected, thanks to a starting rotation that appears to have hit the wall, including ex-Pirate draftee Kent Emanuel, the 3rd round selection of the Astros last week. But the Tar Heels got by, in large part due to the relief pitching of Trent Thornton, who contributed 7.2 innings of work in the team’s two victories, holding the Gamecocks at bay for much of that time. South Carolina almost earned an opportunity to win their third consecutive CWS, but the 55-9 Tar Heels prevailed, and will be one of the marquee names to advance to Omaha.

• Louisville provided another upset, traveling to Nashville to sweep Vanderbilt on their home field. The Commodores ace, Kevin Ziomek, pitched the home club to a 2-1 lead heading into the 7th, but the Cardinals pushed through a run and loaded the bases with two outs. Manager Tim Corbin brought in closer Brian Miller to try to end the jam, but pinch-hitter Matt Helms singled in two runs to put the Cardinals up 4-2. The teams traded runs in the 8th, but the Cardinals held on to the lead in the 9th. Jeff Thompson, Louisville’s 6’6”, 250-lb starter, was impressive in game two, allowing only one run and three hits over seven innings, striking out nine, as the Cardinals won by a 2-1 margin. Vanderbilt won a career high 48 regular season games, but showed signs of tailing off late, winning only seven of their last thirteen.
• In addition to the above, UCLA, Oregon State, Indiana and North Carolina State advanced to the CWS, and all but the Beavers were underdogs in their Super-Regionals. I like Oregon State based on the depth of their starting pitching, but the one safe bet is that sparks will fly when all eyes turn to Omaha this week.

• It was the top of the 5th with the Giants leading 2-0, and Charlie Morton had just retired Gregor Blanco on a weak groundball to Jordy Mercer at shortstop. At that moment I told myself that Morton was settling in and might throw a quality start, or even better, in his first appearance in over one year. I must have set off a serious jinx, because everything went to the dogs immediately afterwards. Morton hit Brandon Crawford, Buster Posey crushed a ground rule double, and Hunter Pence reached first via a fielder’s choice that resulted in Crawford scoring on a horrible interference call against Pedro Alvarez. Andres Torres drove in Posey with a sacrifice fly, it was 4-0, and the game was effectively over.

• Rather than focus on the rest of the game, which was a debacle, I would rather examine Morton’s work. The first thing I noticed is that he has once again altered his delivery. While he has maintained his three quarter arm angle, he no longer has such a pronounced Roy Halladay-like delivery. Clearly he was having trouble controlling the sinker last night, which may have to do with his mechanical change. While he threw some very effective two-seamers, the pitch did not really seem to have the same movement and arm-side bite against right-handed hitters that it had before. Still, most of the balls that were put in play were on the ground, and many found holes. With better luck, we would all be talking about Morton’s exceptional return to action.

• Morton’s four-seam fastball reached 95, but he did not command it particularly well. During his most successful stretches of 2011 he had a pronounced platoon bias, with left-handed hitters pounding his sinker. Last night he neutralized lefties with his curve ball, which is no longer the 12-6 curve he used to throw, but more of a slurvy pitch, with considerable horizontal break that resulted in some key strikeouts but also three hit batters.

• What can be expected of Morton going forward? That is a very difficult question to answer; despite the quality of his stuff, he has never had sustained success in the major leagues, with the exception of three months in 2011 when he remade himself into a sinkerballer. That Charlie Morton was very difficult to hit, with a 0.31 HR/9 and a 5.8% HR/FB rate. It is obviously too soon to know whether Morton can find that form, but with the recent decimation of the rotation due to injuries, he will certainly be given every opportunity. From what I saw last night, I believe he has a ways to go.

• For once, I can say with absolute certainty that I am in perfect agreement with the latest batch of roster moves. The completely superfluous John McDonald was jettisoned, the Jose Contreras experiment was mercifully concluded, and uber-prospect Gregory Polanco was actually promoted! In mid-season! Polanco needed a few weeks to adjust to High-A ball, and he may be slowed a bit at first by Eastern League pitching, and Peoples Natural Gas Field, as well. But this is very exciting to see, and Altoona certainly needs the help now that Andrew Lambo is in Indianapolis.

• At this time an announcement about who will replace A.J. Burnett on Saturday has not been made. The early favorite is Andy Oliver, mainly because he is on the 40-man roster and Brandon Cumpton is not. Don’t be surprised, however, if the Pirates open up a spot on the 40-man and active rosters for Cumpton by releasing Mike Zagurski, who was pounded last night

• The offense is definitely back; enjoy it while you can! The Pirates bombarded the Giants last night despite the best efforts of the pitching staff to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at every turn. That is to be expected, after all – the pitching staff has been performing at such an unsustainable level of excellence that they can be forgiven a rough patch.

• It would be a bit unfair to take Francisco Liriano’s line at face value. Home plate umpire Marvin Hudson did not believe in the concept of corners last night, squeezing Liriano and forcing him to play in the middle of the plate. This was most evident in the game-tying, two-run single Liriano allowed to Joaquim Arias in the top of the 5th after Hudson missed two strike calls. Of course, if Liriano wasn’t so intent on issuing walks he would not have been in most of the jams he found himself in last night. The bad Francisco starts to fly open early and quickly loses his release point. You can tell when Liriano has gone off the rails by watching how far he is falling off to the third base side of the mound as opposed to staying on a straight line to the plate. Still, there really was not much hard contact against him; the guy is effectively wild and hard to hit.

• The Pirates delivered some very key hits with runners in scoring position, something they have not been able to do with any consistency all season. The importance of keeping up the pressure on offense even after you have a lead was never more evident than it was last night; without a steady attack and guys working their at bats all night, the Giants’ comebacks would have eventually put them over the top.

• The Pirates’ bullpen has had a case of the hiccups here and there lately, with the left-handed tandem of Justin Wilson and Tony Watson suffering the worst cases. These two guys depend on having life to their fastballs, really explosive late movement that lets then attack the strike zone without fear. Their stuff has been a bit flat lately, even though the velocity has been there.

• Kudos to Clint Hurdle and his staff for questioning the initial call of a double on Neil Walker’s home run blast to right field in the 8th, and to the umpiring crew for reviewing the play and getting it right, even though they appeared to be correct at first glance.

• It would be difficult to cover all of the Pirates’ offensive successes last night, but special mention should go to Starling Marte and Andrew McCutchen, who really drove the attack and put the most pressure on the Giants once they reached base.

• Gerrit Cole’s debut turned out to be one of those special evenings when the excitement in the air is matched by the outcome on the field. Cole picked an apropos time to deliver his finest performance as a professional, demonstrating both his considerable talents as well as his fiercely competitive nature. I have been relatively unimpressed with Cole in the minor leagues, due to his lack of command, his inability to miss bats, and an over reliance on his fastball at the expense of the development of his secondary pitches. While he definitely addressed the first matter in this game, questions remain about the others.

• To a great extent, whatever issues Cole still needs to work on were glossed over by the superiority of his fastball and his command of it. He came out and set the tone right away with a three-pitch strikeout of Gregor Blanco, the last pitch registering at 99 on the gun. After a couple of singles, Cole retired Brandon Belt on a pop up to get out of the inning. Without a doubt, his biggest pitch was the fastball that got Marco Scutaro to fly out with the bases loaded in the 2nd After that, he retired the next 12 batters without a sweat before allowing consecutive singles to the left-handed Andres Torres and Brandon Crawford to start the 7th, which precipitated his exit from the game.

• To be clear, I believe Cole was extremely impressive in this start, and if he commands his fastball this well he will continue to be. He threw 59 of 81 pitches for strikes and recorded 10 ground ball outs. But the vast majority of those pitches were fastballs; on days when he can’t locate that pitch, he will need to mix in his secondary pitches, and he still seems reluctant to do so. He did not even throw any sliders in this game, preferring to go with a curve instead, and mixed in only a few changeups. As a result, he recorded only two strikeouts, and while that was not a problem in this game, it could very well be in future starts, when the batted balls he is allowing don’t end up in the gloves of his fielders. The Pirates did not invest in Cole so they could end up with a pitch-to-contact type of guy who would be the envy of the Minnesota Twins. Aces strike people out; I have no doubt that Cole can excel in the major leagues, but he is far from a polished, complete pitcher at this point.

• As for the rest of the game, it was Cole himself who got the offense off of its collective can, and it was a breath of fresh air to see some timely hits for a change; let’s hope it continues. Certainly Pedro Alvarez has come out of his funk, providing another bomb that demonstrated why he is one of the most dangerous power hitters in the game.

Recently agent Scott Boras spoke up about the willingness of his client Pedro Alvarez to discuss a contract extension with the Pittsburgh Pirates. If you paid any attention to the outcry of Pirates fans, including those of some normally very learned and circumspect bloggers, you would think that he suggested replacing the Honus Wagner statue with a new one in Pedro’s likeness. Now, I have been about as vocal a critic of Alvarez as it is possible to be. I was aghast that the Pirates started the 2012 season with him in the lineup, and was equally surprised when he hit 30 home runs and put up a WAR of 2.3 despite fielding metrics that failed to appreciate his defense. But at this point in time I would look long and hard at retaining Alvarez via a contract extension – it might be a self-serving recommendation from a concerned agent, but it is not nearly as far-fetched as some are making it out to be.

There is no doubt that Pedro is having a difficult year, a really odd and difficult year. As much as any player in the league, he is painful to watch at the plate a good deal of the time. He is striking out at a rate that is high even by his previous lofty standards. While he has 14 home runs, he has only three other extra base hits. His pitch recognition problem has not improved one iota, and neither has his bat speed. As much as he tries to work counts in his favor, his walk rate is down from 9.7% last year to 7.8% this year. While Pirates fans were cautiously optimistic that Alvarez would take some small steps forward this season, in many ways he has actually regressed. But determining the reason for his lapses, and whether they are likely to continue, will go a long way towards determining a reasonable expectation for the future, and how the Pirates should move forward with Alvarez.

Pedro’s batting line indicates how close he is to becoming a prototypical “Three True Outcomes” hitter. Alvarez has struck out, walked or homered in 48.3 % of his plate appearances thus far in 2013, but this is not significantly different than last year’s 45.6%. What is different is the result when Alvarez is putting the ball in play within the confines of the ballpark. While last year his BAbip was .308, it sits at a lowly .236 this season. Alvarez is simply not recording many hits on balls in play. If we look at the batted ball data, he is hitting fewer ground balls and more fly balls, which is predictably depressing his BAbip, but the differences from last season are rather insignificant. What has markedly changed is his IF%, which was an unsustainably low 2.5% last season – it has normalized to 9.5%, about what he recorded prior to last season. But even factoring in these adjustments, there is a large margin for simple luck here; Alvarez’s batting average on balls in play should improve as the season progresses, or in the very worst case scenario, next year.

What is not in question this season is that Alvarez has become an absolutely elite, premier defensive third baseman, which the fielding metrics have started to catch on to, and which has resulted in a WAR of 0.9 thus far despite his offensive woes. Given no improvement at all at the plate – a highly unlikely scenario given last year’s performance, his low BAbip, and his recent advances – Alvarez would still end up with a positive WAR of 2.2 due to his defense, which has been otherworldly this season. In a down year at the plate, he is still managing to be an above average player relative to his league, ranking 7^th in WAR among National League third basemen, tied with Pablo Sandoval and ahead of David Freese, Michael Young, Ryan Zimmerman and Martin Prado.

There are two arguments against extending Alvarez. First, it is possible that he becomes such a liability on offense that he hits his way out of baseball. When you flirt with the Mendoza Line, that outcome has to be considered. But 30+ home runs a year covers a lot of flaws – just ask Mark Reynolds. The second is that Alvarez is such a big man that he will eventually become incapable of playing third base at his current level, and will have to be moved across the diamond to first base, where much of his defensive value would be lost, and where his offense will be put under further pressure. This is also a legitimate concern, but I believe the risk is manageable.

Alvarez is arbitration eligible for the next three seasons and becomes a free agent in 2017. If the Pirates are able to buy out two free agent years, we are talking about having him under team control for five years, through his 31 year-old season – I believe that Alvarez should be able to stick at his position that long, and perform at a high level for much of it. On offense, he has prodigious home run power, the kind that is built for PNC Park but will play anywhere, and is popular with salary arbitrators. It is hardly a stretch to pencil him in for a WAR of 3.0 per year, which, under any scenario, including an extension, is worth more than what the Pirates would have to pay him.

Ryan Zimmerman’s five year, $45M extension represents the extreme high end of the salary range likely to be negotiated between Boras and the Pirates. More likely would be something similar to Pablo Sandoval’s $5.7M annual salary, or a five-year, $28.5 deal. The Pirates do not have a realistic third base prospect in their system, and they are unlikely to trade for one as long as Alvarez is in place. He is, in many ways, a throwback third baseman, the last vestige of his type. It would be foolhardy, in my opinion, to expect Pittsburgh to come up with a viable replacement in the near future. If their transition to a contending team is to have legs, the Pirates need to lock up their young players whenever it makes sense for them to do so. Finally, Scott Boras is not going away; despite the Mark Appel debacle, the Pirates have had success with Boras in the past. He does not usually recommend extensions for his players; if the Pirates are on the fence about Alvarez, working with Boras on an extension may pay additional dividends in the future, and tip the scales in their favor.

I traveled down to Lakewood, NJ recently to catch the last two games of the series between the Pirates’ South Atlantic League affiliate, the West Virginia Power, and the Blue Claws of the Phillies organization. Despite a major turnover of personnel the Power remains the Pirates’ most interesting minor league club. Here are my notes on a few of their prominent players:

Josh Bell

This was my first chance to see the Pirates $5mm man. Bell is an imposing physical specimen who has filled out quite a bit from his high school days. He is a tall, powerful switch hitter with smoother swing mechanics from the left side. From the right side he holds the bat very high, which makes his swing path a bit long. At this point in time he has a fairly high leg lift which the Pirates would do well to tone down. Bell hit the ball hard all weekend including a triple in Saturday’s game where he showed off his deceiving speed. Bell does not appear to be tearing up the league but he is quietly putting together a solid first professional season, cutting down on his strikeouts while improving his walk rate and hitting for power. He was the DH on Saturday and started in right field on Sunday afternoon, when he went 2-5. He could stick in right field or move to first base.

Stetson Allie

I was a bit ahead of the curve on Allie, predicting that the Pirates would convert him to a hitter long before they did, but even I did not see this coming. My eyebrows rose a bit when I saw that Pittsburgh placed Allie at West Virginia, a tip-off that they saw something they liked in the spring. But Allie has been ripping South Atlantic League pitching at an impressive clip that even his most fervent admirers would have been unable to predict. Allie is a husky guy who takes a big cut at the plate without seeming out of control. He saw a good number of pitches and worked the count to his advantage in both games, going 2-4 on Saturday and 1-3 with a walk on Sunday, including a monstrous two-run homer in the bottom of the 1st that cleared the elevated berm in left field and clanked against a metal advertising billboard about 450 feet from home plate. There is still nothing like the truly prodigious home run, and this one was one of the longest I have ever seen at a minor league ballpark. Allie may be striking out at a 28% clip, but he is maintaining his walk rate and is making solid contact. Lost in the talk of his power is the fact that he is batting .322, thanks to a BAbip over .400 that may have as much to do with his hitting the ball really hard as it does luck. Allie is a wild card but he is tipping the scales in his favor with every passing day.

Dilson Herrera

Herrera only played on Saturday, but I was struck by his athleticism – he definitely attracts attention. The Pirates have reached a consensus that he is a second baseman, and he looked good at the position, turning a nifty double play and showing off a plus arm for the position. He had only one single on the night but hit the ball hard. Herrera has a solid foundation in competitive baseball for a 19 year-old, having played for Colombia in junior tournaments and the WBC qualifiers, and he is putting together a very professional performance for this league at his age. I like Herrera quite a bit and I think he will maintain his top ten status at year end.

Max Moroff

Here is an interesting player. Moroff has been displaying admirable plate discipline, with a walk rate north of 16%, somewhat to the detriment of his ability to make contact. Apparently he has taken the Pirates advice on being a bit more aggressive as he drove the first pitch of the game on Sunday over the left field wall. The Pirates made the decision to move Herrera to second base and let Moroff play shortstop, and from what I was able to observe he has average tools for the position. Moroff’s BAbip is only .262; with normal luck we’re looking at a shortstop with a batting average around .260, a solid OBP and five home runs. Moroff was a little older than you would like on draft day, but he is having a solid first year in full season ball.

Clay Holmes

If you have been a reader of the site you know that I was not nearly as high on Holmes heading into this year as many of my counterparts. He had an awful delivery with practically no stride which caused his arm to drag behind him, an indicator of future problems. In addition, it caused him to lose the strike zone more often than not. Well, this year the Pirates have worked on the first problem a bit. Holmes is taking a longer stride and has a more fluid, textbook delivery, but it isn’t helping him to throw strikes yet. If anything his control has been worse this year. In Saturday’s game, Holmes had what for him qualifies as one of his better starts, allowing only one hit in five innings while both walking and striking out five. He is a big guy who has filled out a good deal, and his velocity is still consistently in the low-mid 90s. The Pirates will be patient with him, but eventually Holmes will be in danger of washing out of the system if he cannot improve his control.

Tyler Glasnow

Glasnow pitched Sunday’s game, and recovered from an early home run to throw five innings, allowing only one other hit while striking out eight and walking two. Glasnow is huge; he has legs that are taller than most people, and there are going to be some control issues and hiccups on his development path. But he clearly has tremendous potential, and may be the one projectable high school pitcher that the Pirates have hit a home run on. I don’t know if the gun in Lakewood is a little slow, but Glasnow was not reaching the upper-90s as we have heard elsewhere. His fastball sat at 93 and touched 95, and once he settled down the Lakewood hitters had no choice except to hope for a walk.

I should be able to get back to Lakewood when West Virginia returns later in the season, and it will be interesting to see how this group has progressed by then.

You really cannot blame them. For twenty consecutive seasons the Pittsburgh Pirates have finished with a losing record, and in most of those seasons, there never was any hope that things would be different. While they failed to get over the .500 hump in each of the last two years, they were a very competitive team, relevant to playoff discussions, and fan interest and optimism was heightened. When the 2013 Pirates recently concluded a 16-4 run that put them 14 games over.500, a consensus was reached – these Pirates are different, deeper, and unlikely to suffer the type of demoralizing collapse that marred the previous two campaigns.

After all, the starting pitching, fortified by a full season from Wandy Rodriguez, the development of Jeff Locke, and the addition of Francisco Liriano –  who shows signs of returning to his 2010 form – has been excellent, and the bullpen has been otherworldly, allowing the Pirates to play and win many close games thus far. But Pirates fans would be forgiven if they started to sense something familiar about all of this, a sinister, insidious feeling that they have seen this movie before and that this year is just a sequel. The main reason for this creepy sense of deja vu is the performance of the offense. It was only a few weeks ago when the Pirates led the National League in both OBP and walks, and it appeared that new hitting coach Jay Bell had imparted some of the wisdom that made him such an effective offensive player, most importantly plate discipline. But even as the Pirates continued to win, their offensive numbers began to slide, and the problems that had been lurking in the shadows came to light with back-to-back shutouts by the Cincinnati Reds last week. To put it bluntly, Pittsburgh’s offense stinks, and it is only a matter of time before the pressure the pitching staff is forced to face every night will cause them to break down.

Here is a comparison of the final 2012 numbers for the Bucco offense as compared to the 2013 season numbers to date:

Early in the season, there really was reason for optimism. Starling Marte got off to a brilliant start, and the platoon of Travis Snider and Jose Tabata in right field was productive, solving the team’s biggest offensive holes last season at the corner outfield positions. But Marte has fallen into a deep slump, Snider has, as always, been sporadic, Tabata is hurt and the rest of the team has hit in spurts. They no longer seem to understand that it was their improved approach early in the season that was producing results; tune into a Pirates game now and you can count on seeing at least one chase in every at bat.

Just as they have done in the two prior seasons, the 2013 Pirates have outperformed their expected third order winning percentage (W3) early, in this case by roughly four games. We have seen that regression can hit with the vengeance of a tornado in the Midwest. Perhaps the Pirates can be this year’s Orioles, but it is more likely that the O’s were a once in a generation, if not a once in a lifetime, team, and that the Pirates, having already fallen to the bottom of just about every relevant offensive category, will be unable to sustain their current success.

• Either someone failed to deliver the script to Atlanta, or the Braves refused to follow it. You know, the one where the Pirates play a close game, squeeze out a few runs and then turn everything over to the bullpen to hold on through the middle and late innings. Complacency has set in; I fully expected the Bucs to hold this lead rather effortlessly, and then everything went to shit.

• I think Jeff Locke pitched an outstanding game against a good-hitting club. He changed speeds very effectively, hit the corners, pitched inside and used his changeup more and more, which I loved to see. It is not his fault that home plate umpire Mark Carlson – in the grand tradition of the incompetent Dan Iassogna, whose postage stamp strike zone wreaked havoc the night before – constantly squeezed him, resulting in an elevated pitch count, or that Freddie Freeman desperately threw his bat at a two-strike curve and hit a two-run double over the third base bag.

• To cut to the chase, the game came down to Clint Hurdle’s decision to remove Locke from the game with two outs in the bottom of the 6th after Dan Uggla had hit a broken bat single to right. Locke was at 103 pitches, but did not appear to be laboring. I probably would have given him another batter, but I can see why Hurdle made his decision. B.J. Upton, despite his pathetic .153 batting average, had put a couple of good swings on Locke earlier in the game. What I have a problem with is that Hurdle brought in Ryan Reid. I am sure he was thinking that Reid throws almost all fastballs, and Upton has been one of the worst hitters in the league against fastballs this year. I have nothing against Reid, and I’m glad he made it after toiling in the minors for so long, but bringing him in was a bad decision by Hurdle. By any objective method you use, Reid ranks as the very LAST guy in the bullpen, there to provide insurance should a game get out of hand and you need to eat some innings, or you end up in a tied marathon and you’ve gone through everybody else. Hurdle suffers from “Shiny New Toy” syndrome; he can’t wait to shove his new pitchers onto the mound. Reid had just made his debut the night before, and worse than that, he also had pitched two innings for Indianapolis on Saturday. Really, you would rather have had Reid pitching against Upton in that situation instead of Justin Wilson or Tony Watson? Bryan Morris even? I think not.

• Of course, the Pirates offense limited its damage to one or two innings and then went to sleep for the rest of the game. If you don’t believe this offense is in serious trouble, check out the next piece on where they stand in relation to last year’s team. There were a lot of chases last night, and there have been more and more every night. In a 4-4 game late you need baserunners; you don’t need guys getting ahead in the count and then trying to be heroes by swinging at pitches in the dirt or over their heads.

• This is a game that the Pirates appeared to have completely under control, and the outcome was rather jarring. But that is because we have become accustomed to the bullpen fixing all of our problems, filling in the innings our starters don’t complete, and holding down the opponents to practically nothing to make up for the runs our offense doesn’t score. I’m afraid this script will be rewritten soon, if it hasn’t been already, and the Pirates will need a lot of makeup to resemble the same team that was 14 games over .500.