JABO: The Pirates’ One Chance

by
October 8, 2015

When you see Jake Arrieta’s final line – 9 innings, 4 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 11 strikeouts — it’s actually kind of hard to believe, but as dominating as the Cubs ace was on Wednesday night, the Pirates actually had a chance to beat him. Arrieta was amazing, but he wasn’t quite perfect, and in the sixth inning, the Pirates put together a legitimate rally.

The inning started with pinch-hitter Travis Snider driving a hard grounder up the middle for a leadoff single. Gregory Polanco smoked a line drive right at third baseman Kris Bryant, but Bryant’s circus act catch meant that it simply turned into out number one, but then Arrieta gave the Pirates a gift by hitting Josh Harrison with a curveball, putting a runner in scoring position for the first time all night. And then Andrew McCutchen hit a laser to shortstop that Addison Russell couldn’t handle, allowing everyone to advance safely, which loaded the bases and brought the tying run to the plate.

Down 4-0, having only had two baserunners prior to the inning, a Pirates team that looked unable to put anything together against Arrieta suddenly was one swing away from tying up the game. Starling Marte, the team’s cleanup hitter, stepped to the plate. While not a traditional slugger, Marte hit 19 home runs this year and is capable of driving the ball, especially if he can sit on a fastball.

Marte is somewhat of the cliche of a raw baseball player; he crushes fastballs and struggles with soft stuff that moves. For his career, he’s hit .313 with a .521 slugging percentage against four-seam fastballs, and .294 with a .423 slugging percentage against two-seam fastballs. For comparison, he’s hit .198 against curves and .260 against breaking balls, with less power than he produces on fastballs. Marte is, essentially, a fastball hitter.

So unsurprisingly, Arrieta started him with a slider, but he missed his spot and bounced the ball in the dirt, allowing Marte to easily take ball one. With the bases loaded, Arrieta decided to challenge Marte, and gave him the fastball he was certainly looking for. And Marte crushed it.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.





 

Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

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Pirates Hurdles
8 years ago

That single moment was more fun than just about anything that happened in the 2014 WC game. There was a real feel in the crowd that Arrieta was off and one swing could save the season. At least we got that to cheer for this year. Wish it was a 3 game series, Tues-Thur with no travel would work just fine and not extend the season.

1
joe
8 years ago
Reply to  Pirates Hurdles

a 3-game WC series would be even more unfair than a one-game. You would marginally reduce the randomness but in return, if the series went the full 3 games, you would be starting off the NLDS with your #4 starter and #5 starter (or your #1 starter on short rest on Saturday).

4
teufelshuffle
8 years ago
Reply to  joe

Yes. Please give up the 3 game nonsense.

2
CircleChange11
8 years ago
Reply to  teufelshuffle

I think we should give up the wild card nonsense.

[1] A short series doesn’t need to settle something that a 162-game season hasn’t already decided.

[2] How can you be champion of the world if you aren’t even your division champion?

Shorten the season and expand the playoffs (please don’t)or reduce the playoffs and keep the long season (1 division per league, 2 divisions at most).

Expanded playoffs, interleague play, etc seems to have really diminished the regular season. MLB can stop trying to be the NFL and get back to being itself.

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Pirates Hurdles
8 years ago
Reply to  teufelshuffle

yes, MLB is going to throw away revenue to regress to the situation we had 20 years ago, please …

To your 2nd argument, how does another team’s relative success (that happened by geographic chance to be near you) determine your team’s quality? It is entirely possible for the best 2 teams in baseball over 162 games to be geographically near each other.

3
Pirates Hurdles
8 years ago
Reply to  joe

How is that unfair at all? It is much more fair to the WC teams having a chance to play real baseball and it doesn’t really set the winner back, if you start the DS on Saturday your ace can start game 1 on short rest which is better than what we have now.

0
Brian
8 years ago
Reply to  Pirates Hurdles

A 3-game series just isn’t more legit than a 1-game winner-takes-all game. Well, if you crunch the numbers it kinda is, but it’s so marginal that it’s practically meaningless.

Let’s say one team is superior to another. For the sake of argument, suppose the Pirates have a 53% chance of beating the Cubs in any one game (a 3% difference seems pretty standard between wild-card opponents). The odds, then, that they would win a best-of-3 series is 54.5%

So a 3-game series would tax the pitching staff more, possibly add travel, give the divisional series opponent more time to rest, for a measly 1.5% increase in certainty that the ‘right’ team won (i.e., something that would make a difference once every 66 years). There’s just no way that’s worth it.

2
JK_Nation
8 years ago
Reply to  joe

4-1-2-3-1 is a better rotation than 2-3-1-2-3

0
WillyG
8 years ago
Reply to  joe

Unless you had a really good 4th starter like AJ Burnett or JA Happ. A 3 game WC would really benefit a team like Pittsburgh that is built on a solid starting pitching.

I like the old days where the top team in the National League played the top team in the American League in the World Series. None of this playoff garbage. You won the pennant by winning the most games.

Why can’t the MLB just take one wild card team? The NFL did it for years. Does anyone remember why they changed to multiple teams? I know the answer. ABC Sports told them to. They wanted additional playoff games. This is not a conspiracy theory. It was well reported in the mainstream media back when it happened. You can research it. It is not difficult to find support. So to say that there’s any logic to taking multiple wildcard teams… You will embarrass yourself. It is about money for the networks and for the sport. I don’t want MLB to turn into NHL / NBA where it seems that the post season is as long as the season

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WillyG
8 years ago
Reply to  Pirates Hurdles

The whole PIRATES team is primarily fastball hitters, which is why they destroyed most teams bullpens. They are probably the top scoring team in the majors from the seventh inning on. But pretty poor at scoring prior to the 7th.

Marte spent a good part of the season as leadoff hitter. You don’t want to walk the leadoff hitter, therefore he got quite a few fast balls to hit. Basically fast balls over the plate when he worked the count. So of course his success rate on fast balls will appear to be better than it should be, a type of false positive for a cleanup hitter, who often gets pitched around. Many of the fast balls he saw were designed to prevent a walk , being down the middle, over the plate. That’s the opposite of a leadoff hitter.

My point is a leadoff hitter has the heart of the order of behind him and you don’t want to walk the guy. Number four hitter can be walked because there’s no one behind him… No protection if you will. So number one hitter will see more fast balls to hit when pitcher is behind in the count.

I’ve watched a lot of Piratess games this year. I pitched college baseball and I’m a sports medicine physician with specialty training in biomechanics . I recognize pitches and use MLB at bat also . I don’t recall Marte getting very many curve balls to hit. Just stating a percentage, without stating how many pitches it is based on doesn’t allow us to determine whether or not it is useful. Was it 25 curve balls all year or 500?

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Kozy21
8 years ago
Reply to  WillyG

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/PIT/2015-batting-orders.shtml

Marte batted leadoff once the entire season.

1
WillyG
8 years ago
Reply to  Pirates Hurdles

As a Pirates fan, I agree that it was a fun game. After the Cubs get used to winning with their talented team, they will realize you don’t have to win every year to have fun. Its fun just watching a good team play.

They may even look back at this season and realize how embarrassing their youthful teams lack of sportsmanship is. High fives in the dugout is one thing. But carrying on for 10 minutes after a home run is quite another. As Vince Lombardi once said quite famously… Act like you’ve been there before when you score a touchdown. It’s called being a professional. And for the owner to wave a white flag with a blue W in the visitors ballpark… I’ll let you all decide how appropriate that was. It sounds like something Robert Kraft would do. I doubt that Bob nutting, owner of the Pirates, would wave a Jolly Roger flag in Wrigley Field. And it’s been 36 years since the Pirates have won the World Series… so the 100 plus years thing is not an excuse for unsportsmanlike behavior. Act like you’ve been there before even if you haven’t been for a hundred years.

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Everyone
8 years ago
Reply to  WillyG

Shut up and troll elsewhere please. If you want to talk about lack of professionalism, don’t throw at the opposing pitcher just because the guy dominates you.

Reminder:

“The difference is that Geritt Cole has playoff experience. Jake Arietta may very well pull a Johnny Cueto on Wednesday night. Great season and dreadful wildcard performance. Remember Clayton Kershaw didn’t look so hot in the playoffs after a great season and people were shocked when that happened. Don’t count the Pirates out. Pittsburgh is counting on World Series baby! And there’s no logic to this post. It’s one game. Statistics & logic are out the window. It’s mostly about who keeps a cooler head. Ask Terry Bradshaw, an average quarterback who kept his cool during the playoffs and has 4 Super Bowl rings to show for it!”

arrieta-cole-objectively-one-of-best-playoff-matchups-ever

3
David K
8 years ago
Reply to  WillyG

Please! A PIRATE fan complaining about the unprofessionalism of the CUBS? Do you even remember that two Pirate players were hit by pitches COMPLETELY BY ACCIDENT (I can’t imagine anyone that isn’t completely biased would say there was a chance that either were hit on purpose), and then the Pirates go and nail Arrieta, clearly intentionally.

NOW tell me which team lacked class and was unprofessional?

By the way, I am neither a Pirate nor a Cub fan.

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FLORIDA wRONg
8 years ago
Reply to  David K

That is correct, sir! When the Cubs hit a batter it is always an accident, and any retaliation is a mafioso act in violation of RICO statutes that should be investigated by MLB, the FBI, and possibly the ICC at the Hague for possible Geneva Convention infractions.

OTOH, if another teams hits a Cubs player then the Cubs are only right to assume it’s purposeful, and to defend themselves accordingly by any means necessary.

This is how the umpires union and MLB sees it, how the state of Illinois sees it, how all decent humankind sees it, and if the Cardinals-Fangraphs criminal conspirators disagree, then too bad; they can just STFU. Go Cubs Go!

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