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After a disappointing loss on Monday and a rain out on Tuesday, the Bucs managed a series split with the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday. The Pirates didn't play particularly well, but they hung around and found a way to beat a pretty bad team.  The Pirates are now 4-4 against a Cincinnati team more less assured of a horrible record this season.  They need to do better in these situations. 


--  I almost feel obligated to mention the historic game in DC tonight. Max Scherzer had a 20 strikeout/0 walk game tonight.  In my opinion, that's way tougher than a no hitter.  He threw 119 pitches, and 96 went for strikes. That's absurd.  Maybe he gets overshadowed by Arrieta and Kershaw, but Max is the real deal.  Nobody would want to see the Nats in a playoff series with him and Strasburg going.  

-- Juan Nicasio was mainly effective.  His pitch count was low, and he didn't find himself in a lot of trouble throughout the game. Still, he gave up some solid hits.  I think he eventually can become an effective reliever when in fact, Taillon and Glasnow are promoted to the big leagues.  He's doing an admirable job, but living with 2 pitches is hard to do in the majors. 

-- Jared Hughes was pretty effective and looked the best he's looked all year to me.  He gave up a triple, but McCutchen probably should have caught it, still not sure why he didn't. 

-- Tony Watson was very good tonight, while Melancon's outing was a little more interesting. But both got their job done.  In a perfect world... starter goes 6, Hughes, Watson, Melancon throw 3 scoreless and that's how they win. They managed to get that tonight.  It wasn't always pretty, but that's the pitching breakdown the Pirates want to win games with on most occasions. 

-- David Freese hit a solo home run tonight in a bit of a new role.  He led off and played first base.  Whatever works.  He's going to need to play still when Kang gets more acclimated to playing everyday.  This is a good alternative. 

-- Cutch went 1-4 with a solo homer (his 7th of the year) and he also drew a walk.  He's batting a little more respectable .248 at the moment.  He usually heats up this month, and crushes in June.  Hopefully that's starting to happen.

-- Polanco 0-4 with 2 K's.  It's still early, but the new role batting third hasn't been going well just yet. 

-- Marte was 0-2 and got hit by a pitch on the hand (seems to happen to him a lot, doesn't it?). For anyone that saw the play where he attempted a steal, I thought he was safe or at least pushed by Phillips off the base.  He got tossed, does anyone have any other idea what happened there? Hurdle got tossed on the same play.

-- Cervelli was a quiet 0-3, but he did got robbed by Cozart on a sharp liner during one at-bat. 

-- Kang had the only multi-hit game. He had a solo home run, and scored the go ahead run in the 9th.  So far so good. 

-- Sean Rod didn't do much today. 

-- Mercer had a little bloop, but it was the game winning hit for the Pirates' shortstop. 

-- Jaso and Joyce were each 0-1 off the bench.

-- How about JHay with a solid home run in the 8th to tie it up?  Big hit and big spot for him filling in for Marte after his ejection.  Also made an impressive play up the middle. 


The Pirates are off tomorrow, and head to Wrigley for a three game set.  Obviously things didn't go well for the Bucs in their first showdown with the Cubs last week, perhaps things will go differently this time around, and maybe they can steal a game or two. 

The Marte play last night Crimson references has me curious to hear what everyone thinks about MLB's replay system?     That replay last night on Marte's steal is a primary example of why I am not a fan the current system.  

If the call after the review was in fact that he was off the base, why did the review take over two minutes.  It was obvious from the one angle that was shown immediately after the play that Marte was off the base.  No brainer right?   Why then did the review take so long?   How many times did they have to look at it to make that decision.?  The people in NYC reviewing that play had no way of knowing whether Phillips pushed him off the bag or not.  To me it seems that people in NYC, who coincidently are shielded from any argument or controversy, are having to make decisions based on personal opinions on plays,  and that is not what replay should be.

I like replay in general, but the MLB seems to have an awful lot of subjectivity in their reviews.

I think replay is like balls and strikes (are supposed to be) arguing is an immediate ejection. Although I'm in agreement with the broadcast crew that I don't think Clint was necessarily arguing the result of the replay challenge but that BP did in fact push Marte off the base. Marte was giving it to the 2B umpire that made that call separately and got tossed. I'm not sure how much Clint "protecting his player" had to do with it, but it was just a bizarre scene.

Replay has ruined a lot of the old adages like "if the throw beats the runner you're out" or the neighborhood play. Not sure how I feel about this right now but I guess things in baseball were a certain way for 100-some years. I think we need some replay for really blown calls like Jim Joyce and the perfect game. But a lot of these challenges that have to do with microfractions of time, I'm not sure that's what is intended.

I think baseball is doing a good job with the in between innings clock and the clock for trips to the mound. But on the other hand you have replays taking far too long, kind of washes out the time you save from the other measures.

We really need robot umps for the strike zones though, it's getting worse by the year in MLB.