When good process goes bad

Those of you who have watched "The Chappelle Show" may remember a segment called "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong". The concept was, people are put in situations where they can do one of two things; take the easy, conventional way out, or do the right thing and stand up for themselves. Sometimes, doing the right thing doesn't turn out the way it should. Baseball is full of those moments, moments I like to call, "when good process goes bad". Last night's Brewers-Pirates game included two such moments.

In the 8th inning, the Brewers were put in a situation where Pirates superhero Andrew McCutchen was at the plate with two outs and a runner on second. Manager Ron Roenicke allowed reliever Jim Henderson to pitch to McCutchen rather than intentionally walk him, the "conventional" strategy. Henderson's second pitch (a fastball well outside the zone) broke McCutchen's bat, but the ball still fell into center field for a game-tying single. Fans cried out, "if only they had intentionally walked him!", and mourned what they felt was an inevitable loss.

But the Brewers did the right thing (free baserunners are bad, mmmkay). It'd be one thing if McCutchen had an automatic out behind him, but the Pirates #4 hitter is Garrett Jones. Ignore what your preconceived notions of Jones are and look at his numbers. He's having a fine year, and had the platoon advantage over Henderson. McCutchen is also in one of the worst slumps of his career, and has been dealing with an assortment of nagging injuries. Is Jones as good as McCutchen? Absolutely not, but neither is McCutchen at this point. McCutchen got a lucky bloop and Jones ended up striking out, so confirmation bias (as well as the Pirates getting away with intentionally walking Braun in the bottom of the 8th) taints our view of what should have happened. Fortunately for the Brewers, the baseball gods simply chose to reward them at a later time.

Now, Clint Hurdle has been mocked plenty both on this blog and by people with functioning gray matter. Casual fans look at the Pirates and thing, "they're overachieving, Hurdle for Manager of the Year!" But anyone who watches Pirates games know this isn't true. Hurdle does just about everything poorly, and has put on a clinic of how not to manage a baseball team in games against the Brewers this season. Bullpen management is a thankless job, and managers are often subject to unfair criticism in that regard (confirmation bias again). But Hurdle's bullpen management is often particularly bad, mostly because he pitches poor relievers in high-pressure situations when far better pitchers are available.

Maybe Hurdle is turning over a new leaf, or maybe Closer Joel Hanrahan needed work, but Hurdle brought Hanrahan Gandalf in to a tie game in the bottom of the 9th, save situation be damned. This was the right move. A future save situation means nothing if you can't even get to it, and you can't lose a close game with your best reliever chewing sunflower seeds and braiding his goatee in the dugout. Sadly for the Pirates, Hanrahan threw a beach ball to the first hitter he faced, and Corey Hart hit the ball to the moon.

Alas, when good process goes bad.

                                                              "YOU SHALL NOT INTENTIONALLY PASS"

Brewers take two of three from Pirates, who are still striking out

Gosh frick, do the Pittsburgh Pirates have a terrible offense. After striking out a remarkable 15 times in a win against the Brewers on Saturday, the Pirates upped the ante on themselves by whiffing 17 times in a loss to Milwaukee on Sunday. Brewers starting pitchers Marco Estrada and Yovani Gallardo punched out 11 and 14 Pirates respectively, and if it weren't for some shoddy defense on Saturday the Brewers might have had their second sweep of the season.

Speaking of defense, the Pirates aren't good at that either. For reasons that no one can understand, manager Clint Hurdle plays butcher Pedro Alvarez at third base while playing slow-but-reliable fielder Casey McGehee at first. McGehee has been a career third baseman, while Alvarez should be a career DH. Oh yeah, and Sunday's corner outfielders were Drew Sutton and Garrett Jones, two of the worst defensive outfielders in all of baseball (Jones should be playing first base, Sutton has been a utility infielder for most of his career). 

                                   Every time a ball is hit to Pedro Alvarez, a demon gets it's horns.

In a sequence of events that should have surprised no one, the Brewers scored all four of their runs in one inning, helped out by a horrific throwing error by Jones and an fielding error by Alvarez that the official scorer later changed to a double for some reason. Brewers slug/third baseman Aramis Ramirez even stole a base in the inning, which happened because the Pirates are the worst team in baseball at throwing out basestealers. And Pirates catcher Rod Barajas' throw was so bad it injured second baseman Neil Walker.

And going back to the Pirates' offense for a second, Andrew McCutchen is amazing. He hit a home run in every game of the series (four in a row overall), and was on base three times today. Everyone else on the team reached base twice. In 28 attempts. And struck out 17 times. Gallardo's 14 K's were a career high. You'd think that the Pirates offense wasn't all that terrible considering they scored 13 runs on the first two games of the series, but for the season they are 22nd in runs scored. McCutchen is by himself. Get him some help, Pirates. 

Maybe Justin Upton?

But probably not. 

The Pirates regression train hits Miller Park

The Pittsburgh Pirates are a hot story halfway through the 2012 baseball season, and their sparkiling 48-37 record coming into Friday night's game was expected by precisely no one. Their run prevention is outstanding, as they treat opposing offenses the same way Walter Sobchak treats German nihilists. Their offense is another story, as it's basically a pile of hot garbage outside of the solid Neil Walker and fan-freakin'-tastic Andrew McCutchen. I suppose Pedro Alvarez isn't terrible, but he's kind of like a poor man's Adam Dunn at this point, if Dunn were shorter and had a better tan.

                                          Pirates players celebrating someone getting on base.

There are many regression candidates on the Pirates, and by many I mean almost the entire pitching staff. James McDonald is a fine young pitcher, but his batting average allowed is just .194 and that's not something that just happens. And for an extreme fly ball pitcher, his home runs allowed is stupidly low (Ryan Braun spanked one out against him tonight). Jeff Karstens reeks of Dave Bush to me, and AJ Burnett hasn't come even close to meeting his blow-up quota. Kevin Correia and Erik Bedard kind of suck. And then there's the bullpen, featuring gimmicky guys (Tony Watson and Jared Hughes), and veterans who are greatly out-pitching their peripherals as well as their career norms (Resop, Slaten, Grilli, Cruz, even Hanrahan).

So no, I don't believe in the First Place Pirates. And the conductor of the regression train is manager Clint Hurdle, who did one of the dumbest things I've ever seen tonight. Which is really something considering how many stupid things are done by managers daily. It was the defining moment in one of the most entertaining baseball games this season.

                                        Pictured: Clint Hurdle chewing styrofoam because DERP.

The situation; tie game, 8th inning, runners on second and third, two out. Rickie Weeks at the plate. Tony Watson pitching. Weeks has been better over the last month or so, but still sports a .200 batting average along with a titanic 100 strikeouts. What should Hurdle do? NOTHING. Have Watson (I'll get to him in a second) pitch to Weeks. What does Hurdle do? He has Watson intentionally walk him. I'll repeat rephrase that. HE INTENTIONALLY WALKS A .200 HITTER. Predictably, the tiring Watson threw a beach ball to Cody Ransom five pitches later, and predictably Ransom sent it to Argentina. Grand Slam, Pirates go one to lose by 3. I can fathom walking Joey Votto to get to a bad hitter (which Ransom is). But not a hitter with worse numbers than Ransom himself.

                                             Cody Ransom, thanking Clint Hurdle for giving him the opportunity.

There's so many things that went wrong here. The first is the fact that Watson was even in the game. Lefty Nyjer Morgan was supposed to lead off the inning for the Brewers, but was pinch-hit for by righty Carlos Gomez with the left-handed pitcher Watson entering the game. Hurdle then left Watson in to face seven consecutive righties. Now, Watson isn't a LOOGY, and actually has reverse platoon splits. But the Brewers crush lefties as a team, and Watson isn't even very good to begin with. Despite having better pitchers in the bullpen, Hurdle stuck with Watson for a whopping 35 pitches and was rewarded with a four-run deficit. Why not Jason Grilli? Or Juan Cruz? Or heaven forbid, Joel Hanrahan in a high-pressure situation? And finally, why intentionally walk anyone? There's two outs. You don't need a double play. Low-contact hitter at the plate. PITCH TO HIM. Hurdle did what a stupid manager does.

Now, the Pirates may still finish ahead of the Brewers. They may even make the playoffs. But holy cow, will their playoff opponent be excited to face them.