Yankees Roughup Pirates Under The Lights

by Zane Heiple

Photo by bradenton.com

The Pittsburgh Pirates came out swinging early in their game with the New York Yankees tonight, but the Yanks took the early punches and delivered a knockout with a 10-3 win. 

The offense was a familiar scene for us fans plenty of hits, but a lack of runs.  Jose Tabata, Andrew McCutchen, and Neil Walker, three faces who will be leading the offense this season, each accounted for two hits in their three at bats.  The Buccos took an early 2-0 lead when McCutchen took a 3-2 pitch deep to left field.  That was the last of the Pirates leading for the night as New York would score the next nine runs before Walker would single home Tabata in the sixth.  The Yankees would finish off the scoring in the eighth inning.

Pitching was obviously well off track tonight and it all started with Erik Bedard.  He would work 3.2 innings allowing four runs on five hits with three walks and three strikeouts.  Bedard was brought in to help this rotation with experience, his ERA is up to 6.23 and needs to start putting consistently good starts together if he hopes to regain his form from his days with the Baltimore Orioles.  I think Jo Jo Reyes days in a Pirates uniform are soon coming to an end.  He gave up three runs tonight without recording an out and now  has a spring training ERA of 12.86.  Daniel McCutchen and Daniel Moskos looked good again tonight as they each struck out a batter in their inning of work.

While some of us at Fans From The Stands are expecting big things out of Pedro Alvarez this season, I keep waiting for him to show that he is even a baseball player.  Tonight he would go 0-3 with a strikeout and is now batting .148.  But it does not end their folks, a fielding error in the third inning would give the Yankees their first run of the night.  Do not get me wrong, I hope that he figures things out and at least resembles some form of what all us hoped he would be when the Pirates drafted him, but as the days go by the word bust seems to stick to him more and more.

Well the great thing about baseball is that there is no time to dwell on the game before.  Pittsburgh is back in action for their first of three straight games in Bradenton.  Tomorrow they will take on the Boston Red Sox.  Kevin Correia will start for the Buccos and first pitch is scheduled for 1:05.

Grapefruit League Record:  6-10

And...

As Always...

Let's Go Bucs!