Final Score: Pirates 4 Tigers 1
Why The Pirates Won: Johan Oviedo had his 2nd solid start in a row. This time he went 7 innings allowing only 1 run on 6 hits, walking 2 and striking out 5. He became very efficient after the 1st inning. He only threw 74 pitches over the last 6 innings. The Pirate offense was not overwhelming but effective enough to put 4 runs on the board. The big blows were an RBI triple by Endy Rodriguez followed by a home run by Liover Peguero to make the score 3-0 after 2 innings. The Pirates added another run in the 4th and with the way that Oviedo and the bullpen were pitching they were never really threatened in this game. It was a very nice 3rd win in a row.
The Key Moment Of The Game: Going into the 7th the Pirates were leading 4-0 when the Tigers did mount a bit of a rally. On the first pitch of the inning Javier Baez singled to center field. A swinging bunt out moved him to second base. Then Akil Baddoo reached out his bat a placed a ball out to left field to score Baez to make the score 4-1. Things were getting a little tense at this point. Two pitches later Jake Rodgers grounded into a slick double play, Williams to Peguero to Joe to end the inning. After that, the Tigers never got another man on base in the last two innings.
The Trade Deadline: There were two big ticket items traded, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. Other than that, as far as I am concerned this trading season was garbage for garbage, including what the Pirates did. They did get some prospects that might pan out but it will be surprising if we see any big contributors in the near future. The whole process seemed to indicate that teams were hoping, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that a change in scenery would improve their acquisitions performance. I thought it showed how bad things were when a headline read Brewers acquire Met's star outfielder. They were referring to Mark Canha whose slash line is currently 245/343/381. His defensive metrics are not that great, but you could say he was one of the better players that were moved. It will be interesting to see if any of these trades really work out on the short term. There sure does not seem to be any Fred McGriffs in this traded group.
The Next Game: This afternoon, Tigers in Pittsburgh. The Morning Report will be taking a 10-day hiatus as I will literally be out of the country. I may write a couple of blogs while I am gone, commenting on how the young Bucs have done over a 4 to 5 game span. It will be interesting to see the new rotation. The Report will be back on a daily basis around August 11. It would be nice to see the Pirates win today, because after that, the competition really gets tough over the next 11 games.
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