To preview the Giants-Pirates series, I exchanged questions with Brian at Raise the Jolly Roger. Check out his responses below, and I'll post a link to my responses when they're up.
UPDATE: You can find my responses here.
1. Tuesday, the Giants face Charlie Morton (ERA 3.33). He's been pretty successful this year so far -- partially due to a high ground ball rate -- but his K/BB (0.80) is rather awful. All things considered, what should we expect from him?
Morton is quite an enigma and really is one of the most interesting pitchers in the league to examine closely. As soon as the Bucs traded for him in 2009 you could see his great potential with his "electric stuff" - a 95MPH fastball, great curve, and tons of movement on every pitch. Last year, though, he was dreadful (and also the victim of miserable luck), and really fell out of favor with fans.
Luckily, nobody gave up on Morton and new pitching coach Ray Searage has modified his delivery (to look just like Roy Halladay's) and brought back his sinker, which he stopped throwing last year for whatever reason. Now, Morton seems to be much less of a strikeout guy...but far more effective overall, inducing tons and tons of ground balls this season. I think the K/BB ratio will improve as he settles into this new style of pitching (the ratio was far better last year, and control wasn't really a problem for him at all). He actually had 6 K's and 3 walks last time out (in his first bad start of the year, at Florida). It will be really interesting to see whether he goes back to getting more strikeouts, but I would certainly expect the walks to come down. For now, though, expect him to throw his sinker a zillion times and get lots of groundballs...and then mix it up more only if it's not working well.
2. Jose Tabata is off to a red-hot start this season -- already at 1.2 fWAR...do you expect him to keep this up -- at least to some extent?
Ever since Tabata broke into the majors last season, he's impressed. His approach at the plate and style of hitting is fun to watch, and he's been incredibly effective at the top of the lineup (I believe he's right up around the MLB leaders in hits since last year's All-Star Break). We were kind of hoping for some more power out of him, but certainly nobody's complaining about what he's done so far. I expect him to remain very solid...maybe not this good, but close.
3. This question came up a while ago...is Andrew McCutchen the best all-around centerfielder in the game? Or Colby Rasmus/Matt Kemp?
MLB Network said that he was in the offseason which generated a lot of buzz. I think it was a perfectly fair statement at the time...but Kemp and Rasmus are both off to really great starts. McCutchen suffered through a rough slump after the first two series this year, but seems to be recovering well. I'd give the edge to Kemp now with his scorching hot start, but when Cutch is at the top of his game, he's really the whole package.
4. Pedro Alvarez has struggled mightily thus far -- .200/.263/.286...what should the Pirates do with him? Just wait it out?
Yes, absolutely. Pedro is essentially the "face of the new management" here in Pittsburgh (being the first hyped-up 1st round pick in a while they've been willing to spend big bucks on--drafted just ahead of Buster Posey), and he needs to get going or else the Bucs will be in big trouble. Alvarez has always been very strikeout prone, and also is a notoriously slow starter. He's not going anywhere anytime soon, and has actually been better over the last week or so.
5. Who takes the series -- Giants or Pirates?
Looking at the pitching matchups, it's awfully tough to rationalize predicting the Pirates to win two games (or maybe even one). The Giants take the series, and hopefully the Bucs can take a game and keep the other two close?
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