Big numbers produce a nice little win

By Gene Collier
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
May 31, 2012

PITTSBURGH, PA - MAY 30: A.J. Burnett #34 of the Pittsburgh Pirates pithces against the Cincinnati Reds during the game on May 30, 2012 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

Don't want to go all inside-baseball on ya, much less pepper you with comparative metrics purporting to explain the quizzical state of the Pirates, but here's a little rule of thumb from the modern analysis industry:

The more players you have in your lineup wearing numbers in the 60s, the poorer your chances of success in the short term, the long term, and, of course, the midterm.

But the Pirates ran two offensive linemen out there Wednesday night against the first-place Cincinnati Reds as part of their new offensive philosophy, code name "Somebody! Anybody!"

You had brand spankin' new shortstop Jordy Mercer, wearing 69, and popular first baseman Matt Hague, number 65. That was half the infield, and the other half -- the relatively established major league half, Pedro Alvarez and Neil Walker -- was hitting a combined .236.

So on a night when Reds ace Johnny Cueto was reliably shoving Pirates bats right back down into their rack, it was in fact a couple of 60-somethings who enabled the sixth victory of a nine-game homestand.

Hague roped Cueto's 89th pitch up the alley in right center with two out in the sixth to plate Walker and Garrett Jones, overturning a 1-0 Cincinnati lead that had been standing since the top of the first.

"He made some good pitches on me the first two times up," Hague was saying after the Pirates had chinned themselves back to .500. "My swing was getting a little bit long, so I was telling myself to shorten it the best I could."

Hague's first at-bat had been fairly awful, as it happened, because all he could do with a 2-0 pitch against a drawn-in infield was roll it slowly to third baseman Todd Frazier, or to just about the only place on the entire North Side acreage where a batted ball would not score Jones from third.

Hague flied to center in the fourth, and by the time he reappeared in the sixth, no one was thinking Cueto looked in any way vulnerable.

"You know there's a swing in there because we've seen it," said Pirates manager Clint Hurdle. "But yeah, he'd made a soft out early and he was as disappointed as anybody, but that probably sparked his focus for the rest of the game.

"I mean, the inning started with two out and nobody on and nobody was thinking, 'We're gonna get a rally goin' any minute now.' So Matt showed some resolve right there."

After Walker had walked and Jones sliced a hit-and-run single to right to put runners on the corners, Cueto missed with the 1-1 pitch to Hague and made a good pitch on 2-1.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sports/gene-collier/big-numbers-produce-a-nice-little-win-638200/