Pittsburgh Pirates vs. New York Mets – Game 44

If I was any starting pitcher in the league I would look long and hard at the Pirates lack of offense over the past few years before I decided to sign in Pittsburgh.  Nate McLouth continues to get important at bats……

Thank goodness for Triple A pitching depth though.

First Pitch: 12:35 PM EST

Where To Watch:  MLB.TV, SNY

No local broadcast? Why do I give you extra money for Root Sports, Directv?

Jonathon Niese, LHP (25)

Mr. Niese prefers to go by Jon, so we should probably refer to him as that. Not Jonathon, not Big Jonny, and most of all not John. Who wants an H getting in the way of a name anyway? It’s like all these jokers who spell “Ric”, “Rick”. Stop with the extra letters you attention whores.

He also can go by the name disappointment. He just never seems to be able to reach up to the potential he has. He is always talked about as a good young pitcher, but he continues a pretty big decline.

It’s kind of surprising to me that Mets fans haven’t run this guy out on a rail yet. Where are you at New York? You getting soft? Philly fans wouldn’t put up with this!

Anyway, as you can see, it hasn’t exactly been a magical start to the season for Jon.

Actually though, yes it was. He rattled off four straight Quality Starts to begin the season. Sadly, for him, it has tailed off as he has notched just one quality start in the four games since. In fact he has only gone six innings once since then, falling below that mark in his other three games.

If I was blogging about ANY other team I would say this should be a piece of cake. I’m not though.

Actually it’s more likely that Niese will have his huge bounceback game against the Pirates because that is what the Pirates do!

He didn’t face the Pirates at all last season! Pussy!

Actually he probably just was tired of showing the Pirates who the boss is. And it ain’t Tony freaking Danza.

I know I know small sample size. I just needed to make that joke so live with it.

Here’s an interesting fact. Every pitcher the Pirates will face in this series has thrown a complete game against them. You don’t get those types of nuggets from ANY other blog!

Hopefully since I counted his small sample size, a few of the Pirates small sample size outcomes will hold up as well.

Charlie Morton, RHP (28)

I’m not going to use the Ground Chuck photoshop this time out because in his last game he was actually ground suck.

Morton has been frustrating at best this season. Oddly though he has improved in a few categories. His WHIP and BB/9 are both down. He is just giving up way too many hits and more specifically homers. Morton gave up six homers last year, he has given up five so far this year.

You’d think an extreme ground ball pitcher like himself wouldn’t be giving up so many homers, but that’s the case…..

The Mets crushed Morton last year. Absolutely dominated him.

Even with those awful outcomes though he STILL didn’t give up a homer in that series.

He has actually never beaten the Mets, though he has never allowed a homer either.

Not much experience against their hitters though.