Castillo's performance - Pirates Related

[Sam's Drunk Dog]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2463993

• Jose Castillo homered in his fourth straight game, the Pirates' 12-1 win over the Brewers. But let's not damn him with faint praise: The guy went 4-for-4 with two homers and six RBI.

Who was the last player to have at least two homers, six RBI and four hits, while "batting 1.000" to lead the Pirates to a victory? Not Barry Bonds. Not Bobby Bonilla. Not Dave Parker. It was Pops himself, Willie Stargell, who went 5-for-5 with three homers and seven RBI in a 13-6 win at Wrigley Field on May 22, 1968.

Talk about maybe the best one-game peformance of the year so far in MLB. 4-4, 2 HRs and 6 RBI? Wow!

[Sam's Drunk Dog]

To compare a poll on ESPN.com http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/index?&lpos=globalnav&lid=gn_MLB_MLB asked : Which is the best MLB single game performance this season?

Carl Crawford (5-5, HR, 4 SB)
Jeff francoeur (Walk-off GS)
Jake Peavy (16K in 7 IP)
Albert Pujols (3-4, 3 HR, 5 RBI)

Pujols was leading the poll with 48% of 96, 812 votes at the time of this post.

I think Castillo's performance trumps Albert's.

[Vanbiesbrouck]

Pujols homered in 3 straight at-bats. His 3rd HR was a walk-off in the bottom of the 9th to give the Cards a 1 run victory.

Castillo was successful in a blow out of a game against some long relievers that have no business being in the majors.

I'm all for the Buccos winning a hundred straight and Castillo winning the NL MVP, but for one game performances, I think Pujols has him beat unless we add in the yinzer factor.

[MrKnowNothing]

Castillo homered again tonight already.

Too bad the Pirates weren't 500 or so for most of the season, because then this hot streak they are on might be meaningful.

[Rocco]

Pujols had two of his HR off of our old friend Rick White and David Weathers, who aren't exactly anything good.

Castillo went yard tonight off Chris Capuano, who had been pitching well prior to tonight. Nice of him to wake up after I released him from my fantasy team a few weeks ago. For the record, I had Perez too, benched him, and he's since decided to throw strikes. I'm not un-benching him any time soon.

Looking at the stats for May, the Pirates were actually mediocre, which is an upgrade. They were 6th in the NL in OPS, 7th in HR, and 6th in runs scored. Pitching-wise, they were 7th in ERA, 7th in K/BB, and 8th in OPS against. Their WHIP was still bad, mainly because of the obscene walk totals and relatively high number of hits allowed. However, the opposing SLG% is good, so they've been able to limit the damage to singles (as opposed to Josh Fogg last year, who liked to walk a bunch of guys and then give up homers). Also, their expected winning % (based on run differential) is 25-28, 6 games better. This is because of their struggles in 1-run games (5-15) and their tendency to beat the crap out of teams when they actually win. (So much for building a team that can win close games.) Casey's injury really hurt the team, both because of losing his bat, but because it meant Burnitz continued to play and reek terribly. I don't think it's overstating his loss to say that's probably a 4-win swing so far this year.

The next step for the Bucs is to somehow win on the road, where they've been hide-the-children brutal. At the very least, this uptick in play recently has delayed my development of a smack habit to cope during the summer. Hopefully they can play something around 5 games over .500 during June. Unfortunately they have the Cards, Twins, White Sox, Dodgers and Tigers lurking that month. Well, never mind then. After Sunday's rather inventive loss, I'm wondering how they'll screw up the sweep tomorrow.

[Stoosh]

I've really got to hand it to the Pirates.

Spoon and I went to the game tonight. Our seats were in Sec 112, row B, so we were about 100 feet away from watching the Pirates offense tag Chris Capuano. Capuano went six innings and struck out six, but he also gave up six runs on 11 hits, including three homers.

I have no idea what's gotten into the Pirates offense, but I'm starting to get the feeling that maybe we're starting to see something here. Consider this...

1. Tonight, they hammered Chris Capuano, a pitcher who won 18 games last year and was supposed to be surrounded by a better team this year.

2. Tuesday night, they knocked Jorge De La Rosa out after three innings. With any other team, you'd expect this to happen because De La Rosa isn't much more than a spot starter, right? But this is the Pirates, and how many times over the past few years have the Pirates managed to make young pitchers and spot starters look like Cy Young winners? They also knocked Jose Capellan around in his two innings, and it was only a year or so ago that Capellan was being touted as one of the best up-and-coming relief pitchers in the majors.

3. Monday night, they light Doug Davis up like a Christmas tree, knocking him out after only three innings. Davis finished tied for third in the NL in strikeouts last year with 208. The Pirates got to him for 11 hits and 8 runs.

4. They kept both Wandy Rodriguez and Taylor Buchholz from reaching "quality start" territory in the Houston series. Again, it's nothing to completely write home about, but Buchholz owned the Pirates earlier in the year. And as I mentioned above...the Pirates have had a tendency to make young pitchers look like world beaters on several occassions over the last couple of years.

5. After coming within an inning of sweeping the Astros, they are now a game away from sweeping the Brewers. Should the Pirates win on Thursday, it'd be a nice accomplishment for a young team, especially since many believe the Brewers are a step or two ahead of the Bucs on the rebuilding scale. Not to make too much of a series, but it's a nice measuring stick for this Pirates club.

(Truthfully, I can't say I'm all that impressed with Milwaukee. They're a decent club with a balanced lineup, and Prince Fielder is one hell of a hitter. But I don't see them quite being this team that's ready to make this leap this year that some were predicting. If they don't get their pitching straightened out, they're going to be just like some of those Reds teams we've seen over the last few years. Anyway...)

Like I said, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'm getting the sense that this might be a little more than a hot streak. Going back to the Cincy series, this team has scored 105 runs in 15 games (7 runs a game). Unfortunately, they're 8-7 in those 15 games despite giving up only 68 runs (4.52 runs a game) because five of those seven losses have come in one-run games. Mark of a young team? Certainly. That kind of stuff will hopefully change with experience. But I like what I've been seeing the last couple of weeks. Hopefully, this isn't a fluke.

Hey, we're only a game and a half behind the Cubs right now.

[Vanbiesbrouck]

I hope they can keep things up.

Good thoughts from everyone in this thread.

All that said, I still picked up Bush in the fantasy league for a spot start against the Buccos tomorrow. They're due to get lit up by a mediocre pitcher.

[Rocco]

Well, Castillo didn't homer (the bum), but he did double off the wall to tie it in the 9th (okay, so he's not a bum). He also drove in 2 runs on sacrifice flies. Ryan Doumit then singled home Castillo to win the game and give the Bucs their first sweep in 2 years. Also, Jeromy Burnitz had a good game. What a coincidence that he's playing better now that Casey is back and he may not play regularly due to a lack of options. John Grabow got the win by pitching to one batter and not giving up a run, which is unusual for him. Bravo, John. Also, Paul Maholm continues to pitch well at PNC. He's like the entire team really- a little better than normal at home, unwatchable on the road.

Nice to see the Bucs win a 1-run game, since they've been terrible in close games all year. At the very least, the Bucs are no longer playing like one of the worst teams in baseball. They still aren't exactly good, but they are a tad bit closer to respectable. Hopefully they can keep up the non-terrible play until the All-Star break.

[Bowser]

Rocco - I agree with what you said.

[Goalie]

The Pirates obviously had a chance to gain some serious momentum off of the 18 inning victory Saturday night. I thought they had blown that chance with the blown lead against Houston the next day but obviously not. (As a side note the bar I was in on the Southside broke into a "Lets Go Bucs" chant when the game ended Saturday night. First time I have ever experienced that, most times people are not even paying attention)

The Pirates were not as bad as the way they started the season just as they are not as good as they are playing right now, which would make them the 27 Yankees if they kept this up. The problem for the Pirates is they dug themselves such a huge hole they a white hot month to begin to approach a .500 record.

The good news is though that the players who are going to be here for a while are leading the charge. Everyone knew Jack Wilson and Bay would be productive, I have been talking for a while now about how good Jose Castillo is going to be at the plate to go along with his defense. Batista is in the majors going through the ups and downs of being a rookie. Paulino has been a pleasant surprise and if Doumit can stay healthy Tracy needs to find him at bats on a regular basis.

The next step for this team will be to play well on the road, maybe someone can let them in on the secret that they are allowed to hit on the road as well.

[conforto45]

last nite on Sportscenter, they were talking about Castillo... they were saying that he isnt just on a streak, that he can legitimately(SP?) be an all-star 2nd baseman. he is slugging over .500, he is hitting the ball to all parts of the field and he is a pretty strong force on 2nd base.

a part of me really wants to agree with this. he hit the ball well last season, and is tearing it up this year as well...

does anyone else agree w/ me on this? or am i just fishing w/ no bait?

[pfim]

last nite on Sportscenter, they were talking about Castillo... they were saying that he isnt just on a streak, that he can legitimately(SP?) be an all-star 2nd baseman. he is slugging over .500, he is hitting the ball to all parts of the field and he is a pretty strong force on 2nd base.

a part of me really wants to agree with this. he hit the ball well last season, and is tearing it up this year as well...

does anyone else agree w/ me on this? or am i just fishing w/ no bait?

We'll see if he's actually turned the corner, but I think most people (including me) believed he was capable of hitting 20-25 HR and slugging .500. He had no clue at the plate in his first season, second season went better, so there is a progression there, this isn't coming out of nowhere.

[Goalie]

We'll see if he's actually turned the corner, but I think most people (including me) believed he was capable of hitting 20-25 HR and slugging .500. He had no clue at the plate in his first season, second season went better, so there is a progression there, this isn't coming out of nowhere.

Castillo has long tried to pull every pitch thrown to him and while I would like to say he has been a free swinger that would just be a nice way of saying he had no plate discipline.

He started out hot this year then everyone started to realize that if you just pitched him away and even out the strike zone he would get himself out by swinging at bad pitches.

A few games before his streak started FSP showed him hitting balls off of a tee before the game where the tee had been placed on the outside corner of the plate. They commented that this is pretty much all Castillo had been working on in the cage and I think the results of that work are pretty clear.

Oh, all this discussion and not even a mention of his defense, which can be reckless at times but saves the Pirates a lot more runs than it will ever cost them.

[Peter]

Great that they are winning, but remember, we had awesome months of April and May in 02 and 05 and it got us nowhere. Or was it 03 - I think it was the Kenny Lofton/Reggie Sanders year. No, that was 02 I believe.

Do you see any evidence that this can sustain?

[Rocco]

Funny, I don't usually post about things I don't care about...

Can they sustain this pace? No; like Goalie said, that would make them the 27 Yankees. They're definitely better than a sub-.300 team, but I'm not sure they can play .500 baseball or over that for an extended period of time. They'll probably settle in around .450 or so, get to the ASB with a below-.500 but respectable record, trade Casey, Wells and Craig Wilson at the deadline for "major league ready" players like Jody Gerut (boy, he's really turned out to be a star) instead of actual prospects, and then repeat the entire process.

[PittsburghSportsFan]

Every team gets on a winning streak in a baseball season.