Diamondbacks (62-58) vs Pirates (72-49)
Except for a couple of runs the Arizona Diamondbacks couldn’t solve Pittsburgh rookie Gerrit Cole in dropping the first game of their series last night.
Saturday August 17
PNC Park – Pittsburgh, PA
4:05PM
Probable Starters:
ARZ: Trevor Cahill (R)
PIT: Jeff Locke (L)
Moneyline: Pittsburgh -159, Arizona +149
O/U: 7.5
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Arizona
This series is way more important to the D-Backs then to Pittsburgh but all they could muster was 5 hits off of Cole and didn’t get a single knock against the Pirates relief corps. All everything 1B Paul Goldschmidt was neutralized and no one else stepped up.
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Goldschmidt leads the NL in homers and he also leads the Diamondbacks across the board – HR, RBI, R, AVG and steals.
Starter Trevor Cahill is making his first start since coming off the disabled list so beware – the results before he was shelved were not all that great. [dfads params=’groups=10&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]
He hasn’t pitched in more than a month and hasn’t won a game since the middle of May but when healthy can be effective. We just haven’t seen that promising pitcher from his Oakland days much lately. His splits are also discouraging with an ERA of 5.44 on the road.
In short, it is hard to make a case for backing Cahill until he starts to show us something.
Pittsburgh
The Pirates rebounded well from a game and series loss against St. Louis yesterday.
The top of the lineup did the damage last night with 6 hits from OF Starling Marte, 2B Neil Walker, OF Andrew McCutcheon and 3B Pedro Alvarez. It was also nice to see OF Jose Tabata go deep. He has been struggling and they need him to be more than just a stolen base threat. The Pirates have only lost 20 games at home all season long, second best in the Majors.
The public keeps waiting for starter Jeff Locke to fade away but he is showing no signs of doing so.
The lefty walks way too many hitters but is tough to hit – .221BAA – and keeps the ball in the park with just 7 homers allowed through 23 starts. The knock on him is that he doesn’t work as deeply into games as other starters with gaudy ERA but the Pirates will take it.
He has a 9-3 record and the team is 13-10 when he starts. Its simple, Locke is giving them a chance to win almost every time out there. He has never given up more than 4R in a game all season long.
I will likely not bet against Pittsburgh in any game this series. The Diamondbacks offense is limited when “Goldy” is a non-factor and their pitching is just average beyond Patrick Corbin. Unfortunately the mismatches drop the value but I think the over is a good play right now.
Pittsburgh is getting offense from throughout their lineup and Cahill has been a disaster.
O/U Pick: Over
Score Prediction: Pittsburgh 7 – Arizona 2
