7/6 Game Thread...Locke down 7 wins in a row...

[SammyKhalifa]

49424A464342591C1A6D544C454242034E422D0 wrote: I know Locke has had some good games this year. But he still entered the game with a 5+ ERA. He's just too prone to having awful games. I hope the rotation gets good enough to exclude him.


After watching 4 innings of Brault last night, it's painfully obvious that Locke has no place on this team...even as a #5 soft tossing lefty...Brault has so much more deception on his stuff


Second best starter ont he staff and people still want him out of there?  Amazing. 



I think people need to realize how well he is pitching right now.  You know his ERA is high because he took two outings for the team and stayed in to eat innings. Maybe we need to read the front of his uniform and not his back?


Was he good yesterday?  I wouldn't necessarily cut him at the moment or anything but you can't just exclude the bomb performances either.  Well, if you "take out" the really bad ones you better take out the really good ones too, for fairness sake. 





And also, you just have to look at roster construction when people say that, especially after the ASG and when players start coming back from injury.



Cole will be in the rotation.

Taillon will be in the rotation.

Glasnow will be in the rotation.



Those three I think are guaranteed (though I suppose I could be wrong if one of the rookies struggles more than the team likes).



So you have a huge cast of characters for two spots: Locke, Niese, Liriano, Brault, Kuhl, maybe others I'm not thinking of right now. Now I personally would (barring his trade) give Liriano a spot because I think he has the highest upside of the remaining players (I know others disagree). I think I'd use Locke for a while in the last spot too but you have to see why it's a tough decision at best.

[Steve19981]

4B666B7A7D6C7B3B38090 wrote: 1. End result for bullpen has been great lately. But they still put a lot of men on base. Previously, they weren't getting out of the jams they were creating. Now it seems they're putting men on base and then having line drives hit right at someone. I'm still not sold.




Extremely small sample, but the pen combined has the third lowest WHIP in July in all of baseball. Don't get me wrong the strand rate is high, but the base paths haven't exactly been clogged.

[Bobster21]

474C44484D4C571214635A424B4C4C0D404C230 wrote: I know Locke has had some good games this year. But he still entered the game with a 5+ ERA. He's just too prone to having awful games. I hope the rotation gets good enough to exclude him.


After watching 4 innings of Brault last night, it's painfully obvious that Locke has no place on this team...even as a #5 soft tossing lefty...Brault has so much more deception on his stuff


Second best starter ont he staff and people still want him out of there?  Amazing. 



I think people need to realize how well he is pitching right now.  You know his ERA is high because he took two outings for the team and stayed in to eat innings. Maybe we need to read the front of his uniform and not his back?
So Locke is your new Pedro. You're actually praising him for his 2 worst outings. Yes, he took one for the team and ate up all of 3 whole innings on 4/20 giving up 11 hits and 8 ER. Gee, thanks Jeff. We owe ya one. Maybe the league won't count that game you lost for us because you were being so generous. We also are forever indebted to him for eating up all of 4.2 innings on 6/9 giving up 11 hits and 11 ER. Another loss that shouldn't count. Or did you mean 6/15 when he graciously ate up 4 entire innings giving up 9 hits and 7 ER? Let's not count that loss either. He didn't eat up many innings when it took him 98 pitches to go 4.2 innings on 4/15, 96 pitchers for 5 innings on 5/14 or 95 pitches for 5 innings on 7/1. And I guess I didn't realize how well he was pitching last night when he ate up 4 innings giving up 8 hits and 5 ER. Again, thanks Jeff.



That's not to say every game has been bad. He's had some good ones, even a CG shutout. But as I said above, he remains prone to having awful games. Because the rest of the rotation has been so terrible this year, Locke has actually been okay by comparison. But that isn't saying much. We need to have a rotation that doesn't include a guy who has so many very bad games and also needs so many pitches just to get to 4 or 5 innings that the bullpen is overworked finishing his games. We also need a rotation that is good enough that there's no room for Liriano or Niese pitching they way they have. But just because others are pitching poorly doesn't excuse Locke. When a guy with as many bad games as Locke isn't even your worst starter, you've got major problems. And all those problems need to be addressed including Locke.

[PMike]

6B5955554173505954515E59380 wrote: I know Locke has had some good games this year. But he still entered the game with a 5+ ERA. He's just too prone to having awful games. I hope the rotation gets good enough to exclude him.


After watching 4 innings of Brault last night, it's painfully obvious that Locke has no place on this team...even as a #5 soft tossing lefty...Brault has so much more deception on his stuff


Second best starter ont he staff and people still want him out of there?  Amazing. 



I think people need to realize how well he is pitching right now.  You know his ERA is high because he took two outings for the team and stayed in to eat innings. Maybe we need to read the front of his uniform and not his back?




Cole will be in the rotation.

Taillon will be in the rotation.

Glasnow will be in the rotation. 



Those three I think are guaranteed (though I suppose I could be wrong if one of the rookies struggles more than the team likes). 






I don't think this is true. I don't know how it will turn out, but I can't see the Pirates placing Taillon/Glasnow in the rotation and simply leaving them there. That will be a lot of innings. There will be some creativity with all of the depth they seemingly have.

[dogknot17@yahoo.co]

715C51404756410102330 wrote: I know Locke has had some good games this year. But he still entered the game with a 5+ ERA. He's just too prone to having awful games. I hope the rotation gets good enough to exclude him.


After watching 4 innings of Brault last night, it's painfully obvious that Locke has no place on this team...even as a #5 soft tossing lefty...Brault has so much more deception on his stuff


Second best starter ont he staff and people still want him out of there?  Amazing. 



I think people need to realize how well he is pitching right now.  You know his ERA is high because he took two outings for the team and stayed in to eat innings. Maybe we need to read the front of his uniform and not his back?
So Locke is your new Pedro. You're actually praising him for his 2 worst outings. Yes, he took one for the team and ate up all of 3 whole innings on 4/20 giving up 11 hits and 8 ER. Gee, thanks Jeff. We owe ya one. Maybe the league won't count that game you lost for us because you were being so generous. We also are forever indebted to him for eating up all of 4.2 innings on 6/9 giving up 11 hits and 11 ER. Another loss that shouldn't count. Or did you mean 6/15 when he graciously ate up 4 entire innings giving up 9 hits and 7 ER? Let's not count that loss either. He didn't eat up many innings when it took him 98 pitches to go 4.2 innings on 4/15, 96 pitchers for 5 innings on 5/14 or 95 pitches for 5 innings on 7/1. And I guess I didn't realize how well he was pitching last night when he ate up 4 innings giving up 8 hits and 5 ER. Again, thanks Jeff.



That's not to say every game has been bad. He's had some good ones, even a CG shutout. But as I said above, he remains prone to having awful games. Because the rest of the rotation has been so terrible this year, Locke has actually been okay by comparison. But that isn't saying much. We need to have a rotation that doesn't include a guy who has so many very bad games and also needs so many pitches just to get to 4 or 5 innings that the bullpen is overworked finishing his games. We also need a rotation that is good enough that there's no room for Liriano or Niese pitching they way they have.  But just because others are pitching poorly doesn't excuse Locke. When a guy with as many bad games as Locke isn't even your worst starter, you've got major problems. And all those problems need to be addressed including Locke.






My Pedro? Tell me again how Pedro wasn't the best option for the 2015 Pirates to play 1B?



I defend players when I think they are being wronged. Locke has been thatguy this year. Like I have said over and over, he has been the second best starter on the team. Overall, he has if you look at the whole picture.



I am not throwing out his bad starts. The games he certainly didn't have his stuff and got shelled. Liriano and Niese were never left in games when they sucked up like Locke. So, yes, he did take a few bad innings for the team and it hurt his stat line.



He wasn't very sharp last night, but he kept the Pirates in the game and they WON. The Pirates won the game.



Do you really think he hasn't been better than Nicasio, Niese, and Liriano so far this year? If you do, tell me why because I am not seeing it.

[SteadyFreddy]

79727A767372692C2A5D647C757272337E721D0 wrote: I know Locke has had some good games this year. But he still entered the game with a 5+ ERA. He's just too prone to having awful games. I hope the rotation gets good enough to exclude him.


After watching 4 innings of Brault last night, it's painfully obvious that Locke has no place on this team...even as a #5 soft tossing lefty...Brault has so much more deception on his stuff


Second best starter ont he staff and people still want him out of there?  Amazing. 



I think people need to realize how well he is pitching right now.  You know his ERA is high because he took two outings for the team and stayed in to eat innings. Maybe we need to read the front of his uniform and not his back?
So Locke is your new Pedro. You're actually praising him for his 2 worst outings. Yes, he took one for the team and ate up all of 3 whole innings on 4/20 giving up 11 hits and 8 ER. Gee, thanks Jeff. We owe ya one. Maybe the league won't count that game you lost for us because you were being so generous. We also are forever indebted to him for eating up all of 4.2 innings on 6/9 giving up 11 hits and 11 ER. Another loss that shouldn't count. Or did you mean 6/15 when he graciously ate up 4 entire innings giving up 9 hits and 7 ER? Let's not count that loss either. He didn't eat up many innings when it took him 98 pitches to go 4.2 innings on 4/15, 96 pitchers for 5 innings on 5/14 or 95 pitches for 5 innings on 7/1. And I guess I didn't realize how well he was pitching last night when he ate up 4 innings giving up 8 hits and 5 ER. Again, thanks Jeff.



That's not to say every game has been bad. He's had some good ones, even a CG shutout. But as I said above, he remains prone to having awful games. Because the rest of the rotation has been so terrible this year, Locke has actually been okay by comparison. But that isn't saying much. We need to have a rotation that doesn't include a guy who has so many very bad games and also needs so many pitches just to get to 4 or 5 innings that the bullpen is overworked finishing his games. We also need a rotation that is good enough that there's no room for Liriano or Niese pitching they way they have.  But just because others are pitching poorly doesn't excuse Locke. When a guy with as many bad games as Locke isn't even your worst starter, you've got major problems. And all those problems need to be addressed including Locke.











He wasn't very sharp last night, but he kept the Pirates in the game and they WON.  The Pirates won the game. 



  I wouldn't go that far to say he "kept" the Pirates in the game. He only pitched 4 innings for crying out loud and got yanked before the Pirates made their comeback on offense in the 5th and 6th innings. That is why they won the game last night. I don't consider Jeff Locke only giving up 5 runs in 4 innings as him keeping us in the game. That's just flat out ridiculous to say.

[dogknot17@yahoo.co]

Ummm, they won. The Pirates won the game. How can you say he didn't keep them in the game? They came back and won. By definition, isn't that "keeping them in the game"?



Doesn't matter. Overall, Locke has been the second best starter on the Pirates. I don't get how people disagree with that? No way has Nicaiso, Liriano or Niese been better. No way.

[SteadyFreddy]

474C44484D4C571214635A424B4C4C0D404C230 wrote: Ummm, they won.  The Pirates won the game.  How can you say he didn't keep them in the game?  They came back and won.  By definition, isn't that "keeping them in the game"?



Doesn't matter.  Overall, Locke has been the second best starter on the Pirates.  I don't get how people disagree with that?  No way has Nicaiso, Liriano or Niese been better.  No way. So had they left Locke in for both the 5th and 6th inning you think he wouldn't have given up more runs?? They got him out of there just in time so he wouldn't give up anymore runs. I agree he has been their second best starter but considering how bad a lot of those others guys such as Niese and Liriano have been that isn't saying much.

[Quail]

I don't think Locke's been better, nor do I think he's been worse than Nicasio, Niese or Liriano. What I think he is is part of the problem. Nicasio, Niese, Liriano and Locke have all been poor starting pitchers this season. Slice it/dice it anyway you want the conclusion is obvious.



The Pirates have already addressed one of the 'problems' by moving Nicasio to the pen where he's been much better. There are now 3 problem pitchers remaining in the rotation. Liriano has too much upside to dismiss him without giving him more rope. It may be a longshot but the reward for staying the course with him could still be a season redeemed.



Niese and Locke have only moderate upside and both have recent histories of inconsistency and failure (both being removed from the starting rotation last year by their respective clubs). With Brault, Taillon, Kuhl and Glasnow all showing better upside potential than either Niese or Locke I think it's about time to make some of the rotation 'problems' disappear.

[dogknot17@yahoo.co]

I am not saying it is good that Locke has been the second best starter, but it is true.



They need to trade for a starter and once that happens, he will probably be the odd man out. I have been saying that all year.