Sunday: 4-5-1, -1.20 units. Good week, but ended with a losing day. Sunday's thread got over 3,000 views. I hope all of you are practicing good money management, if you're tailing. There will be more losing days ahead (but more winning days, we hope).
Arizona -1 (+105) 3 units. The Pirates remind me of the Mariners of 2012 and 2011, and the Padres on many occasions. Only McCutcheon is hitting a bit. They have 7 runs in 6 games, and 3 of those runs are off of Carlos Marmol- so not sure if those 3 runs should count. The Pirates hit poorly the last 2 weeks of spring training so this is just a continuation of that. In these situations, the young players press and lose confidence, and the veteran players know things will get better, but also press and make adjustments that usually don't help. The Pirates slumped badly last April too, and ended the year that way. Now they face the very tough Trevor Cahill, whom these Pirates are hitting .162 lifetime. He lost weight in the preseason, and looked dominating in the spring. While he pitched fairly well against the Cardinals, I expect this outing will be much better. He is an extreme ground ball pitcher, and fields the position very well himself. Wandy Rodriquez pitched very well vs. the Cubs, but right now, the Cubs are slumping almost as bad as the Pirates are. Wandy is facing a hot hitting D-Back team who just swept the Brewers in Milwaukee. They love hitting in Chase Field. This might be 4 or 5 units except the D-backs have only faced one LHP and didn't fare well(J. Garcia). But they hit very well vs. LHP last year and led the NL in runs vs. LHP. This game matches up 2 lineups, who at this point, are just polar opposites in recent production.
Arizona -1 (+105) 3 units. The Pirates remind me of the Mariners of 2012 and 2011, and the Padres on many occasions. Only McCutcheon is hitting a bit. They have 7 runs in 6 games, and 3 of those runs are off of Carlos Marmol- so not sure if those 3 runs should count. The Pirates hit poorly the last 2 weeks of spring training so this is just a continuation of that. In these situations, the young players press and lose confidence, and the veteran players know things will get better, but also press and make adjustments that usually don't help. The Pirates slumped badly last April too, and ended the year that way. Now they face the very tough Trevor Cahill, whom these Pirates are hitting .162 lifetime. He lost weight in the preseason, and looked dominating in the spring. While he pitched fairly well against the Cardinals, I expect this outing will be much better. He is an extreme ground ball pitcher, and fields the position very well himself. Wandy Rodriquez pitched very well vs. the Cubs, but right now, the Cubs are slumping almost as bad as the Pirates are. Wandy is facing a hot hitting D-Back team who just swept the Brewers in Milwaukee. They love hitting in Chase Field. This might be 4 or 5 units except the D-backs have only faced one LHP and didn't fare well(J. Garcia). But they hit very well vs. LHP last year and led the NL in runs vs. LHP. This game matches up 2 lineups, who at this point, are just polar opposites in recent production.