Pirates: Time to Drop Jeff Locke

The Pittsburgh Pirates were crushed by the San Diego Padres 8-2 Wednesday night at Petco Park.

In the first half of the 2013 season, Jeff Locke emerged as a dominant force in the Pirates rotation. At the All-Star break, the young left hander was 8-2 with a 2.15 ERA, earning him a trip to New York as a first time all-star. But after a dream like start to 2013, it has been a nightmare on Mazeroski way for Locke.

Since the 2013 all-star, Locke is 17-24 with an era that has ballooned to 4.24. He changed his pitching style this past offseason in hopes of returning to his 2013 form. The latter has happened for Locke, struggling in his past 2 starts after allowing only a solo shot over 6 innings against the Reds.

Against the Brewers April 15^th, he gave up 2 runs but walked 7, lasting only 4 2/3 innings. Wednesday night in San Diego, Locke did through more strikes, unfortunately those strikes ended up as hits and runs for the Padres. He gave up 8 and was chased after a leadoff home run by Matt Kemp to start the 4^th inning. The defense behind Locke can be blamed for some of those runs, but a lot of those runs were due to his failure to close out innings.

It could be just an overreacted by me, but it’s time to move on from Locke. Yes he is only 28 but Ian Snell and James McDonald were also 28 when the Pirates moved on from them. As with Locke, both pitchers declined after showing early promise. Snell and McDonald were out of baseball within a year of leaving the Pirates.