Mac n Cheese

Although it was in a losing effort, Pirates starter James McDonald continued to pitch well for the Pirates throwing 6 innings of 5 hit ball with 7 Ks and no walks.

With the Pirates McDonald is now 4-5 with a 3.52 ERA with 61 Ks in 64 IP.  For the season McDonald has a 3.13 FIP and a 4.18 xFIP, pretty impressive stuff.  It'll be interesting to see how he will do over a full season, but regardless of how well he pitches for the Pirates, the Dodgers have to be kicking themselves.  Ted Lilly, Vincente Padilla and Hiroki Kuroda are all Free Agents next year which leaves the Dodgers with just 2 starters on the team in Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsly.  You know what the Dodgers could use? A young starter with potential like James McDonald.  You know what the Dodgers traded for an OK setup man?  A young starter with potential named James McDonald.

Look how bad the non-McDonald starters for the Pirates have been this year:

Name	W	L	ERA	G	GS	IP	BB	IBB	SO
James McDonald	4	5	3.52	11	11	64	24	4	61
Ross Ohlendorf	1	11	4.07	21	21	108.1	44	2	79
Jeff Karstens	3	10	4.88	25	19	121.2	27	5	71
Brian Burres	4	4	5.01	19	12	73.2	32	4	41
Paul Maholm	9	15	5.10	32	32	185.1	62	2	102
Zach Duke	8	14	5.63	28	28	155	48	1	95
Charlie Morton	2	11	7.94	16	16	73.2	25	3	50

Barf.  The Pirates obviously need other (capable) starters to start becoming a (non-laughable) team, but James McDonald will be a good 'starting' point.