I’m traveling today and I have a bit of an automobile situation, so I’m not sure when I’m going to have access to the computer once my current flight leaves Chicago. As such, I’m just going to go ahead and put the preview for today’s game up a little bit early, as opposed to risking not having one at all.
The story tonight will certainly be AJ Burnett’s first start back in PNC Park in a Pirate uniform. I thought Burnett was really excellent last Thursday against the Reds in Great American Ballpark before the rain interrupted his start. Given the Pirates’ bullpen situation after the previous night’s marathon game, he had to return to the game even after an hour-plus delay, and so it’s hard to know what to make of the home run he served up to Joey Votto after that delay. Despite a somewhat diminished fastball, he looked a lot like the AJ Burnett we’re all used to; he got a ton of ground balls, he generated a bunch of whiffs, and the control problems that plagued him in Philadelphia seemed to be a thing of the past. It was arguably the most important thing that happened to the Pirates in Cincinnati (I would also make a case for Pedro Alvarez’s spring training power carrying over from the Grapefruit League).
Anyway, the Pirates already have one win in this series in the bank, and they’re going to close out this three-game set with AJ Burnett and Francisco Liriano starting against Shane Greene and Alfredo Simon. That means that this is a series that they should win. A win tonight would get the Pirates back to .500 for the first time in the season. After flirting with the wrong side of .500 for much of the season’s first half last year, it’d be nice to see the Pirates hit the mark here and leave it behind them for the balance of 2015.
First pitch tonight will be at 7:05, unless there’s rain (I think there might be rain). The over/under on standing ovations for AJ Burnett tonight is two. I have the over.
Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images, and I’m sorry I’m using the same picture here that I did a few days ago; the wifi in Midway is not great.
