After a year in baseball purgatory, AJ Burnett made a beeline back to the Pirates in the hopes of closing out his career on a winning baseball team. Today, Burnett gets the ball with a chance to move the Pirates within 3 1/2 games of the first place Cardinals in front of a national TV audience and a full house at PNC Park. I’m sure that Burnett’s happy with the way he’s started this 2015 year (I mean, how could he not be?), but he didn’t come back to Pittsburgh for a winning record or a low ERA; he came back to pitch in games just like this one.
There’s two pieces of injury news today that are both good news for the Pirates. Starling Marte is back in left field for the Bucs and hitting cleanup after missing the first five games of this week, while Matt Holliday will definitely not come off of the DL until after the All-Star Break next week. The Holliday news was more or less expected, but the Marte news is definitely pleasant surprise for the Bucs. The Pirates have a habit of leaving injured guys on the active roster for way too long, and it would’ve been hugely frustrating to play this series with a 24-man roster only to see Marte go on the DL immediately after. And of course it goes without saying, but the Pirates are much better with Marte in the lineup.
Anyway, first pitch tonight is at 7:15. The game will be FOX’s game of the week if you live in the right part of the country, otherwise you should be able to watch it on MLB.tv.
