The Pirates will face off against the pitcher that nearly threw a perfect game against them a month ago (and, uh, did throw a no-hitter, I guess I’m burying the lede on that one) tonight at PNC Park, and I won’t lie, I don’t totally hate their chances against Max Scherzer tonight.
The National lineup that will face Jeff Locke tonight is pretty similar to the one that Francisco Liriano destroyed last night, and Locke has very quietly put together a very nice little run over the last five weeks: in his last seven starts. He’s even pitched into the eighth inning in two of his last three starts without going over 100 pitches, which is a crazy sentence I don’t know if I ever thought I’d type about Jeff Locke. There’s a decent chance that Locke can keep this game close enough to give the Pirates a chance against Scherzer.
Of course, having a chance against Scherzer would require getting hits and scoring runs. Scherzer has at least looked human since his no-hitter against the Pirates, which was not a feature I would have attributed to him while he was striking out 26 hitters and allowing just one hit, one walk, and one HBP over 18 innings against the Brewers and Pirates last month. Of course, a human Max Scherzer kind of resembles last night’s Francisco Liriano: great stuff, tons of strikeouts, but at least he’s throwing enough pitches to get him out of the game after six or so innings. Then again, Scherzer has pretty much always dominated the Pirates every time he’s seen them in the last few years. On the third hand, pitcher vs. team splits aren’t as predictive as we’d all like them to be.
First pitch tonight is at 7:05. Aramis Ramirez is in a Pirate uniform yet, but he should be by tomorrow. Until then, Pedro Florimon is at short and Jung Ho Kang is at third.
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