After Francisco Liriano’s strikeout bonanza on Sunday, Jon Niese takes his first turn in the Pirate rotation this evening. I wrote a ton about Niese already today and so I’ll simply leave my general pre-game thoughts on him tonight to this: watch where he throws his fastball. Watch where he throws it to both righties and lefties, and see what the Cardinals do with it. If he’s moving it around, not afraid to come inside with it, locating well, and getting ground balls, I think he’ll be doing exactly what the Pirates want.
Michael Wacha starts for the Cards tonight. Wacha had a pretty solid 2015, but the wheels completely came off in September for him. He made four starts against the Pirates last year, winning the first three and getting obliterated in that ugly September. None of those starts stand out in my mind, but also none of statlines were hugely impressive (high hit totals or low strikeout totals or both).
First pitch tonight is at 7:05.
