In the immediate aftermath of last night’s walkoff win, I think I missed the most important part of the game in my recap; the way that the bullpen bailed Jon Niese (and the defense behind him) out of a subpar start is exactly how the Pirates plan on surviving several months of Niese + Locke + Nicasio (dependent on how those three pitch) in the rotation. The question that I had about the approach coming into the season was how they’d manage potentially having to prop three starters up instead of just two the way they did at the end of last year.
Tonight, we start to answer that question. Nicasio was phenomenal in spring training but is still a question mark as far as I’m concerned, and the potential exists to ask a lot out of the bullpen for a second night in a row. So how many starters will the bullpen have to prop up in the early part of this spring? And how many innings can the bullpen conceivably throw? We start to answer those questions tonight.
The Pirates are running out the same lineup tonight that they have in both other games this year. The Cardinals are starting Mike Leake. I can’t think of a better way to start this 2016 season than with a sweep of the Cardinals. First pitch is at 7:05.
Image credit: Stacy Revere, Getty Images
