It would appear that the Pirates’ strategy at this trade deadline is to do exactly what they did at the last one: acquire a once-promising young pitcher that hasn’t been any good for a long time for pennies on the dollar with the assumption that they can turn him into an asset for this season’s […]

Here’s the thing about an easy schedule: it doesn’t do much good if you don’t beat the bad teams that make the schedule easy. The Pirates went into Miller Park this weekend playing relatively good baseball, then scored six times in three games in being swept at Miller Park for the ten millionth time in […]

I have a sneaking suspicion that in a year or two, we’re going to look back at the Mark Melancon trade and call it a win for the Pirates. Felipe Rivero is 25 years old with a fastball that hits 100 mph, his peripheral numbers this year are already great, and he’ll finish this year with […]

As we ramp up to the deadline, a lot of discussion around the Pirates this year has involved Mark Melancon. The situation as it stands is this: the Pirates have a decent shot at making the playoffs this year, but are not favorites to do so; depending on your favorite playoff odds site, they’re somewhere […]

The main problem of the Pittsburgh Pirates was perfectly on display in this two-game series against the Seattle Mariners: sometimes, the starting pitching works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, the offense strings its hits together, and sometimes it spreads them out. Sometimes, the Pirates look ready to beat anyone, and sometimes it’s hard to remember […]

With the Pirates up 4-2 in the top of the third last night, I told my dad that I thought the Pirates would need six or seven runs with the way that Liriano had been pitching. Franklin Gutierrez hit the next pitch out of the park to tie the game at four. We went outside […]

Despite all of their issues with starting pitching and a month of June that reminded most Pirate fans of the Bad Old Days, the Pirates are not in bad shape as we round up to the trade deadline. With last night’s results, they’re 1 1/2 games behind the Marlins for the second wild card spot, […]

The math from the All-Star Break was pretty easy: with 73 games left and 46 wins in the bank, playing about .600 baseball (.602, to be exact) would get the Pirates to 90 wins. From the break (and from here), that looks like a pretty decent target to get into this year’s Wild Card Coin […]

We have, rightly, put a lot of focus this season on the failings of the back end of the Pirate rotation. Jeff Locke, Jon Niese, and Juan Nicasio have all had really bad seasons for the Pirates, and in doing so they’ve put a lot of stress on both the offense and the bullpen. That […]

Jeff Locke is not really a good pitcher, but he has occupied a certain usefulness for most of his Pirate career. Locke has decent stuff for a lefty, but relatively poor command. In some of his starts, he looks great (remember that he’s a one-time All-Star and he really did deserve that nod based on first-half […]

For all intents and purposes, Jameson Taillon started off last night looking like the same pitcher that the Pirates sent to the disabled list a few weeks ago with shoulder fatigue. That’s a good thing, of course; Taillon was coming off of one of his best starts in Seattle, and no one was really sure […]

The moment the Pirates’ first half fell apart was obvious, even as it was happening. Gerrit Cole came out firing against the Cardinals on June 10th, striking out three hitters in his first two innings and looking all the part of the ace after an inconsistent April and May. In the third inning, Matt Carpenter […]

When you suspect that the baseball team that you’re watching is good but you don’t have quite enough evidence to support that thesis, you let yourself go through a bargaining phase that ignores certain pieces of evidence with the understanding that you will come back to when you better understand said team. When the Pirates […]