0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/31/2014
I sat down this morning, had about two sentences of a “Trade Deadline Open Thread” post written, and Jon Lester got traded. I have no idea if the Pirates will trade for anyone else today, but I’m not sure that the Cespedes for Lester deal sets the market in a place that they can’t do […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
OK, here’s what we know:
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/30/2014
Masterson to #stlcards hearing that James Ramsey is going back to the #Indians — Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) July 30, 2014
0 comments by Pat Lackey
While we all sit here furiously refreshing Twitter and waiting for trade deadline news, the Pirates and Giants will play the final game of their three-game set this afternoon. On Monday night, I would’ve been ecstatic about the Pirates taking two of three from the Giants. This afternoon, I’ll be disappointed if they can’t finish […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
This is where things stand on the Jon Lester front at ~10:00 AM on Wednesday, July 30th: the Red Sox have announced that he won’t make his scheduled start tonight, and while a trade isn’t done and no one knows where Lester will end up, it probably wouldn’t be unfair to characterize an eventual Lester […]
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It is late and I am tired, so let’s keep this to the point: Josh Harrison and Travis Snider both kept up their recent hot streaks with early home runs, and Francisco Liriano just absolutely dominated the Giants tonight after a little bit of a slow start. He struck out 11 Giants in his seven […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/29/2014
Having the Pirates be on the West Coast during trade deadline week, then dropping a bomb about the team being interested in Jon Lester is the ultimate tease. Now, we’ve got hours to sit around and torture ourselves with scenarios in which the Pirates make huge deadline deals, then we get to stay up until […]
From Jeff Passan and Tim Brown at Yahoo! just now:
The Pittsburgh Pirates are a fast-emerging dark horse in the Jon Lestersweepstakes, joining the Los Angeles Dodgers in pursuit of the Boston ace as the Red Sox decide whether to trade him before the July 31 deadline, major league sources told Yahoo Sports.
The trade talks are apparently centering on Josh Bell, which makes sense. On one hand, I’d be hesitant to trade Bell for one year of anyone. On the other hand, Jon Lester is really, really good.
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0 comments by Pat Lackey
I haven’t been posting much about the trade deadline to this point, because I’m just not sure there’s a ton to talk about that’s different than what’s already been discussed. Let’s do a quick rundown of what I haven’t discussed yet, based on the Pirates’ MLB Trade Rumors page. The Pirates seem interested in LaTroy […]
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Over the weekend in Colorado, the Pirates scored two runs combined off of Brett Anderson, Tyler Matzek, and Franklin Morales. That seemed to more or less make official the idea that the Pirates just cannot hit left-handed pitching this year, particularly not while Starling Marte is on the disabled list. The first two games of […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/28/2014
Now that we’re essentially down to two months of regular season baseball left and the National League is still clumped to the point that there are legitimately seven or eight teams that could finish the season in the playoffs (or even with the NL’s best record), the Pirates’ schedule basically breaks down like this: teams […]
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This is the game was more or less what I expected the first two games of the series to be like; runs for both teams, with the Pirates taking advantage of altitude and the terrible Rockies’ bullpen to pull out a win. Of course, the Pirates needed to do both things to escape Denver with […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/27/2014
Remember what I said on Friday about relentless pennant races? The Pirates are 2-3 this week and they’ve lost 2 1/2 games to the Brewers. Either nip this in the bud now, or risk not having a chance to do it later. The Rockies send another terrible lefty to the mound today in the form […]
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In the wake of these two embarrassing losses in Colorado (which, I dunno, I guess I’ll say more about in the preview for today’s game), there’s been a lot of focus on the Pirates’ current roster construction. That’s because the Pirates have both Michael Martinez and Brent Morel on the active roster, and since the […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/26/2014
At this point, seeing the Pirates line up against another left-handed pitcher makes me feel like I’m Superman and I’ve been in a room with Kryptonite for a week. With Starling Marte out, Brent Morel will start at third base again. Honestly, I have to keep checking to see if his name is Brett or […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/25/2014
There is not going to be much time to breathe in the National League in the second half of this season. The Pirates have won five of six out of the break, and now they go on the road to play the Rockies in Denver. That means that they need two or three more wins […]
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The Pirates’ offensive turnaround this year has been a big topic of discussion lately. You likely know the basics. They’re fourth in the National League in runs scored despite playing in a pitcher-friendly park, their position players have a 110 OPS+, and their on-base percentage of .334 is the best in all of baseball. As […]
The bottom line is that if you take Liriano’s wSL/C from last season at face value and extrapolate it into 2014, Liriano would have saved himself 9 runs; the difference between his current ERA of 4.43 and a projected ERA of 3.43.
Great work at Beyond the Box Score that goes much more in depth on Liriano’s slider, which has been a point of conversation in the last two weeks or so. Check the whole thing out.
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0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/23/2014
If Tuesday night’s win was unnecessarily complicated for the Pirates, this one was nice and easy. Dan Haren looked terrible in the first inning and the Pirates made him pay for it; of the nine batters that came to the plate in the first, the Pirates had three hits, drew three walks, hit two hard […]
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Rather than re-hashing the same old same old “The Pirates need Francisco Liriano back on track to contend” that gets trotted out every time he starts, let’s take a minute a check out his Brooks Baseball page to see if the narrative that he’s looked better since his return from the disabled list except for […]
