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This is game one of one

You as a Pirate fan likely have a lot on your mind. Can the Pirates win tonight? Can they somehow win tomorrow with Charlie Morton scheduled to start? If they do sweep the Cards to tie the division, can they actually beat the Reds enough to give that meaning? What if the Pirates and Cards […]

These are the stakes

There is no team in baseball that fully understands the stakes of a division title vs. the Wild Card Game quite like the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 2013, the Pirates won 94 games and opened the post-season with a rousing 6-2 defeat of the Reds in the Wild Card Game. It was incredible — an emotional […]

Tick tock tick tock

If you would’ve told me a week ago that the Pirates were about to reel off eight straight wins against the Dodgers, Rockies, and Cubs, I would’ve hoped that doing so would’ve prevented tonight’s Sunday Night Baseball game against Jake Arrieta from being a must-win for the Pirates. That’s not really the case, though: either […]

Treading water

Pedro Alvarez’s time as a Pirate is likely drawing to an end, so it’s nice that he gave us an ultimate Pedro Alvarez Game before his departure. In the fifth inning, Alvarez and Jeff Locke botched a pretty simply looking Corey Dickerson ground ball resulting in a “single.” Cristhian Adams tripled in the next at-bat […]

Guest post: The other guys

I don’t normally solicit outside articles, but when longtime reader/Twitter friend Charles Star explained the premise for this post to me and asked if it could run on WHYGAVS, it was too good to turn down. You may be familiar with Charles’ work at The Classical. You should definitely follow him on twitter

One day at a time

There is a special moment of baseball fan hell that only exists at this point in September and it goes a little something like this: OK, good, the Pirates put up three in the first two and will probably do what needs to be done tonight. Let’s hit the scoreboard. Nationals are getting crushed, nice. […]

Trying to take care of business in Denver

One of my favorite post-game quotes of the season came from Rockies’ rookie starter Jon Gray last night: “They were really aggressive … I didn’t expect that to happen. I tried to expand from there. I didn’t get much movement. I know it’s not going to break as much. Fastball’s not going to have as much […]

Ten days

One of the themes of this entire season for the Pittsburgh Pirates for me has been trying to determine what makes a season a successful one. With 13 games to go, the 2015 Pirates have 89 wins. They are more or less assured of a wild card spot (their magic number to clinch a playoff […]

Frustrating losses, Charlie Morton, and series splits

I suppose if you want to have a charitable view of the universe today, you could say that the Pirates’ loss last night was the karmic counterpart of their win in the first game of Tuesday’s double-header: Jake Arrieta pitched a gem, the Pirates tied the game because the Cubs’ made some dumb/bad plays, and the […]

The WHYGAVS Daily: September 16th

I am in the depths of paper/thesis writing right now and it’s consuming much of my time/thought processes. That makes it tough to clear my head several times a day to sit down and write about baseball. Let’s try something new: instead of doing a preview post and a recap post each night, I’m going […]

Pretend like the playoffs start today

It has been a long time since the Pirates and Cubs have played meaningful baseball in September. The Cubs are not the team the Pirates are chasing right now, and they don’t have much of a shot at winning this year’s NL Central, but this is a big series for the Pirates. Today, in fact, […]

A late recap of a Sunday afternoon comeback: Game 142: Pirates 7 Brewers 6

Here is a stat you might not expect: The Pirates went 9-10 against the Brewers this year. That’s not great, obviously, given the Brewers’ standing in the division and the Pirates’ standing in the division and the fact that 12-7 instead of 9-12 would have the Pirates in first place in the NL Central right now, […]

Game 136: Brewers 6 Pirates 4

If you recall, it was not even two weeks ago when I wrote that the Pirates might have a chance at overtaking the Cardinals in the NL Central if they lost one game per series in August and finished 23-10. They have played ten games since then. They have lost four times to the Brewers. […]

AJ Burnett returns against the Brewers

Tonight is a pretty notable game for the Pirates for two reasons: one is that it’s AJ Burnett’s first start since a disastrous outing against the Reds on July 30th that forced the Pirates to go out and trade for JA Happ (which was maybe not the worst thing in the world, all things considered). […]

Some assorted thoughts about Jung Ho Kang (Game 138: Pirates 5 Reds 4)

On the day that Josh Harrison got injured, Jung Ho Kang actually started for the Pirates. He went 1-for-4 with a strikeout, and his OPS dropped to .697. What he’s done since then, though, is pretty remarkable and beyond what anyone expected of him when the Pirates signed him over the winter. After last night’s game-breaking […]

JA Happ looks to lead Pirates to a series win in Cincinnati

For much of the afternoon, it looked like the Pirates were going to have a chance to make up another game on the Cardinals tonight. Then, the Cardinals came back with a late rally to steal a win from the Cubs, and so the Pirates will play to maintain the status quo tonight. The good […]

Game 137: Pirates 7 Reds 3

See, now this is how Pirates/Reds games are supposed to go. A five-run rally, a monster home from Jung Ho Kang, a dominant start from Francisco Liriano, and an easy win. The runs against Raisel Iglesias are nice to see, but it’s a strong start from Liriano that’s probably the most important thing from this win. The Pirates […]

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