Let's spend one moment thinking back to April 1st. On April 1st, I was awfully concerned about the upcoming season. Simply put, I thought it was time for the Pirates to move to the proverbial "next level" of their long rebuilding process and I didn't think that the team, as assembled, was ready to make […]

I've been traveling for the last couple of days, which is why I haven't posted much of anything. Let's get caught up.  The Pirates have logged two narrow victories over the Mets in the last two days, which has them tied again with the Cardinals the day before the All-Star Break. I told you on […]

If the Pirates sweep the Mets this weekend, they'll go into the break with a 6-6 record after their nine-game winning streak. 15-6 isn't a bad run. Matt Harvey is skipping his start this weekend, so hey, anything's possible. Tonight, Charlie Morton pitches for the Pirates against Jeremy Hefner. Hefner was a Pirate for less […]

The Pirates first move of Trade Deadline Season, they sent minor league reliever Tim Alderson to the Orioles today in return for Four Corners guy Russ Canzler. Canzler is your protypical Quadruple-A guy; he never really hit well for a corner infielder/outfielder in the Cubs' system until he was way too old for his level, […]

Francisco Liriano is pretty awesome. Five hits with runners in scoring position is nice. While Pirate fans spent most of the first half of this week freaking out about the offense, the Pirates outscored the A's (the American League's fourth-highest scoring team) 7-4 in this series. They're 54-36 now. After 113 years, they've finally beaten […]

The Pirates really could use a win right now. It seems to me that a pitching matchup between Francisco Liriano and Tommy Milone could provide the Pirates with a win. I have no idea when or if this game is going to be played tonight, though, because it's my understanding that the weather in Pittsburgh […]

For a 12 batter stretch, Gerrit Cole was as dominant as he's been in a Pirate uniform. After putting the first two hitters of the game on base via a Coco Crisp single and a Josh Reddick walk, Cole escaped the first inning jam he'd created by striking out Josh Donalson with a nasty slider […]

When the Pirates drafted Gerrit Cole, they imagined him taking the mound and winning big games for the Pirates. It's impossible to say that any team with the record that the Pirates have and with the lead that they have on the Giants for the last wild card spot is playing a "must-win" game in […]

You know this drill: Jeff Locke pitched pretty well, but the Pirates left ten guys on base tonight, include another maddening performance with runners in scoring position. The Pirates came up 11 times tonight with runners in scoring position and went 2-for-11. Both hits came in the seventh inning; a Travis Snider pinch-hit single that […]

How many times this year have we Pirate fans sat down on a Monday, looked at how the team had been playing lately, looked at the lineup, and wondered what direction things were headed in? It's been more than this one, that's for sure. Things seem kind of crummy today; the Bucs have lost four […]

The Pirates have lost two in a row to the Cubs. They've lost four of six. They're no longer alone in first place in the NL Central. They're 19 games above .500 and they're still tied for first place, yes, but that little voice in your head is whispering. "Remember last year," it's saying. You […]

For a couple of innings, it felt like the Pirates were going to magicly stumble into yet another win. It seemed like the sun had already set on the Pirates in the top of the ninth inning, until Starling Marte hit an two-out, two-strike from Kevin Gregg over the left-center field fence to tie the […]

When writing about the Pirates' All-Star selections yesterday, I didn't talk much about Jeff Locke. It's not that I don't think Locke deserves to be on the team (I certainly do think he does), it's just that I think that five years from now we're going to go to Locke's Baseball-Reference page and see the […]

I think we can safely say that the days of the Pirates getting one pity All-Star are well behind us. Major League Baseball released the All-Star rosters this evening and there will be at least four Pirates representing the National League at CitiField this year. Andrew McCutchen was named to his third All-Star team, while […]

The Pirates had a brief lead in this one after Pedro Alvarez muscled his 22nd home run of the season out to Wrigely's left-center field in the top of the fourth, but Charlie Morton fell apart pretty much immediately after that, serving up two two-run home runs to Alfonso Soriano in the fourth and fifth […]

Thus far, I've had a pretty difficult time unpacking all of the stuff that we've seen from Charlie Morton in his four starts back from Tommy John surgery. His ERA (2.50) looks great, but he's given up an alarming number of unearned runs (six of the 11 runs he's allowed have been unearned) given that […]

AJ Burnett is the fan favorite and Gerrit Cole has gotten lots of press, but it's pretty easy to argue that the Pirates' best pitcher by a pretty wide margin in 2013 has been Francisco Liriano. These sorts of things are volatile, particularly when Francisco Liriano is involved, but he's got his groundball rate up […]

When people ask me what I do, the first, answer that I always give is that science is about separating the things that we know from the things that we think that we know, and then figuring out how to move things that are in the second category into the first category. (If they press […]

It's Americas birthday, so Gerrit Cole is going to try to throw a baseball as hard as he can past a bunch of jerks in red and white uniforms. Works for me.  Cole Hamels goes for the Phillies. First pitch is at 1:35.

This game turned on a quick sequence in that went like this: Andrew McCutchen single, Gaby Sanchez single on the next pitch, Russell Martin RBI single two pitches later, Pedro Alvarez three-run homer two pitches after that. That turned a frustrating 1-0 Phillies lead into a 4-1 PIrate lead. That gave the second half of […]