If you asked me for a worst-case scenario from this one, I would've said, "Wandy Rodriguez leaving the game in the first inning, pointing to his elbow." If you asked me for a second-worst case scenario from this one, I would've said, "Shut out by Julio Teheran with 11 strikeouts, two walks and a hit."  […]

When the 2012 season ended and we started looking back on what went wrong and where things needed to go to get the Pirates out of their ugly rut, a lot of the focus was on Greg Smith and the job the Pirates had done accumulating talent through the draft (this was before the topic of […]

The worst part about being a Pirate fan is the little voice in the back of my head that pops out at the worst times to say, "Same old Pirates! Same old Pirates!" Before today the Pirates were 4-1 in extra inning games and had won 10 of their last 12 (by my count) one-run […]

When the Pirates called up two pitchers yesterday and made one of the corresponding moves the demotion of a postion player, the little voice in my head said, "Oh no, we're going to see some weird things this week." With the lefty Mike Minor on the mound tonight, we're seeing Russell Martin in right field.  […]

Because the Pirates were so bad, I started watching college baseball and softball sometime around the fifth inning of this game, which in turn resulted in less attention paid to the Pirates. There was the softball College World Series game that saw Tennessee and Oklahoma trade three-run eleventh innings before a walk-off Oklahoma home run […]

Yesterday's ten-inning stint by the bullpen made it inevitable that the Pirates were going to have to do some shuffling for the coming series against the Braves, and today we know what that shuffling is. Jeanmar Gomez is headed to the 15-day disabled list with the forearm tightness (which is pretty ominous sounding), Alex Presley […]

For as much as you, the Pirate fan, wanted to see the Pirates win today so that you could exhale and say, "This year isn't the same as last year," just take a second and consider how much the players wanted the exact same thing. 

The Pirates spent most of May dominating. They didn't lose a series after losing two of three to the Nationals on May 3-5, they won six series in a row, including three four-game series, after splitting with the Mariners just after that Nationals series. They didnt lose two games in a row after losing to the […]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BGS1rvRKR7A I really thought that maybe we were past needing to use this. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.

Well, getting one-hit by Johnny Cueto was not the best way to get this series started. The good news, of course, is that it's just one game and that the Reds are sending Mike Leake out to the mound tonight. Leake's ERA is decent this year (3.02), but the peripherals suggest that he's still Mike […]

I know that I said something similar last summer, but the strangest thing about watching a good baseball team is the knowledge that they have to be good pretty much every night of the season if they want to be a playoff team. In most years, if the Pirates showed up twice a week that was […]

At some point around the eighth or ninth inning tonight, it became apparent that the Pirates were going to win 1-0 for the fourth time in 11 games. The details needed to be filled out (Russell Martin with a walkoff single that was maybe a foot away from being a walkoff grand slam, Mark Melancon […]

Even though I spent a bunch of time yesterday laying out why Jeff Locke is not a great bet to continue his early-season hot streak going forward, and even though the Tigers lineup is the sort of lineup I'd expect to give him trouble, well, hey, let's see if this hot streak can continue, shall […]

This is not a secret, but the way that relievers are used has changed quite a bit throughout baseball history. One  of the first truly famous relievers was the Pirates' own ElRoy Face, who had a dominant run from 1957-1962. In that span, he averaged 61 appearances a season with 47 games finished. That doesn't […]

This is how a game unfolds:  For 3 1/2 innings, you sit on the edge of your seat, knowing that Anibal Sanchez is better than AJ Burnett (both tonight and all season). Those goose eggs can't keep going up on both sides all night. How long can any pitching staff keep the Tigers off the […]

Last night's matchup of Rick Porcello and Jeanmar Gomez seemed to have all of the markings of a home run derby before it turned into the best pitcher's duel of the year. Tonight? Anibal Sanchez and AJ Burnett have spent the whole season striking out guys like crazy. They'd betainly be two pitchers you'd think […]

If you remember back to March, the Pirates' rotation was my biggest concern for 2013. That wasn't because of a lack of talent, because AJ Burnett and Wandy Rodriguez and (to a lesser extent) James McDonald and Francisco Liriano provide the Pirates with as much starting pitching talent as they've had in a long time. […]

Despite my pre-game predictions of doom for both pitchers, Jeanmar Gomez and Rick Porcello both came out dealing after tonight's rain delay. Porcello absolutely dominated the Pirates in his eight innings, holding the Bucs to three hits and a walk while striking out 11 batters

One of the best part about the Pirates' latest hot streak is that they haven't lost two games in a row since May 7-8. In fact, since losing their first two series of the season, the Pirates have only had back-to-back losses three times. When you're a Pirate fan waiting for the other shoe to […]

This is what annoyed me about this game:  1.) Jose Contreras was brought into a one-run game in the seventh inning and allowed to stay in long enough to walk four batters.  2.) These were the six batters Jose Contreras — a irght-handed pitcher — was allowed to face in his disastrous inning: Miguel Cabrera, […]