The Pirates have had a very odd penchant for losing the first game of a four game series, then ripping off three straight wins. This has already happened three times this year and I would very much like to make it four against the Brewers tonight. Among other things, it would certainly put the Pirates […]

Wandy Rodriguez is starting against Yovani Gallardo tonight. Gallardo is a righty, but Brandon Inge is starting at third base anyway. This is unacceptable. John McDonald is on the disabled list with a severe case of the olds, so Jordy Mercer is starting at shorstop.  First pitch tonight is at 7:05.

There were plenty of things to like in this game (a partial list: Jeff Locke was strong again, Bryan Morris and Vin Mazzaro both turned in solid relief performances and have both been generally pretty good besides one bad outing apiece, Clint Hurdle used both Jason Grilli and Mark Melancon appropriately in a tie game […]

Jeff Locke and Kyle Lohse at 7:05. Beat the Brewers once. That's a place to start, right?

I guess the Pirates owed the universe one after Jonathan Sanchez beat Kris Medlen and Jeanmar Gomez beat Matt Harvey. Marco Estrada's biggest problem this year has been giving up home runs. The Pirates didn't hit any tonight. Gah. The Pirates being unable to beat the Brewers is the most annoying thing in sports.

After their short trip to New York, the Pirates have seven straight home games against the Brewers and Astros. The Brewers have been awful since we saw them last, dropping nine of their last ten games (counting the loss the Pirates dealt them on their way out of Miller Park). The Astros are a hilariously […]

Last week, the Baseball Hall of Fame opened up their "Diamond Mines" online exhibit, letting you dive into a huge treasure trove of scouting reports on players throughout history. The whole thing is a lot of fun and you can waste hours upon hours searching for reports on your favorite players. I'm going to recommend […]

Well, that was wild.  There were a lot of ways that the Pirates could've lost this Sunday afternoon game against the Mets. They had a chance to really deliver a knockout punch to Matt Harvey in the second when Clint Barmes lead off the inning with his second homer (his first homer was against Stephen […]

It's nice that the Pirates have cruised to two easy wins in the middle of this series against the Mets, because their backs are certainly up against the wall today. Matt Harvey is on the mound for the Mets against Jeanmar Gomez. Harvey has been incredible this season, with a 1.28 ERA, 58 strikeouts, and […]

The Francisco Liriano Saga has been a long and strange one without Liriano ever even throwing a pitch for the Pirates. Today, he'll finally make his first start for the Bucs. Even if Liriano hadn't missed the season's first six weeks recovering from a broken humerus in his right (non-throwing) arm suffered under weird circumstances […]

Before the game? When I said that the Pirates needed to play better? Pretty much what I had in mind was a solid Wandy Rodriguez start and piling some runs on Shaun Marcum. And hey! Here we are! 

Don't look now, but the Pirates have lost four of their last five games if you go back to last Saturday, and they've lost six of nine if you take things all the way back to the beginning of the Brewers series. This is not a very good trend, to state the obvious.  The good […]

I haven't done a good job of posting/talking about relevant news stories this week, so let's catch up here. 

Let's start here:  In the early moments of Little Big League, young Billy Heywood is considering naming himself manager of the Twins and he gets grilled by the team's pitching coach about what to do in various baseball situations. At one point, the pitching coach asks Billy what to do late in a close game […]

It's no secret that the just-concluded homestand against the Nats and Mariners was pretty disappointing. The Pirates went 2-3 over the five games, though they could've pretty easily gone 4-1. Of course, none of that matters now; the Pirates now have 11 games in the next 11 days and so the focus turns to winning […]

There are a lot of things that could be said here about wild pitches and walks and defense and bad base running, but really, all there is to say ist hat sometimes you run into Felix Hernandez and when that happens, the odds are stacked against you. 

I'm not sure how it's possible, but somehow Felix Hernandez has been even better thus far this year than he's been over the four years preceding this one. In his seven starts in 2013, he's got a 7.29 K/BB ratio (51 strikeouts, eight walks including one IBB) over 50 2/3 innings. He's only allowed 11 […]

There's always something nice about a win after a couple of consecutive losses, isn't there? The Pirates weren't terrible against the Nats over the weekend, but they were really uneven in a way that they haven't been all season. Seeing them put together a nice, tightly played win after a series like that is something […]

James McDonald will not be making his scheduled start against the Mariners tonight and will instead be headed to the disabled list with what's being described as shoulder stiffness. Jeanmar Gomez will start in his place tonight. Last week, I would've told you that this made the impending Francisco Liriano (who should be back on […]