When the Pirates started their weekend series with the Reds last Friday, it was clear that home field advantage was on the line. What we didn't know at the time was that by clinching home field advantage a day early with easy wins on Friday and Saturday, the Pirates also changed their mound opponent tonight […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates are in the playoffs for the first time in 21 years, and it seems fitting that the team waiting for them in the National League Wild Card Game is the Cincinnati Reds. The Pirates and Reds have met 20 times in post-season play,

Before anything else, I want to air my grievances about baseball's current playoff system. I want to do it now, on Monday morning, because I don't want to spend the next two days complaining about this and because, whatever happens tomorrow night, I don't want to linger on Bud Selig and his quest to make […]

I've got a bunch of stuff that I hope to get posted today and tomorrow, in terms of talking one-game playoffs and matchups, and previews, but let's start with a podcast that I recorded on Friday with Daniel Shoptaw of the Cardinals' blog C70 (link to the show here). We talk quite a bit about how […]

In watching Sunday's regular season finale, I couldn't help but think back to March and April and think about how far things have come for this Pirate team in the last six months. In spring training, I was really down on the team because I thought that they were in line to waste another year […]

Today is the last day of Major League Baseball's regular season. It is the end of baseball for the fans and players of at least 19 (and maybe 20) of MLB's 30 teams. It is not the end for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In fact, the Pirates have done everything that they could in this past […]

With an opportunity to bring the wild card game to Pittsburgh, the Pirates have responded in just about the best way imaginable at Great American Ballpark this weekend. After AJ Burnett shut the Reds down on Friday night, the Pirates' bats showed up in a big way this afternoon. Neil Walker and Andrew McCutchen hit […]

The main implication of today's game is this: if the Pirates win, tomorrow's game is meaningless and both teams can start positioning themselves for Tuesday's wild card game. For the Pirates, that probably means starting someone other than Gerrit Cole so that Cole will be available out of the bullpen on Tuesday. For the Reds, […]

If I'm being perfectly honest with all of you, the main thing that I wanted to see the Pirates do this weekend was play better baseball than the Reds for most of the weekend. As I've been saying for a few days now, I'd love for that playoff game to be at PNC Park on […]

And so here we are. With 159 games behind us, we know that the Pirates will be in the playoffs and that it's almost certain that they'll be in the wild card game. By a strange turn of fate, they'll spend the weekend in Cincinnati playing the very same Reds team that they'll be facing […]

Today is the last off-day of the regular season. It feels a little disingenuous to call this "the last off-day," because we know that the Pirates will play on Tuesday and so Monday is also an off-day, but this is the last off-day of the 2013 regular season. I have a few thoughts that I […]

In the course of about three hours this afternoon, the Pirates managed to more or less guarantee that they'll be in next Tuesday's wild card game, and prove why such a game is so terrifying.  What happened this afternoon was that the Pirates didn't hit very well (a recurring theme) and Francisco Liriano didn't quite […]

As time runs out on the 2013 season, the scenarios for how things will play out are dwindling. Today, the Pirates play their game in Chicago and it's possible that no matter what happens in this game, it will ultimately have no bearing bearing on how playoff positions or seeding play out.  Obviously the Pirates […]

The Pirates have won 12 games in September. Five of them have been started by Gerrit Cole. The Pirates have lost 11 games in September. Zero of them have been started by Gerrit Cole. Here are Gerrit Cole's numbers in those five starts:  32 IP, 24 H, 39 K, 10 BB, 6 R, 6 ER, […]

If you were at all concerned that the Pirates were going to be hung over on Tuesday after celebrating their wild card clinching win on Monday night, those notions were put to rest fairly early in this one. After going down in order in the first inning, the Pirates scored three times in the second […]

Last night was awesome, but it's time to move on. There is still a division race that's undecided, and the best way for it to stay that way is for the Pirates to win as many of these last five games as possible. A good place to start along those lines would be hitting the […]

In baseball's modern era (marked by the rise of the American League and the solidifying of the rules in 1901), the Pittsburgh Pirates have won at least 90 games in the following seasons: 1901, 1902, 1903, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1912, 1921, 1924, 1925, 1927, 1944, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1976, […]

I don't know how I feel about there being two wild cards. I assume that I'll be against it if the Pirates finish ahead of the Reds and for it if the Pirates finish behind them. I don't know how I feel about the way the Pirates have played since the All-Star Break. On the […]

Look there are plenty of details from this game and there's wild card seeding and a borderline division race to be sorted out in the next six days, but the most important thing is this: the Pirates won, the Nationals lost, and the Pirates are going to the playoffs. I'm going to write more about […]

I don't think there's a whole lot to say here: the final week of the 2013 MLB regular season kicks off tonight. With six games left, we can be pretty sure that the Pirates will qualify for one of the two wild cards in the National League. If they want to host that wild card […]