Today, I opened up MLB.com, looked at the pitching matchup, and thought to myself, “Oh, thank goodness Edinson Volquez is pitching today.” That’s more a reaction to the state of the rest of the rotation right now, but Volquez really has been quite good lately. He’ll face Alfredo Simon, who’s put up some great traditional stats with some terrible peripherals this year (9-3 with a 2.95 ERA despite a Zach Duke strikeout rate and a decently high home run rate). If you remember April 23rd, the Pirates made Simon throw a ton of first inning pitches, but only scored once off of him that inning. After that he settled in and mostly shut them down.
I think that this Pirate offense is nicely positioned to send Simon on a well-deserved regression trip. The Pirates really need to do something to snap out of this funk they’re in. I’d like to say that an easy win would be the recipe, but they showed a strange allergy to easy wins this weekend in Miami, so I’m not sure what it’s going to take to snap them out of this. At this point, a win is a win is a win, and it’d be great to see the Pirates find a way to bounce back and get two from the Reds after last night. I suppose that’s a starting point for now.
First pitch tonight is at 7:05.
