On Saturday, as I watched Vince Velasquez cough up several early runs in his very brief return to the Pirates’ rotation, I decided I would rather spend the rest of the afternoon sitting on the deck at my buddy’s house instead of remaining on my couch watching Luis Castillo shut down the Bucs. This turned […]
It figures that a few hours after I posted an article about the Pirates’ offensive struggles that the team would explode for 11 runs and 7 home runs against a great starting pitcher. The Bucs continued their weird trend of struggling against most pitchers but destroying some of the games best arms; last week, they […]
The Pirates are not playing well in the month of May, and anyone who has watched an inning can tell you why. Overall, the pitching staff hasn’t been fantastic since the calendar flipped over from April, but by several metrics — including ERA, FIP, and xFIP — the Bucs rank among the top half in […]
I was turning over several words in my head to describe the current state of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and “depressing” crossed my mind briefly before I discarded it. Sure, the past three weeks haven’t been a whole lot of fun, especially after this team got off to such a rip-roaring start in April, but “depressing” […]
Baseball is a game of the long season, a story that unfolds over 162 contests. The lack of day-to-day stakes is something that bores some but it’s one of the aspects of the sport I enjoy most, because it gives the games the appropriate amount of levity. It can be easy to get carried away […]
This is the Luis Ortiz we had been waiting for but had not been able to see due to a mix of service time manipulation, good performances from the starters in Pittsburgh, and struggles by the young righty in his first few outings in the majors. The potential was still there in Ortiz’s offerings even […]
On Friday, it looked like the Pirates had turned the corner. I was not expecting much from the Bucs against Arizona’s Zac Gallen, one of the best starters in the National League, but every time I checked my phone I was surprised to see the number next to the yellow P climbing higher. The Bucs […]
Baseball is a funny game. The Pirates’ offense has been on a historically bad run of late, and any hopes I had that this stretch of futility might come to an end against a mediocre pitcher on Tuesday night were shattered. The Bucs made old foe Michael Lorenzen look like Sandy Koufax, whiffing helplessly at […]
Luis Ortiz wasn’t good on Tuesday night, but who cares. It’s hard for me to get worked up over the performance of a young pitcher when he received zero run support, as so many Pirate pitchers have during the month of May. Against the mediocre Michael Lorenzen, the Pirates managed only 5 hits, with Carlos […]
In case you haven’t noticed, the Pirates have not been playing particularly well recently. They have won all of two games since the calendar flipped to May, both of them in starts by Mitch Keller. The Bucs entered the month with the best record in the National League and an almost-unbelievable 31.5% chance to make […]
Bucco Ball 