Where Things Stand
Happy Monday, everyone. I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend. I know that the Pirates and Steelers didn’t really help with that. The Pirates dropped two of three in Atlanta. It was a really good win on Saturday, so at least we had that. Friday night’s game saw Mitch Keller give up eight runs in five innings. That was less than ideal. He’s been looking really sharp recently, so I’m not concerned yet about that performance. He was facing the highest-scoring offensive team in the entire league. We’ll see how he bounces back this week. On Saturday, Oviedo only managed to get through 3.2 innings and gave up three runs. The offense had his back, though, and put up eight runs which proved good enough. In yesterday’s game, the offense failed to show up and the bullpen just couldn’t hold on. Colin Selby gave up four runs while recording only one out. Not his best outing, to state the obvious. I’ll allow Jim and Connor to break down all of the finer points of yesterday’s game and put the Braves series to bed.
Up Next
The good news is that this week should be a bit easier than last week. It should be easier than the final two weeks, as well. I guess what I’m really saying here is that this will be the final week of somewhat easy baseball this season. Of course, with the Pirates, nothing is truly easy. The week starts off with four games at home against the Nationals and will wrap up with the Yankees coming to town for three games. The Yankees aren’t necessarily an easy team to beat, but they are below .500 currently. They’ve struggled more than anyone expected them to this season. We’ll dig deeper into that series in Friday’s newsletter. Today, we’ll focus on the Nationals. Washington will come into the series with a 64-79 record and in last place in the NL East. They have only won three of their last sixteen games. The Pirates have been playing decently for a while now, so if they can avoid playing down to the competition this should be a winnable series. Let’s have a look at the projected pitching matchups.
Monday, September 11
Patrick Corbin LHP (9-13 5.23 ERA) vs TBD
Tuesday, September 12
Joan Adon RHP (2-1 5.56 ERA) vs TBD
Wednesday, September 13
TBD vs TBD
Thursday, September 14
Josiah Gray RHP (7-11 4.13 ERA) vs Mitch Keller RHP (11-9 4.23 ERA)
That’s a lot of TBD. A lot. We’re going to ruin that guy’s arm. I imagine that the week will start with Jackson and Falter but I’m not sure in what order. It currently shows Keller scheduled with an extra day of rest. Who knows if that will hold up or not. He did get bumped back for his last start. He’s thrown 174.2 innings so far this season which is a pretty heavy load. We’ll know more as the week goes on. Regardless of how the starting pitching takes shape for the Pirates, they should be able to win games in this series. Will they be able to win the series? Will the bats thrive against the team that’s allowed the second most runs in the National League? Let me know what you think in the comments.
Never Forget
In lieu of Quick Hits today, we’ll take the time to remember those that we lost 22 years ago today during the attacks of September 11, 2001. That link takes you to the list of names from the 9/11 Memorial website. I still remember that morning vividly. I had taken the week off of work and was helping a friend of mine put new vinyl siding on a house that he had just bought. We were listening to the Bob & Tom show on the radio. For those of you unfamiliar, that’s a very funny morning radio show that used to be quite popular. I’m not sure if it’s still funny. It’s been many years since I’ve listened to it though I did see recently that it is still going. When they first said something about a plane hitting one of the towers, I assumed it was part of a bit that they were doing. As they kept talking the tone grew somber and the realization that this was something that was really happening set in. Me and my friend put all of our tools up and went back to my place so that we could watch CNN and see what was going on. We heard about the second plane hitting on the ride there.
Today, take the time to remember those who lost their lives on that fateful day. Regardless of where you stand on the political ramifications of that day’s events, there were a lot of innocent lives lost. Today, we should honor all of their memories.
Alright, that wraps us up for today. We’ll be back here again tomorrow looking at the first game of the Nationals series. As always, #LetsGoBucs!