First, a bit of news for the afternoon: the Pirates have placed Ryan Doumit on the 15-day DL with a concussion. It’s not really much of a secret that I think Doumit is the most frustrating player on the team right now (at least not to my Twitter followers, where a lot more stream-of-consciousness frustration gets posted during the games), but this injury will likely keep him from being traded. Jason Jaramillo is back on the club and I assume Erik Kratz will get the bulk of the playing time for now since he’s looked decent both at and behind the plate in his short time up, but Jaramillo will probably see the lineup regularly.
With that behind us, let’s talk about tonight’s game. The Pirates have scored 9+ runs in four of their last five games, but those four games were stared by Bud Norris, Roy Oswalt, Dave Bush, and Randy Wolf. Obviously Oswalt’s the only real stalwart in that group and he left with an injury after four innings. That makes tonight’s matchup interesting, as Yovani Gallardo makes his return from the DL to take the mound. Gallardo, at 24, often gets overlooked when talking about great young pitchers because of Josh Johnson and Ubaldo Jiminez and Stephen Strasburg, but that doesn’t mean he’s not good. You already know that, though, because he’s 5-2 with a 2.38 ERA against the Pirates that includes a more than a strikeout an inning and a K/BB ratio of almost four.
So how will the scorching-hot Pirates fare against a guy that’s tormented them so regularly the last couple years? I’m pretty excited to find out. Ross Ohlendorf tries to bounce back from his awful start for the Buccos. The first pitch is at 7:05. Clemente/Cangelosi is after the jump.
Not sure what this is? Check here and here. Short version: in the comments pick the Pirates you think will be most and least valuable in today’s game. If you haven’t jumped aboard yet, it’s been a lot of fun so far and now’s as good a time as any to join in.
No time to do much today but post the standings. LOTS of points moving around yesteryday.
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