The second that Vance Worley steps on the mound at Great American Ballpark tonight, I’m going to start worrying. The Pirates are in a bit of a bind this weekend, in that they’re lined up to have their two best pitchers pitching with the division on the line, that they’ll probably need those two pitchers to pitch and win in order to forge a tie with the Cardinals, that a tie with the Cardinals is likely the best they can do, and that if they do use Francisco Liriano on Saturday and Gerrit Cole on Sunday to get into a tie with the Cardinals in the NL Central, then they’ve got a big pitching problem on their hands for Monday’s divisional playoff and Wednesday’s if-necessary Wild Card Game because neither pitcher will be available for either game. My solution to this problem was to slightly change the rotation to give Francisco Liriano and Brandon Cumpton a piggy-backed start tonight, which would put Liriano on regular rest for next Wednesday no matter what transpires from here on out, but the Pirates will apparently not take that route tonight.
Taking the path the Pirates are taking here is dangerous, because it’s easy to talk yourself into starting Cole in just about any circumstance on Sunday except for the Pirates already being eliminated, and the Pirates won’t even be favorites if Cole starts on Sunday because Johnny Cueto starts for the Reds. I’ve said a bunch of times this week that I trust the Pirates’ front office and I trust Clint Hurdle on these sorts of decisions, so it’s possible that there’s something I’m missing here, but this honestly concerns me. I really do feel like by starting Worley tonight they’re setting of a chain reaction that ends with Volquez starting the wild card game more often than not, and that’s a really frustrating thing because they’ve had so long to properly prepare for all of this.
Anyway, with all those concerns out of the way, Vance Worley will start tonight against a pretty hapless Red team. He’ll take the mound with the knowledge that a win keeps the Pirates in the NL Central race, and a loss all but eliminates them. I can’t imagine that even Vance Worley thought he’d be making such a huge start during spring training this year, but here we are. Mike Leake starts for the Reds. You know all about Mike Leake by now. This is his fifth start against the Pirates in 2014. The Reds won his first start against the Bucs, and the Pirates have won the last three.
First pitch tonight is at 7:10.
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