Francisco Liriano’s really only made one terrible start in 2015, and it came in May against the same Twins that he’ll face this afternoon. Actually, it was his two-inning outing that dropped the Pirates to 18-22 that brought Pirate fans to peak tooth-gnashing back in May, exactly one day before the season turned around.
Liriano’s in a much better place now, and he’s coming off of one of his better starts of the year against the Nationals last Friday. Thanks to Gregory Polanco and Jung Ho Kang’s hot bats, the Pirate offense is starting to resemble the offense we thought it would be before the year started. Ervin Santana starts for the Twins. Santana was suspended for the season’s first 80 games due to a PED violation, but he’s been really excellent in the four starts since his return from that suspension.
The trade deadline machines should be just warming up for the day as this game starts (Mat Latos was just dealt to LA in a horrific salary dump that only the Marlins could execute), so a good pitching matchup in an afternoon game is pretty much ideally timed for this part of the season. First pitch is at 1:10.
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