The Pirates’ four-game series in San Diego had one hidden bonus effect for their rotation: for the second time in a week and a half, the Pirates get to throw Gerrit Cole, AJ Burnett, and Francisco Liriano in the same series. Because Gerrit Cole and the Pirate offense has risen to the occasion in the series’ first two games, that means that for the second time in a week and a half, Francisco Liriano is on the mound with a chance to sweep an opponent.
Liriano’s last two starts have been insane. He’s thrown 12 innings, struck out 23 hitters, walked three, only allowed nine hits, and been touched up for one total run. The only possible criticism of the two starts is that all those strikeouts sure do take a lot of pitches to record, and so Liriano’s been limited to six innings in both of them. The result of that was that the bullpen handed away the 2-0 lead that he gave them on Friday night in San Diego, otherwise the Pirates’ current hot streak would look just a little bit hotter. Still, Liriano’s been more or less unhittable lately, and another good start from him today would give the Pirates a good chance to go 5-2 on this seven-game West Coast swing.
Tim Hudson starts for the Giants. Hudson is off to a rough start this year, with what is the highest home run rate and lowest strikeout rate of his long and solid career. This is the sort of pitcher that I like to see this Pirate offense run into.
First pitch today is at 3:45.
Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images — I picked this one because I saw it today on Jared’s website where he shared some of his favorite pictures that he’s taken at PNC Park this year. He’s really done some excellent work at PNC that you’ve almost certainly seen here and in other places and I’m happy that we have a Getty license here at Bloguin now so that I’ve been able to share some of them with you.
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