Much as it was gratifying to see the Pirates win a game started by AJ Burnett last night, it’d be great to see them get a win this afternoon in a game started by Francisco Liriano. Liriano was a little uneven in his last start against the Cubs, but has on the whole been excellent in 2015. His fastball has the zip that was missing in the early part of last season, his command has been on-point (again, that last start notwithstanding, though even though his command seemed off in that game, he struck out nine and walked two in five innings), and it seems unfair that the bullpen handed over two of his starts, while the offense cornered him into a 1-0 loss in the other one.
There is another issue at hand here, which is that the Pirates’ next six games are against the Cubs and Cardinals, which means that it’d be nice for the Pirates to get this extra win against the Diamondbacks in the bank today. The Pirates have, on the whole, been playing pretty good baseball lately (they’re 7-2 since those two ugly losses in Detroit and the bats are slowly showing signs of waking up), but as we’ve learned in the last couple of years, banking wins against bad teams is a good way to insulate against whatever happens when you face the good ones.
I haven’t seen a lineup yet today, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Pirates give a few guys days off (besides Francisco Cervelli, of course) with this week’s relatively rough travel schedule of Pittsburgh on Thursday, Arizona for the weekend, and then Chicago tomorrow. Jeremy Hellickson starts for the Diamondbacks. He’s off to a rough start in his Diamondback career, and in the early part of his career with the Rays he was predominantly a fly ball pitcher, though he’s been a little more even in his first few starts this year. A fly ball pitcher in Bank One Ballpark against an offense that has still managed to hit a bunch of home runs despite a rough start to the season sounds like a promising matchup to me.
First pitch today is at 4:10.
Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Image
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