The last few days have been really fun. Watching Pedro Alvarez, Neil Walker, and Jose Tabata catch fire three times in four games has created one of the most exciting stretches of Pirate baseball in recent memory. The question now is simply how long they can keep it going and what happens when it ends. The pre-break Pirates were so offensively inept that they were more or less unwatchable. They can’t score 8+ runs a night every night, but they can score four. And doing that might mean that they don’t go on a six-game losing streak every other week.
Anyways, the Pirates try to keep the mojo rolling one more night with Zach Duke on the mound. Duke was actually pretty decent in his return from the DL last Friday, so hopefully that means that his struggles late in the first half could be at least partly blamed on his arm trouble. Randy Wolf, who’s been decent of late, goes for the Brewers. Andrew McCutchen is still out. The Ryan Doumit/Erik Kratz platoon has taken a weird twist since being announced on Sunday, with Doumit starting against a lefty for the second time in three days with his only benching being against a righty. Sometimes I wish that John Russell and Neal Huntington would just never talk to the media ever.
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.
Big nights from Alvarez and Walker and a bad night from Lincoln (who was actually runner-up Clemente to Donnelly, since his two-run homer allowed to Braun was pretty nasty from a WPA standpoint) made for some big point totals from last night.
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