Man, I go away from the computer for one day and Brian Burres pitches seven innings while Ronny Cedeno hits a walkoff single? Weird. I don’t understand how a team can go 1-6 on a road trip, then come home and immediately look like a functional baseball team. I know the Diamondbacks aren’t very good, but this whole “worst road team ever” thing is wearing pretty thin.
Anyways, James McDonald goes to the hill for the Pirates tonight. He hasn’t allowed a run in either of his last two starts, even though his last two starts have been his worst in terms of strikeout/walk ratio (he was striking out more than a batter an inning in his first six Pirate starts but in the last two he’s struckout just seven in 15 innings with five walks). He’s not getting many groundballs either; he’s had 34 flyballs hit against him in the last two games with just nine grounders. All of those things kind of point to him maybe giving up some runs in the pretty near future, but then he’s also pitched quite well at PNC Park and the Diamondbacks aren’t exactly the Yankees here.
McDonald takes the mound against Barry Enright, who’s 6-4 with a 3.39 ERA but records strikeouts at a Zach Duke like pace, at 7:05 tonight. A win moves the Pirates to 35-39 at PNC Park. I’m taking the weekend off from updating Clemente/Cangelosi, but you guys can feel free to keep making picks and I’ll get everything up to date on Monday.
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