Pittsburgh Pirates Wake Up Call: .500 Bucs

In our daily Wake-Up Call, we get you ready for the day with a complete look at all things Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Pirates had a solid weekend as they defeated the Miami Marlins both Friday and Saturday night followed by a rainout yesterday.  That is five straight wins for the Pirates to bring them back to .500 (71-71).  The makeup game with the Marlins is scheduled for October 1.  Yes it’s true.  Buctober will return this season.

All jokes aside, it is nice to see the Pirates string a few wins together this late in the year.  The Pirates are now 5-2 in September.  In the the 2016 and 2017 seasons, the Pirates finished 11-16 and 11-17 respectively in this month.  Baring a major collapse, the Pirates should be able to exceed those 11 wins.

Bye bye Greg

Gregory Polanco was injured Friday night sliding into second base.  It would not be an exaggeration to call it the worst slide you’ve ever seen.  He suffered a bone bruise in his left knee while also injuring his left shoulder.  Polanco will miss the remainder of the season.

It was a breakout year of sorts as Polanco hit .254/.340/.499 with a career high 23 home runs.  His 61 extra base hits were also a career high.  Polanco saw a spike in hard hit rate (up eight percent from 2017) and fly ball rate (up 10.4 percent).  2018 was a make or break year for Polanco.  His production was respectable and talks of him being a bust are now behind us.

Spoiler ball

Tonight, the Pirates start a three game series in St. Louis with the Cardinals followed by a three game set in Milwaukee.  Both of these teams are fighting for their playoff lives in a heated NL Wild Card race.  Right now, both teams occupy both wild card spots with the Brewers up 2.5 games on the Cardinals.

With the Pirates out of the race (unless they run off 20 straight wins), it will be fun to see how motivated they are to knock off these division rivals.  The September call-ups will get the opportunity to show their worth in these high leverage games.

Not going to lie, I’m pretty excited to watch.

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