The Pirates have already won five of the first seven games in their ten-game road trip, which means that winning just one game in Atlanta this weekend will make it a pretty successful trip for a club that’s had their share of struggles on the road in the recent seasons. Of course, just one win in Atlanta would be awfully disappointing after what was maybe the club’s most impressive three-game series of the season earlier this week in San Francisco, in which the Pirates swept the Giants despite falling behind early in all three games.
Charlie Morton starts for the Bucs tonight. His first two starts off of the disabled list have seen him induce ground balls at an insane 78.3% rate. There’s no way that’s a sustainable result, but it’s still awfully nice to see Morton return from the disabled list with his command and his pitch repertoire intact, as opposed to having to pitch his way back into shape on a big league mound. Since that ground ball rate will probably come back to earth soon, I’d like to see Morton start missing a few more bats, but then, I’d also love to see a pitcher with a 3.21 K/9 keep pitching to a sub-3.00 xFIP and a sub-2.00 SIERA, if only for the novelty of that sort of thing in 2015.
Williams Perez starts for the Braves. He’s a rookie that wasn’t on many prospect radars outside of Atlanta before this season began, but his big league career is off to a nice start through three starts and five appearances with the Braves; his 2.66 ERA is a bit lower than his peripherals, but he’s getting his strikeouts and a ton of ground balls to offset his high walk rate. Ideally, I’d like to see the Pirates work the count on Perez tonight, chase him early, and get into the Braves bullpen in the fifth or sixth inning. This is the sort of offense that should be wrecking “pleasant surprise” rookies that stand in their way.
Anyway, the first pitch tonight is at 7:35. If Morton or Jeff Locke can get the Pirates one win, they give Gerrit Cole a chance to win the series on Sunday. That’s all I ask for.
Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images
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