After last night’s gamethread mishap, TONIGHT is the night that Zach Duke and Jorge de la Rosa kick off the Pirate/Rockies series. The situation for the Pirates is pretty simple; less than a week ago, they were playing their best baseball of the season with their young players leading the way. They’ve since dropped four in a row and while they haven’t really played terribly yet, they’re also lacking some of the verve that carried them through the Brewers and Astros series. And I understand how unanalytical that is, but it’s also true.
So this Rockies’ series is an interesting turning point for the club. They’re on the road, where they’re not very good, and playing in a park that shouldn’t be friendly to them at all, but the Rockies aren’t playing well right now and so the Pirates should have a chance to kind of right themselves a bit starting tonight in this series. De la Rosa has not been very good at all since returning from the DL in early July and if the Pirates can show some patience tonight, they should have some base runners and good things generally happen from there. Of course, if they can’t capitalize on this series in Colorado, they’ll be on yet another seven-game losing streak and Steelers’ camp will open and no one will think about them until the Penguins season ends sometime next May or June. So no pressure, guys.
Some transaction news today; Wil Ledezma and Steven Jackson are in the bullpen tonight, with Jackson presumably only here until Saturday, when someone (Dan McCutchen) will be summoned to join the rotation. Ledezma is 29 and hasn’t had much success at the big league level, but he’s dominating at Indy this year and frankly, I’d much rather watch him pitch Brendan Donnelly.
Also, Jeff Locke dominated in Double-A Altoona last night and has been awesome in his three starts there and in not-at-all-unrelated news, Nate McLouth was demoted to the minors today.
First pitch tonight is at 8:40. 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.
Weekend participation is always low, but it’s a good time to remind everyone that pitcher’s offense doesn’t count unless specifically stated in your pick. So cocktailsfor2 had Brad Lincoln down as his Clemente and Lincoln did have the second most WPA in the game at the plate, but his pitching performance more than wiped things out. That left Cedeno and Tabata as Clementes and Lincoln and Neil Walker as Cangelosis.
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