On July 22nd, 2003, Aramis Ramirez played third and batted cleanup for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates lost 2-0 to the Houston Astros, who were their division rivals at the time. On the next day, Ramirez was traded to the Chicago Cubs in a terrible salary dump that signaled the way much of the next four or so years would go in Pittsburgh. Twelve years and two days have passed, and Ramirez has played more than 1500 games as a Cub and a Brewer, but tonight, he’ll be playing third base and batting cleanup for the Pirates. It is, for lack of a better term, pretty cool.
Of course, he’s in Pittsburgh because the Pirates need him to play third base after an untimely spate of injuries to infielders. The good news is that the Pirates have been OK without him the last couple of days, as Pedro Alvarez and Gregory Polanco have helped the offense to score 14 runs in the first two days of this series. Hopefully we’ll see more of that today since the Cardinals continue to look like they have no plan to lose baseball games.
Ramirez’s re-debut will come against Gio Gonzalez, and so it’ll be interesting to watch as part of what Ramirez should do is help the Pirate lineup out against the left-handed pitching that they’ve struggled with so much this year. AJ Burnett goes for the Pirates, and will try to get a bit back on track after a pretty ugly start against the Royals to open the second half (albeit, an ugly start that the Pirates won).
First pitch tonight is at 7:05. This will be the most important game of Aramis Ramirez’s Pirate career.
Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images
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