The Pittsburgh Pirates take on the Chicago White Sox this afternoon in the deciding game of a three game series. The Pirates won their home opener on Friday, but lost yesterday in an 11-5 contest.
The bottom half of today’s lineup features four players with a strikeout rate over 30% in the young season. Rodolfo Castro picked up two hits yesterday, but is striking out 31% of the time. Jack Suwinski is at 35%, Ji-Man Choi is at 44%, and Canaan Smith-Njigba is at 62%.
The Pirates are going up against Michael Kopech, who struggled in his first time out. We’ll see today whose struggles continue: Kopech or the bottom of the Pirates’ order.
PIRATES VS WHITE SOX
Game Time: 1:35 PM EST
Pirates Starter: Johan Oviedo (0-0, 7.71)
White Sox Starter: Michael Kopech (0-1, 13.50)
Pirates Lineup:
The series finale.
📺 AT&T SportsNet
📻 93.7 The Fan | The PRN#LetsGoBucs pic.twitter.com/fwkYUctngp— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) April 9, 2023
White Sox Lineup:
Series finale in Pittsburgh! pic.twitter.com/9T5RNGrTEy
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) April 9, 2023
TODAY ON PIRATES PROSPECTS
**My daily column looks at the Middlegame to the Pirates’ 2023 season.
**Jason Gindele looks at the prospects who bring the best hitting skills into the 2023 season. Abrahan Gutierrez ranked high on the list, as if the Pirates need more catching depth. Gutierrez is starting in Greensboro, with Henry Davis in Altoona and Endy Rodriguez in Indianapolis.
**Anthony Murphy writes about the encouraging day at the plate from Maikol Escotto. The infielder, acquired in the Jameson Taillon trade, struggled last year in his first trip to Greensboro. He made some strides in the Dominican this offseason, and as a result is one of the deep sleepers that I picked to follow at the start of the year.
**John Dreker has the latest Pirates minor moves, with Braxton Ashcraft and Kent Emanuel joining Bradenton.
**Ben Cherington gave an update on Mike Burrows, who left yesterday’s Indianapolis game early.
**Check out the recap from yesterday’s Pirates loss, as well as our nightly Prospect Watch with all of the nightly minor league action.
**In my column yesterday, I looked at the Pirates of the Middlegame.
Tim started Pirates Prospects in 2009 from his home in Virginia, which was 40 minutes from where Pedro Alvarez made his pro debut in Lynchburg. That year, the Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship, and Pirates Prospects was born from Tim's reporting along the way. The site has grown over the years to include many more writers, and Tim has gone on to become a credentialed MLB reporter, producing Pirates Prospects each year, and will publish his 11th Prospect Guide this offseason. He has also served as the Pittsburgh Pirates correspondent for Baseball America since 2019. Behind the scenes, Tim is an avid music lover, and most of the money he gets paid to run this site goes to vinyl records.
Nightmare scenario:
Cruz to 60-day, Owings up.
Fractured ankle.
Could be worse, much rather that than a torn ligament. He will probably be back this season, in spite of some of the immediate doomer responses
Is this fact or speculation?
Oh sh*t.
I’m not sure what he was doing. Shouldn’t he have been trying to slide for the back point of the plate with the throw coming from the IF? It looked to me like he was either trying to go in front or right down the middle of the plate.
That sucks! 6-8 weeks to recover plus rehab time. Maybe around the AS break?
According to Google, 6-8 weeks seem to be the shortest.. if he requires surgery & if his knees are injured too, he might be out for the season even ☹️
Is that speculation or from a source?
Per Derek Shelton
https://twitter.com/cdcrisan/status/1645157190582300672?t=vUWHpDXx0MzX4N486PajAw&s=19
Thanks! I guess I need to get twitter. Lol.
Oh no…
Raise It!
A win with 2 hits. Jack Suwinski and CSN the hitting stars. Go figure.
Jack looks like he’s starting to see the ball better. Hoping for him!
I agree, he looked comfortable at the plate. Thought the ball he hit after the sacrifice was gone but caught on the track
Great pitching day today. Hope to see Oviedo build on this. Love Moreta’s energy. Love the infield defense. Hope for the best with Cruz.
OK, maybe you’re never as good as you look when you’re going good but the Pirates are looking pretty good.
For the most part, the fundamentals have been very solid, especially compared to the past few years. Hayes play on the sac bunt and the two plays in the 8th were just a couple of examples today. Also, CSN deserves credit for turning that into a triple with his hustle when I’m betting it would only have been a double for a lot of guys.
Raise it!
Now just need good news from Cruz
Some great defense this half inning. Dudes came to play!
Good defense & love seeing Moreta cheering from the dugout
Shark Tank 2.0?
Really becoming a big Moreta fan here.
Did you see him in the dugout after the thir out? 🤣 love his energy!
Love it too, honestly though, if he starts to blow leads I may change my opinion quickly!
Ha. Good pitch. 🤑🤑🤑
What a great start from Oviedo. It’s been a weird weird game but I really hope they win it for him. Need a positive ending…
Great control leading to a low pitch count. Harbinger of things to come hopefully.
No TV feed here. What happened to Cruz?
Injured sliding home. Knee or ankle.
https://streamable.com/w1dabi
nsfw
If catchers are allowed to continue to block the plate we should go back to old school baseball and allow for collisions to occur. Dang.
That’s 100% on Cruz for deciding too late to slide and getting his cleats stuck.
Looks like a bad injury to me. Hopefully not season ending.
Great MLB defense from Hayes!
So, Marcano or Owings, Owings will require a 40 man move.
Marcano’s been hot so guessing him, though he’s not a shortstop
He’s the fielding SS option we have, believe it or not!
I want Marcano.
Can marcano cut it at SS? I know hes been hot…
Castro can play some SS.
IIRC they moved him off in the minors at some point, but i could def be wrong!
Did Zavala trash talk?? I’m seeing tweets that he used foul language
Probably the reason for Santana’s anger?
I think so, which is why Santana reacted the way he did. What a lack of character. Crap like that tempts me to give up watching sports.
That’s been going on for ages in sports.
Rarely when someone is writhing in pain.
Yes he did.
I would like to believe he didn’t know Cruz was injured. Or else what a freaking asshole!
He reacted to the collision as if was avoidable.
So Cruz looks to be out the rest of the year… that looked awful.
I’d pump the brakes on that thought.
I’m hopeful it’s his ankle more than his knee… 😔
Didnt look great but calling him out for the year within 15 min of injury feels a bit premature
Definitely premature but that’s what it looked like to me. I hope I am wrong though.
ACL with MCl
looks like to me
Cool didnt realize we had an on-field correspondant here!
It is what I do for my day job.
seeing reports of ankle fracture.
Singer at night?
believe it not – 1st degree was music, but you don’t want to hear me sing 😀
nice!
Oh f***
Ffs
Hey Cruz what time is it?
Walk? I was hoping a jog!
On Gameday is was a time out the whole time, just the Pirates announcers are lost.
Okay this makes sense 😂 during timeout, Johan just casually hit the guy with 99mph fastball? Lol
this pitch clock is so dumb
all they do is talk about the pitch clock
Huh? I have no idea what happened but good job Oviedo!
Can someone explain? That was bizarre.
I guess Andrus had called for time out and so the pitch count was shown wrong
He had one more strike left and he flied out
Such unlucky hits…
Not only does Carlos Santana and CSN have similar body types and facial features, but Santana’s mothers last name is Nuñez, making his initials CSN!
So maybe we’ve graduated from Mitch and Ro and pray for snow to Mitch, Ro and O and pray for . . . something brief.
If he commands his FB, he’s a decent starter
🤣 Cautiously optimistic on O. It would be huge for him to pan out.
Did I miss something earlier for why Bob Walk isn’t announcing?
I think they said Friday he wasn’t feeling well so Neil Walker was a last minute fill-in.
Would be nice to see Cruz bomb 🙏🏻
Oviedo getting a high amount of ground outs, even with his 4
Seamer. Encouraging!
Very encouraging early on.
Imagine if Endy was batting right now.
First two swings from Suwinski looked absolutely horrible so I’m more than happy for the sac fly
Agree. I find his AB’s somewhat stressful.
Jack finally has a good AB
Nice AB Jack!!!
Good AB Castro!
He saw that gigantic meatball and swings at *that*?!
the meatball was on a 3-0 count, but yeah, it just makes you wonder how good someone is going to be if they are swinging at 3-1 balls in the dirt, that never even looked like it was a strike coming in.
Right, I was thinking no green light but then he swung at *that* pitch!! Glad he could walk after that
What is this change in the game of bring in the infield in the early innings?
I would guess it is statistics driven, that over time it prevents more runs than it allows, especially with one out.
Cruz needs to drive outside corner pitches to left field, just go up there and look for low and outside pitches, because that is all he is going to see until he punishes those pitches.
Violation!
Love seeing triples!
The Easter Bunny came. He happens to share my name! Anyway, plenty of chocolate for the game! 😃
That was a 109mph liner. Phew
better check his laces.
“baseball zen” commercials are the worst. change my mind.
It’s the pure sounds of the game, how can you NOT like it?
Because they’re all so blatantly fabricated in a studio somewhere. BADLY. When you watch a movie, you think the noises you’re hearing are legitimate. You don’t think about how odd they sound. The baseball zen noises are all so strangely unnatural.
They remind me of why I like going to the ballpark when I can because of all the little things you miss on tv.
My daughters also like them—they hope they’ll help me stay calmer during a game.
they prevent non-stop Yankee/Aaron Judge highlights.
Really?! I actually prefer those over the repetitive historic connections thing and highlight clips. Zen commercials don’t bother me at all
“Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream”
Mark that Hayes and bat down. Two quick outs before, and it would be easy to cave in and let the pitcher have a quick, easy inning. Instead he worked it. May not amount to anything right now, but it’s those little things that add up over a game, a week, a season.
Let’s go Bucs!
If our bottom 4 contribute then I like our chances today as i think oviedo is going to rebound today! LGB!