The Pittsburgh Pirates (24-21) take on the Arizona Diamondbacks (26-20) in the finale of a three-game series on Sunday afternoon. First pitch will be at 1:35 PM.
The Pirates are sending out Roansy Contreras (3-4, 4.40) for his ninth start of the season. He will be going up against 34-year-old right-hander Merrill Kelly (4-3, 2.92), who will be making his tenth start of the season.
Here’s some news for today
**The Pirates lost last night, but Mitch Keller pitched well.
**Keep an eye on JP Massey. That and more in the Prospect Watch.
**The college regular season is winding down, but there’s still plenty more for Pirates fans to follow.
**Anthony Murphy takes a closer look at Liover Peguero.
**Ethan Hullihen has a payroll update for the Pirates.
**From the history side, today’s Card of the Day features Mace Brown, who pitched seven seasons for the Pirates. He’s recognized as the first All-Star reliever
**Five former Pirates have been born on May 21st, including the aforementioned Mace Brown, as well as Fred “Sure Shot” Dunlap.
UMPIRE SCORECARD
Instead of repeating myself, I included my RT of the Umpire Scorecard
Mitch Keller actually pitched better than the numbers say yesterday. The two worst calls from yesterday's game came during Ketel Marte's home run after a missed strike three AND a missed strike on Marte in the sixth, that may have helped lead to their second run. #Pirates https://t.co/47TRENsP0X
— John Dreker (@JohnDreker) May 21, 2023
LINEUPS
Pirates
Beautiful day for some baseball.
📺 AT&T SportsNet
📻 93.7 The Fan | The PRN#LetsGoBucs pic.twitter.com/Z7EgFUSRaM— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) May 21, 2023
Diamondbacks
Game 47. #ArizonaBorn pic.twitter.com/8vEK4JKF4B
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) May 21, 2023
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball.
When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.
The pen struggles again, cant do much with the offense only giving 3 hits though
In general, I can’t recall an uglier game this season. And for it to come when we had a chance to make a statement after a demoralizing loss by taking a series against a playoff-caliber team is very disappointing.
So we’re the only team to not have won a game when trailing after 6? Seems odd, or maybe it’s just odd that I’m still watching this game.
Cherington’s “one of league’s best bullpens” hasn’t shown well this weekend. But a lot of that is Shelton’s usage—Stephenson shouldn’t have appeared in either game.
Perhaps the decision to use Holderman in Fridays blow out win instead of yesterday, but that’s Monday morning quaterbacking…
Yesterday should have been Keller for 7–>Holderman–>Bednar. Using Holderman on Friday surely didn’t impact Shelton’s decision to pitch Stephenson in the 7th because Shelton’s script is Stephenson for the 7th, Holderman for the 8th, and Bednar for the 9th.
Stephenson had a very nice April but has been terrible in May–I’m thinking it will be a repeat of Crowe last year, someone who gets off to a great start but is not a very good pitcher and it will take until September for Shelton to change how he’s used.
Pitchers just have bad days. Doesn’t probability say “the more pitchers you throw, the better chance someone will get hit hard”. I’ve nver been a fan of taking out a pitcher too early.
That’s always been my philosophy too—if a guy is making his pitches, like Moreta today, leave him in. Every change brings risk. I always thought Maddon went to the pen way more than he needed to, and Shelton does the same thing.
So Stephenson blows a game and Shelton goes straight back to him. I’ve never seen a manager with his obsession with repeating mistakes.
Remember, he didn’t do anything wrong, the players just didn’t execute.
His stubbornness is well-documented, and it costs us games.
One of the most important pieces of analytics to look at is “how did the player do the day before?”. This is usually ignored. I don’t get it at all.
Shelty strikes again….
Stephenson is this year’s Crowe—Shelton has way too much confidence in him.
Or Stephenson sucks again…
Which makes one wonder why Shelty keeps coming back to him
Well I guess he didn’t think that he would suck again. Not ALWAYS the manager’s fault when things don’t work out.
Shelton playing the numbers based on a sample size of 6!
Just terrible
Good article by Ron Cook of the PG today calling out Shelton for his dumb decision to replace Keller yesterday. Cook is right, Shelton cost us our best chance to win.
Article was spot on.
Hindsight is 100%
Man, delay have trouble controlling the pitching game, do we have any young catchers in the minors.
I can’t imagine any of our pitchers wanting to throw to Delay after today’s game.
Inning should have been over…..
Flashes of the ‘20-‘22 Pirates. And I don’t like taking Moreta out here as his pitches looked good.
TUCUPITA BABY
Go Tucu!
The automated strike zone can’t get here soon enough.
Contreras change is looking good, command is not great, but movement is good.
Can’t wait for August when we have Cruz back, one of if not both Davis and Endy in the line up.
BC dfa’ed the wrong guy. Heineman blocks these wild pitches.
Delay’s stance, as McKenry pointed out, is something that good coaching should address. We seem to get so many details wrong.
Thanks Merrill Kelly. Also noticed the Rangers just posted starters for the series starting on Tuesday and the Bucs get to face Dunning, Eovaldi and Perez. This is starting to be pretty long run of quality pitchers the Bucs go against.
A run without out a hit, I’ll take it.
Unfortunately the Diamonbacks will too
I’m sure it’s just me, but Reynolds has looked shaky in LF.
I think his body language was bad in spring and before he signed his contract. After that he was relieved and did well for a stint. Lately, it looks as if he has been pressing and not comfortable at the plate or in the field.
I dont think its just you
Tough match up today, need the bats to come alive once again.
Happy Ro Day Y’all!!!!!
Ro not making friends wit the strike zone today
Im feeling a jack blast and QS for Ro giving us a chance to take the series