The Pittsburgh Pirates (21-18) take on the Baltimore Orioles (25-13) in game two of a three-game series this weekend at Camden Yards. First pitch is 7:05 PM
Roansy Contreras (3-3, 4.74) takes on right-handed pitcher Tyler Wells (2-1, 3.15), who is making his seventh start of the season.
Here are some links to check out. Anything else that comes up today will be added below.
**Started a list for the minor league moves today. Could be more coming up, we will see
**Today’s Pirates Prospects Daily looks at Cal Mitchell on a recent hot streak
**Last night’s Prospect Watch included some very good pitching.
**Last night’s frustrating loss.
**Our weekly Saturday draft article looks at the clear group of top five prospects and how they are all worthy of a #1 pick
**You’ve got time, check out some Pirates history
**Our Card of the Day article looks at an interesting offering from 1955
UMPIRE SCORECARD
If you watched last night’s game and thought the home plate ump missed a lot of calls, you would be correct. I saw that 3-1 pitch to Carlos Santana in the top of the ninth had a chance to be a huge miss and it turned out as the most impactful miss of the night. Santana ended up with a single anyway, but that could have been huge in the moment (we know how the game turned out, but Pirates were in a good spot then)
Umpire: James Hoye
Final: Pirates 3, Orioles 6#LetsGoBucs // #Birdland#PITvsBAL // #BALvsPITMore stats for this game 👇https://t.co/vi3TcEcRqM pic.twitter.com/uViOqQWv1l
— Umpire Scorecards (@UmpScorecards) May 13, 2023
LINEUPS
Pirates
Game 2 vs the Orioles.
📺 AT&T SportsNet
📻 93.7 The Fan | The PRN #LetsGoBucs pic.twitter.com/A9jIVsVItY— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) May 13, 2023
Orioles
The weather’s hitting the sprinkler again. pic.twitter.com/W1Fn0L84Az
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) May 13, 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 BC era is a failure. Just like the rest that came in here and tried a five-year plan. This team needed hitting prospects by now and instead had to rely on more dumpster diving for platoon players with marginal value. And here we are. Another season that’s about to turn into a disaster. And look at the state of the farm system for hitters at AA and AAA not named Henry Davis. Just terrible! This franchise is still years away from any type of contending.
My disappointment grows but giving up on my Pirates is impossible. During this distressing ‘slump’ every opposing pitcher seems like Bob Gibson or Sandy Koufax. It’s hard to watch. Tonight, as for the last few games, I stopped watching. That’s hard too. I don’t expect (never have) a playoff team this year, but this kind of streak is demoralizing. They look awful … can’t wait for tomorrow’s game!
It’s tough when you’re going bad and the umpires make it even worse. This umpiring is make it inevitable that robo umps are on their way.
I’m not sure the zone they were showing on TV was even correct. I started noticing in the later innings that the top of the zone they were showing was barely at belt level on many of the hitters. I think in Santana’s case, the top of the box was actually below his belt and the bottom on his shins.
Does Marin and Meccage know what a splitter is? It really works well for Bautista.
I think the book’s out on Connor Joe. No need to throw him a fastball.
If your secondary stuff is working, sure. But he does have a very good eye, so he can get the count to where a pitcher needs to think FB.
I agree with that, wrote something similar earlier, if pair with Mitchell, Joe should still get most of the at bats….
He’s a platoon player, unfortunately he is needed to fill a larger role on this team.
And from AAA
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?gamePk=722855
From Low A
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?gamePk=729614
Ro’s had a good game, but only 5 swings and misses. Wells had 18.
Eighteen… that’s horrible hitting.
Good grief. This team is bad but just a tiny bit of luck would sure be nice occasionally. Criminy
Used up all of May’s luck in April it seems.
That what happens when you’re snake bit
Andujar now 1-for-26 since that first day. Which raises the question for the umpteenth time since BC became the GM: Is there any level of performance so horrendous and humiliating that BC doesn’t find it acceptable? Does he have any standards at all?
Bad timing WM. No need to rub salt in the wound right now.
I get the sentiment but that at bat wasn’t the right choice for this post. Play of the game there by Santander and the xWOBA had to be really high on that.
.560 xBA, HR in Yankee Stadium & Minute Maid.
🙁
I hate baseball with every fiber of my being right now.
why isnt Cutch pinch hitting right now?
What is winning anyways? Or scoring?
I’m going for it even though it doesn’t guarantee the Pirates will be the one scoring runs. Here it goes…
This game is going to be over it under two hours at this rate!
Pirate games these days are over once the opponent scores 2 runs.
Mountcastle hit those back to back high heaters a combined 790 feet approximately. Glad the result was a strike and an out but maybe you shouldn’t challenge him like that anymore.
The only thing to be asked about the Pirates at this point is, Where was Andy Haines in April and why did he have to come back?
How ’bout a little early morning PFP tomorrow guys?
How about a win tonight! There’s still time and it’s close enough
lets go bucs!
Maybe somebody suggests these guys start looking to go the other way and be aggressive to the opposite field instead of chasing down and away for three innings and rolling over on everything. This is bad baseball. How about going up to the plate with a plan.
Wow, this new lineup is something. I guess Castro is in young Shelton dog house again. Get the winning hr in the only win in a 2 week span, gets you a spot on the bench.
When he played defense like he did last night as a late game replacement, he should be benched today.
That ump was horrendous in the 9th. Santana overcame it, but no chance for Castro and Bae. The team needs to send that video to Manfred and the umpires union.
What is Manfred going to do, create a rule where three balls is a walk as long as all three were correct calls? I can’t wait for more dumb rules next year just to see how low we can go
What are the rules you don’t like this year?
I’m a big fan of the pitch clock.
I still dislike the automatic walk without throwing a pitch. A teammate of mine in pony ball back in the day hit a three run oppo taco when they were trying to walk him because it wasn’t far enough off the plate and he wanted to hit.
Maybe implement some accountability with the umpires union. Bad umpires get training or get demoted.
O great baseball Gods, how have we forsaken thee?
What have we done?
We cut the Maggi
Leadoff batters who go out of the zone to hit pop ups piss me off
Nats game at home is in rain delay, any word on this game?
I’ve seen recent photos on Twitter and it looks all good to go
Thanks JD,
Happy Ro Day Y’all!!! Here is to being hopefull that good Ro is on the mound tonight!!
Good results for Ro today!
I find myself losing hope that Contreras is gonna be good this year, he is almost down to one serviceable pitch.
I’m hoping the team gets a more reliable and talented starting rotation in the next year or two to move Contreras into being a dominant leverage situation reliever in front of Bednar.
They are just sitting on sliders, doing the same to Oviedo, league adjusted ball in our court.
I get to listen to the O’s telecast for this series (which is a good thing, I’m so done with Walker, Young and Capps). Ben McDonald is a color analyst for the O’s and that reminded me he was a RHP drafted 1-1 back in 1989. There’s remarkably a lot of similarities to Skenes. He went to LSU. He’s 6’7″. He had a power fastball in upper 90’s. He had great success in college and on a U.S. Olympic team. But here’s the kicker……he was drafted in August of 89 and he made his MLB debut in Sept. 89! No messin’ around, he had the goods, a great franchise like the O’s didn’t waste any time. In fact his rookie season of 1990 was his best season of his career….a 2.43 era, 1.037 whip, 3.58 FIP and 157 ERA+ in 118 IP.
Although he was never a star, he pitched 7+ very good years amassing 21 bWAR and a 3.91 era before a shoulder injury ended his career. I would take this from Skenes, although I believe his ceiling is even higher. Skenes for #1 -1.
Big Ben is really enjoyable in the booth
Nice career as a player as well
agree on color analysts: Walk and the Rock for me, however, I prefer an everyday player for 1-1