5-12-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
Look no further than the records. These two teams are polar opposites as to what they’ve produced so far in 2025, and bluntly, with the payroll disparity between the two, they absolutely should be.
This series should be a mismatch, but the Pirates never enter a series with Skenes and Keller going in which they should assume they can’t hang. Sure, that hasn’t been the case this season, but if we’re to believe the Don Kelly Era is a new day, lets also assume they rebound and perform a bit more toward their ceiling too.
5/12
Pirates: Paul Skenes – 3-4, 2.77 ERA, 47 K, 12 BB, 0.95 WHIP
Mets: David Peterson (L) – 2-2, 3.05 ERA, 36 K, 13 BB, 1.36 WHIP
5/13
Pirates: Mitch Keller – 1-4, 4.40 ERA, 35 K, 15 BB, 1.40 WHIP
Mets: Kodai Senga – 4-2, 1.16 ERA, 35 K, 17 BB, 1.16 WHIP
5/14
Pirates: Bailey Falter (L) – 2-3, 4.36 ERA, 31K, 13 BB, 1.13 WHIP
Mets: Clay Holmes – 5-1, 2.74 ERA, 44 K, 16 BB, 1.24 WHIP
Pirates: Joey Bart keeps hitting, well, at least for average. In his past 30 he’s hitting .299, getting on base at a .409 clip and here’s the rub, only slugging .392. He’s hot now, but adding slug, and even sacrificing some of these good numbers in the process could make him even more important in this lineup. 1 HR isn’t exactly an exciting number for someone who’s been in your cleanup spot most for most of the season.
Mets: Pete Alonso has been on fire just about all year long. In his past 30 games he’s hitting .315 with an on base percentage of .430 and a slugging percentage of .586 with 6 home runs. It took the Mets and Pete a long time to agree to terms this year, but it looks like both sides made the right call.
Pirates: Tommy Pham, and it doesn’t get much colder. In his past 30 games just a .179 Average, .262 OBP and .211 SLG with 30 K’s. Even if you’re one of the people claiming he isn’t getting lucky, his BABIP is only .253. He alone has left 56 men on base. He’s only got 23 total bases in 2025.
Mets: Luis Torrens, I guess. Truthfully, I could have easily, and for the first time ever not filled in this section for the Mets, they are firing on all cylinders, and anyone who plays significant time for them, well, they’re performing. Still, in his last 30, Torrens is hitting .247, OBP .313, SLG .425. All of which would probably have him hitting like 5th for the Bucs, but has him in the cold category for the Mets.
Pirates: The Pirates are going to get an influx very soon as Spencer Horwitz, Nick Gonzales, Endy Rodriguez, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Dauri Moreta all look to be down to weeks if not days depending on which one you discuss. Oneil Cruz and his lower back prevented him from playing Sunday, it’s classified as day to day, so let’s hope it’s not much longer.
Mets: Jose Siri, Sean Manaea, A.J. Minter, Paul Blackburn, Frankie Montas, Ronny Mauricio, Jesse Winker, Danny Young, Brooks Raley, and Luis Torrens left the game on 5-11 after taking a foul tip in a very sensitive area, but I’d anticipate him playing at some point in this series.
Notes
What’s really going to be interesting here is seeing how Don Kelly handles the pieces he has. For instance, he’s already decided Pham is a bench player, at least that’s how he used him in the Braves series. Interesting to see how that plays out. He’s been forced to use Gorski just about every day with the injury to Enmanuel Valdez.
As he starts to get guys back which should start to trickle back here over the next week or two, I’m curious how he uses them, how he changes the lineup, how he uses his bench. He’s not been shy about emptying his bench just about every game, and we’ll see how that progresses.
Steel City Pirates 