For the first time since September 26, 2024, the Pittsburgh Pirates will play baseball at PNC Park.
The Pirates, who opened their season with six consecutive games in Florida, open their home slate with the New York Yankees on Friday, beginning a three-game series with the 2024 American League Pennant winner. Last year, Pittsburgh’s home opener was against another AL East team, the Baltimore Orioles, losing 5-2 to Baltimore.
Pittsburgh enters this matchup looking for their first series win of 2025, dropping three of four to the Marlins on opening weekend and immediately following that performance up with a series loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, salvaging the final game of the series after a gem outing from ace pitcher Paul Skenes.
The Yankees opened their campaign hosting the Milwaukee Brewers, who they had no issues with, outscoring the Brew Crew 36-12 over three games. Arizona gave the Bronx Bombers some issues though, defeating New York in the first two games of the series before the Yankees stormed back for victory in the final set.
Let’s take a look at what we’ll see go down on the North Shore for opening weekend.
All rise, baseball is firmly back, and so is Aaron Judge.
Judge is arguably the best hitter in all of baseball, and he’s proving it early on once again, hitting four home runs through the Yankees first five games, including a three home run outing versus the Brewers in the Yankees second game of the season.
Judge currently possesses a .417/.481/1.167 slash with 26 total bases and 15 RBIs, so the Pirates will have to find a way to contain one of baseball’s best players, especially with two left-handed starters going in this series for the Buccos.
Oneil Cruz is aiming for a breakout season in 2025, and despite some defensive struggles in center field, the bat looks primed for a pretty good season out of the gate.
Cruz has already went yard twice this year, once in each series, posting team highs in home runs and RBIs. He’s also been lethal on the base paths so far, stealing six bags, which led all of MLB entering Thursday.
Max Fried is listed as the only left-handed starter in this series for the Yankees, so Cruz should have some solid chances at success versus starters Marcus Stroman and Will Warren, as well as a Yankees bullpen that has seen its own share of blow ups so far this season.
Jasson Dominguez has been one of the more hyped up prospects for the Yankees for quite some time now, but despite the hype, his game hasn’t quite caught up to it just yet.
Dominguez has 20 at-bats so far in 2025, posting a .250/.348/.450 slash with just two-extra base hits. He has also struck out six times, so the swing and miss is there despite three walks.
The Yankees are relying on Dominguez to be a major piece in the outfield moving forward, he just has to find a way to put it all together.
Bryan Reynolds has usually been the catalyst for the offense in his time with Pittsburgh, and with the offense struggling out of the gate, its no wonder that Reynolds is having his own struggles.
April is usually kind to Reynolds, it is early, remember that, but through 31 at-bats, Reynolds has just one extra base hit alongside a .194/.242/.226 slash. Reynolds also has a team-high nine strikeouts with just two free passes.
The Pirates offense desperately needs Reynolds to be at his best for any chance of success, and seeing as Oneil Cruz and Isiah Kiner-Falefa have been the only other true threats, one would hope this Yankees series is the start of better play for B-Rey.
Key Injuries
Yankees:
CF Brennan Davis: 7-day IL
SP Allan Winans: 7-day IL
RP Ian Hamilton: 15-day IL
RP Devin Williams is expected to be back from the Paternity List
SP Gerrit Cole is expected to miss all of 2025
Pirates:
2B Nick Gonzales: 10-day IL
1B Specer Horwitz: 10-day IL
RP Tanner Rainer: 7-day IL
SP Jared Jones: 60-day IL
Team Notes
The Pirates are 13-23 all time versus the Yankees and Pittsburgh is 8-9 all time at home versus the Yankees.
The Pirates have won a series versus the Yankees just four times in 10 tries, including the postseason.
Out of the gate this season, the Pirates have faced 7 straight right handed starting pitchers. Given that the 13-man position player pool consists of 6 who can hit left-handed, one would presume a fairly equal split on both sides of the plate.
Much of those lefties include the power threats of Oneil Cruz and Jack Suwinski but what is the strategy when they do have to face lefties this season?
Last year, the Pirates ranked 21st in wRC+ against LHP at 93, falling behind the offensive-deficient Mariners and Angels and just above divisional-rival Cardinals.
They didn’t make much of an attempt to improve in that regard this offseason. Adam Frazier batted .172 against lefties last year with a sub-.400 OPS over 31 plate appearances while Tommy Pham – a right-handed hitter, mind you – batted worse against lefties (.222) than righties (.256).
So what’s the plan, here?
Last season, only three Pirates posted a wRC+ of above 100 against LHP in a minimum of 40 plate appearances – and they did pretty great in those instances.
Given that Nick Gonzales is out of commission for the foreseeable future, we really only have two bats that fit this criteria.
Bart Darts
Joey Bart clubbed 5 of his 12 home runs last season against lefties while posting a ridiculous .996 OPS.
That said, he has a very short track record of limited success, has struggled early on this season and even against lefties where he appears to be at an advantage, he struck out at a higher rate than against righties (29.7% compared to 24.5%) and a lower walk rate (6.8% against 8.2%).
That’s not to say Bart won’t be one of the key pieces against lefties but I don’t think we can push all our chips in here.
Kelieve
Hayes, on the other hand, has a longer record of success to draw from here with 575 plate appearances against lefties and a cumulative .819 OPS in that time.
Across the board, Ke clearly excels with some clear splits as he is better across the board when facing southpaws.
There are not many scenarios where Hayes should be hitting near the top of the lineup as he still works to prove the 2020 success was more than a blip on the radar but expect them to try getting him as many ABs as possible in these matchups.
The New Guy?
New acquisition, Alexander Canario, has limited MLB experience but has excelled against lefties with 5 hits in 14 career at-bats but also crushed them in AAA last season with a .286/.364/.597 line.
Additionally, Canario has pop in his bat that the team desperately needs with 18 minor league home runs over only 283 plate appearances in 2024.
As of this writing, we haven’t even seen Canario don the black and gold but, given the potential upside in the splits, I imagine this would be a niche for the recent pickup.
Ahead of their first southpaw opposing pitcher today, keep an eye on these three to hopefully impact the game – because the rest of this lineup sure won’t.
4-3-25 – By Corey Shrader – @CoreyShrader on X/Josh Booth – @bridge2buctober on X
What Is The Torpedo Bat?
If you are a fan of baseball it is almost impossible that you have not heard of the Torpedo Bat by now. Starting in the opening series it was reported that several New York Yankees players were utilizing a modified, but legal, type of bat labeled a “Torpedo Bat.” The Yankees went on a massive power surge in their opening series slugging 15 homeruns and as a team slashing .333/.427/.804 with a gaudy .497 wOBA & 233 wRC+.
Side by side comparation of Torpedo Bat & traditional barrel. (photo credit X user @KJS_4 )
So What Is the Deal?
One look at the difference in barrel distribution and you will notice the relocation of the most dense wood closer to the label. The purpose of this is, as explained in a terrific “X” thread by Penn State Professor of Acoustics, Dan Russell (read full thread here), is to move the center of mass closer to the hands allowing for increased balance, bat control, and swing speed.
In theory, this relocation of center of mass should generate higher quality of contact on a more consistent basis for the hitter. Now here is where it is important to present and define the common Statcast terminology that I believe to be applicable to these proposed benefits.
A hitter’s ability to square up a BBE is the individual player making maximally effective hard contact on any given pitch. There are no exit velocity or launch angle qualifiers attached to this metric. There is positive correlation to higher Square Up% to higher productive outcomes to a BBE.
Sweet Spot% (SwSp%)
SwSp% is expressed by a percentage of a hitter’s batted balls meeting a minimum of 95 mph exit velocity & a launch angle between 8-32 degrees. Higher SwSp% also equates to more expected productive outcomes for a BBE.
Barrel% (Brl%)
Brl% applies to any BBE that combines an exit velocity with a minimum of 98mph + a launch angle of 26-31 degrees of launch angle. The higher the exit velocity, the wider the range of applicable launch angle becomes. Statcast suggests that any BBE that qualifies as a Barrel leads to a batting average of .500 & a slugging percentage of 1.500.
Swing Speed/Fast Swing Rate
Most simply, the higher the average swing speed and higher percentage of fast swing rate is, the capacity for production on any BBE rises.
Blasts
Finally we come to Blasts. The combination of the many above features. To qualify as a blast a BBE must combine bat speed & square up%. In turn, the resulting contact will also end up being both barreled and/or be sweet spot contact.
What Are We Seeing?
As of writing we are seeing the Torpedo bat become a hot button issue among fans as more and more players are beginning to use them in game action. Truth be told, with the amount of BBEs the confirmed users of the Torpedo have compiled are too small to be trustworthy. There are early returns for some such as Anthony Volpe& Cody Bellinger that are encouraging proof of efficacy.
2024 to 2025 Relevant Rate Comparison
Relevant Stat Comparison: 24-2025
These are all on their face, impressive results. I think that this is going to be an incredibly fascinating experiment to continue tracking in 2025. It must be mentioned however, that the BBE sample size is extremely small (8,9,11 respectively). Generally these rates do not begin to become stable until after 50-70 BBEs.
Should The Pirates Be Exploring The Torpedo?
In my opinion, yes. To state it in its most simple form; there is no downside to seeing more Pirates experiment with these in game action. It has been reported that Oneil Cruz has used one in play and it should be expected to see more very soon. It is ironic that Cruz is probably the one Buc that doesn’t really “need” to see these metrics increase to be a great producer. In the early going for the Yankees hitters deploying the Torpedo most all relevant metrics to increased production have trended up. Despite the sample size being too significant to draw firm conclusions, there is little downside that is observable either.
Observing the way these trendlines continue with more BBEs piling up will ultimately help tell the tale on the Torpedo bat’s effectiveness. It is also worth noting that regardless of there being hard, verified proof players are buying in already. For a Pittsburgh club that is…offensively challenged this is an easy choice in my opinion. In professional sports there is a cliché that they are “copycat leagues.” This situation is no different. You either catch up or get left behind. For many around the league, it is time to start running.
The Pirates desperately need some pop in their offense as the bats have gone completely cold. After scoring just one run so far this series and only mustering a single extra base hit, can they break through against the final starter, Ryan Pepiot?
Pepiot, part of the return in the Tyler Glasnow trade with the Dodgers, was the Rays opening day starter this season after posting a 3.60 ERA over 130 innings in his first year with Tampa Bay. He faced the Pirates last year, lasting just 3.1 innings as he allowed 2 runs off 3 hits, walking 4 and striking out only 3 batters.
I talked about Pepiot in my preview ahead of that game so let’s focus on what he looks like right now:
Here’s all 16 of Ryan Pepiot’s whiffs from yesterday⬇️
That was maybe the best I’ve ever seen his changeup look, and his other 3 pitches did their part as well. pic.twitter.com/kJyeusDVLL
In his first start of the season against the Rockies, he pitched 6 strong innings: 6 hits, 1 earned run, 1 walk and 8 strikeouts. His changeup was decidedly better for him in that game, getting some NASTY whiffs.
He works the mid-80s changeup as his primary secondary off his mid-90s fastball, adding in a high-80s slider, low-90s cutter and low-80s infrequent curve but primarily is fastball/changeup and tunnels them well.
Despite being “just” 6’3, Pepiot has well above-average extension which makes his good velocity play up and the time frame for hitters to make decisions shorter, leading to excellent whiff and strikeout rates, ranking among the tops in MLB in generating swings-and-misses.
The key for Pirates hitters will be identifying pitches as early as possible and being more aggressive at the plate and putting the ball in play.
As a team, the Pirates rank 8th highest in strikeout rates (26.6%) and 6th lowest batting average (.189). That’s not gonna cut it and it needs to improve if they have any chance of getting back in the win column.
I felt like the Pirates and David Bednar were coming to a head, but it was very hard to convince myself that they’d actually use his options and demote him to AAA.
Thankfully, they did.
Because it’s the right move. For the player, for the organization, for everyone.
I’m not going to go through all his numbers or try to explain why he might be salvageable, or they should just move on, instead I’m going to simply say David Bednar gave the Pirates 3.5 very good years as a high leverage bullpen arm, and in the grand scheme of things, that’s pretty long for a closer who isn’t likely in the HOF discussions we’ll have some day.
Jason Grilli gave the Pirates 3.5 really good years. Mark Melancon, yup you guessed it, 3.5 good years, excellent years actually and he probably had more to give.
Matt Capps delivered 3 solid years too.
See, it’s fairly common for the shelf life of a leverage reliever to expire, and when it does expire, it goes quickly like a banana on the fridge, you have X amount of time from purchase to bin.
I know what Bednar did last year, I know what he started this year like, but I also know what he did for this club both on and off the field as the local kid who came good.
It’s easy for fans to hate players in the moment, but given time, I think most of us will look back fondly on the Renegade, you know, unless they bring him back up regardless of what he’s changed, improved, figured out in AAA and he bombs again.
As time passes, we’ll have plenty of time to shoulda coulda woulda this to death as it comes to trading him and when they should have. The urgent matter now is, this team put all their closer chips in this basket, and now, they’re out in the snow with no shoes.
I’m sure we’ll have a lot more on this as they start to figure out who does what for this team.
On another, much happier note, Thomas Harrington makes his debut tonight for the Pirates in Tampa. The 79th ranked prospect on Baseball’s Top 100 list and the Pirates number 3 is mature beyond his years.
The 23 year old North Carolina native is a bit of a surprise. Almost all the buzz has been around Bubba Chandler, and from a purely stuff perspective, I get it, but Chandler is not as polished as Harrington.
His mix is mature, his demeanor is mature and more than anything, he represents yet another Pirates number 1 pick (36th comp) who makes it to the league and starts a game for the Bucs.
He’s had really good numbers just about everywhere he’s ever pitched, never having a professional season where he posted an ERA north of 3.53.
He won’t blow anyone away with velocity, instead opting for pinpoint command and a willingness to throw strikes with every pitch he offers, Harrington is a pitcher, not a thrower.
Enjoy, this is arguably the best trade they’ve made since Priester for Nick Yorke.
March was not a good start for the Pirates but as the calendar turns, could their luck turn as well? They’ll have to hope so as they face off against former Pirates first round draft pick, Shane Baz.
The 12th overall pick in the 2017 draft, Baz was the “add-in” piece as part of the infamous 2018 trade with the Rays that sent Chris Archer to Pittsburgh and Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows to Tampa Bay.
Baz was moved swiftly through the system of his new organization, making his MLB debut on September 20, 2021 after just 236 minor league innings pitched, posting a 3.06 ERA over that time with 278 strikeouts.
He made three starts for the Rays following his promotion with a 2.06 ERA through 13.1 innings, as well as pitching one game in the postseason for Tampa, and looked poised to take firm hold of a rotation spot heading into 2022.
Unfortunately, elbow pain led to an arthroscopic surgery in late-March 2022, resulting in an extended delay to the start of his season.
He was activated in June but struggled, eventually getting demoted before an eventual Tommy John surgery that September, which would eliminate his 2023 season.
He returned last year and made 24 starts between Triple-A Durham and Tampa Bay, posting a combined 3.43 ERA with 113 strikeouts across 118.2 innings pitched.
Baz has a prototypical 4-pitch mix in his repertoire: fastball, slider, changeup and curve.
His velocity is down a tick from prior to his surgery but still hits mid-90s on his fastball running up in the zone. He drops down in the zone on his off-speed stuff, sitting high-80s with both the slider and changeup and low-80s on his curve.
Fastball, naturally, has been his main pitch averaging 48% of his total pitches last season. He works in the slider/curve as supplemental offerings against righties and curve/changeup when facing lefties as he tries to work inside on hitters and prevent extension – because when hitters make contact against Baz, it’s typically pretty loud.
His average exit velocity of 90.5 MPH was the 10th highest among pitchers with as many innings as he had last year while his BABIP (.229) and batting average against (.198) both are likely unsustainable given his middling strikeout numbers and below average ground ball rate.
Bucs batters will need to crowd the plate and look for elevated fastballs to drive.
Last season, opposing hitters batted .252 against the offering with average exit velocity of 92.7 MPH.
The team will get a jolt of energy with Thomas Harrington debuting today. Back him up with some big offense. Jump on Baz and build a lead early so you’re not stuck battling a tough bullpen.
The Pittsburgh Pirates made an addition to their roster on Monday night, acquiring 24-year old outfielder Alexander Canario from the New York Mets for cash considerations, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com
Canario was designated for assignment prior to Opening Day by the Mets, who acquired him from the Chicago Cubs back in February after Chicago designated him for assignment.
The young outfielder began his professional career with the San Francisco Giants as an international free agent back in 2016, and was eventually traded to the Cubs in the Kris Bryant trade in 2021 that all but ended the Cubs run with their core of Javier Baez, Bryant and Wilson Contreras.
Although the multiple DFA’s may rub some away from Canario, he has showcased some pop in his time in the minor leagues, posting a MiLB career .847 OPS with 109 HRs and 366 RBIs in nearly 2000 at-bats, with 37 of those home runs coming in 2022. Canario has only seen 42 at-bats in his MLB career, posting an .857 OPS with two homers and eight runs batted in.
In Triple-A, Canario’s slash line indicates he could eventually find success in the Majors, owning a .252/.345/.521 line in three different stints at the Triple-A level. Defensively, Canario was mainly used as a left fielder in his time with the Cubs, but he has experience playing all three outfield positions, as well as serving as a designated hitter from time to time.
Canario, like many DFA candidates around the beginning of the year, is out of minor league options, meaning any team he goes to, in this case Pittsburgh, must place him on their active roster, thus creating a conversation as to who will make way for Canario’s arrival.
Pittsburgh will have to make a 40-man roster move, and it is expected that Jared Jones will head to the 60-day injured list at some point, seeing as he is unable to throw for six weeks due to a Spring Training injury to his throwing arm.
With outfielders Bryan Reynolds, Oneil Cruz, Jack Suwinski and Tommy Pham firmly in their roster spots, one could only assume that Ji-hwan Bae would be a prime candidate to make way for Canario, seeing as Bae has seen numerous struggles at the MLB level, is not the caliber player of the outfielder previously mentioned and has minor league options.
It’s unclear what kind of role Canario could insert himself into with Pittsburgh, but the move is low-risk, potentially high reward, seeing as Canario is still very young and has plenty of room for growth. With plus raw power and a track record of a high OPS throughout his time in the minors, the Pirates may find lightning in a bottle here, but expect nothing more than a bench bat that could see outings in favor of Tommy Pham in left field from time to time, or be the designated hitter on days that Oneil Cruz needs the day off.
Nevertheless, Canario will be a Pittsburgh Pirate before the second contest between the Pirates and Rays on Tuesday and the necessary moves will follow, so, welcome to Pittsburgh Alexander Canario.
The Pirates had a brutal series in Miami to open the season, and it’s about to get harder as they head to Tampa to face the Rays before coming home this week.
As we sit here, they still have a chance to come home with a .500 record, but the way they’ve played we’ll be lucky to see anything better than 1-6.
Now, let’s go!
1. Oneil Cruz is Not THE Issue
I’m saying it plainly like this because while I recognize there are things Oneil Cruz doesn’t do well, times he isn’t locked in, areas he can improve on, I can also draw up a list of the top 15-20 issues this team is dealing with and I might not even add Cruz to what I come up with.
There seems to be a contingent that wants him punished, or “held accountable” for his miscues. Miscues like not running as hard as he can here and there. Misplaying a ball hit over his head. Making a poor decision to try to throw out a runner instead of hitting the cutoff man.
I understand the sentiment, but in practice, I’m not sure I understand what you want.
His batting average stinks, but in 17 plate appearances he’s walked 6 times, vs only 3 strike outs. His OPS is at .925. He’s already stolen 4 bases.
This team struggles to score runs. So you want me to what, sit him?
Ummm Have you seen the rest of the lineup? Did you see on Sunday what it looks like without him?
I don’t think the Pirates have the luxury to play hard ass with this guy. Sorry, they’re like 6 or 7 solid MLB hitters away from being able to bench someone like Cruz for not running 100% once or throwing home thinking he could get an out.
That doesn’t mean someone coaching shouldn’t go up and tell him what he’s done wrong, or point out to him what he needs to improve, or incentivize him to go all out all the time, it just means what some fans see as accountability, is actually a lot more what I call self sabotage.
If you want to bench Cruz to teach him a lesson, I’d ask, isn’t it more important that he plays and learns real lessons in the field? The sun won’t rise on a day this team can afford to not have his bat in the lineup, even as a wholly imperfect player. A lot of his problems stem from barely playing outfield and the team did him no favors by not having him play out there a lot this Spring, you know, in the practice games.
You can bench Cruz and have your accountability when you show me 6 guys in this lineup that will make it not kill your chances to win while you’re supposedly schooling the guy.
Should he be better? Yeah. At the plate, I think we’ve seen real growth and patience to show pitchers if you don’t pitch to me, I’ll walk, happily, and I’ll wind up at second base before you can blink too. It’s not his fault there aren’t a lot of guys who are going to finish the job and get him home.
In the field, he’s played 27 games out there after never playing anything but SS on his entire trip up and MLB career. This takes time and he may never be better than average out there, but he runs like a deer, has a canon for an arm and is worth a much longer look before we decide.
And he’s not dumb. He likely speaks at least one more language than you do, his mistakes come from overestimating his ability at times, letting himself get defocused on occasion and inexperience. Not stupidity.
If you want to see this kid tank, make the game something he doesn’t enjoy doing. Fun is his motor, go ahead and dump water on it, see if it combusts.
2. Is Endy Starting at 1B and backup Catcher Sustainable?
Set aside how he played. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s not really why I’m concerned here. He’s been out of the game for a year, I expected this to be difficult and as to first base, he just found out the day before games started that he would be shuffling over there. I have a bit more patience than that, even as it’s not been good.
What I mean here is, I know he’s not hitting, I think he will improve. I know he’s not been great in the field, I think he’ll improve here too.
I say all that because my issue is more about all the roster stuff that has to happen to make this position work for the team.
In order for Endy to start at first, he needs to play there I’d say 4-5 times a week. That means Joey Bart needs to start at catcher 4-5 times a week too. Now, Endy probably can’t play 7 days a week, so if he’s going to have to play catcher 2-3 times so Bart can sit or DH, that’s going to make getting Endy at 1B those 4-5 times difficult, if not impossible.
The options at first until Spencer Horwitz returns are Jared Triolo, and the recently recalled Emanuel Valdez. That can work, but with Endy not hitting, and his replacements not either, combined with the difficulty of finding ways to get rest for guys, I can’t see them getting awfully deep in the season with this setup.
This isn’t a call for Henry Davis or Jason Delay specifically, but the team simply won’t last like this. Using your backup catcher to start somewhere else on the surface seems like a nice way to stretch your bench a bit but it presents enough hurdles that eventually there has to be a payoff for it.
The way they’re doing it early on, they’ll wind up with both Endy and Bart having their tongues wagging by the end of April.
3. Yankees Cheater Bats?
Here’s the thing, it’s already been ruled to be legal.
In case you have somehow missed this story, here’s what they look like…
Now, they look weird, but the principle is rather simple. Examine your hitters, see where they wind up hitting the ball most often and move the barrel to that location.
Again, this meets the rules. Rules I’m sure we’ll see the game try to address, but they can’t change rules mid-season so these are likely here to stay for 2025.
That leaves everyone in baseball with a fairly simple choice in my mind, join them or get left behind.
If you’ve got a hitter who finds barrel 50% of the time, chances are they don’t need this and you’d do more harm than good. But if you’ve got a guy who hits everything off the label, this is a cheat code.
Now, if you’re a team that relies heavily on getting weak contact, umm, good luck. Swing and miss pitchers will do ok, contact or fly ball pitchers will likely pay the price.
As I understand it, any team can procure these bats, they aren’t more expensive, they’ll very likely remain legal all season. The only downside I can see for adopting this would be that it teaches your hitters bad habits as opposed to trying to help them find the barrel better via swing adjustments, so when you take it away, it could feel like yanking a carpet out from under your hitters.
If you found out someone invented a pill you could take that’s not a banned substance, but made you secrete a small amount of sticky stuff from your fingertips like Spiderman, good luck keeping any pitchers from taking it. This is just like that, minus the fear you’re turning into a mutant Spider.
Our team will have more on this later in the week, specifically how it might help or hurt certain Pirates players.
4. Major Changes Aren’t Possible Quite Yet
Unless there is an injury, players may not be recalled until they have been down for 15 days. Now, that’s different for some players. For instance, Kyle Nicolas was optioned on the 23rd, while Hunter Stratton wasn’t optioned until the 27th.
Now, that’s by rule. In other words, I can come up with other reasons why you might not want to react so quickly, but this one kinda ends the discussion for now. You might be able to claim David Bednar is injured, but you probably can’t claim he and Holderman and Bae and whomever else you want rid of all have phantom injuries.
Ji-Hwan Bae looked like crap when he played on Saturday. He had 4 at bats, and he struck out 3 of them. He pinch ran on Sunday and made 2 mistakes just there. Still, it’s 4 at bats. Is that enough to completely decide you were wrong? For fans, absolutely. For teams, not so much.
That certainly doesn’t mean you just keep using guys who aren’t performing. Meaning, just because it would be difficult to move David Bednar out and bring up a replacement, shouldn’t mean you have to use him as the closer.
I say all this because quite frankly when the Pirates decided they’re going to bump Paul Skenes to Wednesday and leave a TBA for Tuesday in the rotation, my brain started scrambling to how the team could address it and after I thought I had a hell of a plan or at least a list of possible ways they could go I saw Ethan Hullihen tweet out this rule and remind me I kinda forgot something super important before thinking this through.
Doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Just means it’s going to take someone being hurt, or “hurt”. Now if feelings being hurt is an injury, good chance Bednar is injured AF.
All that said, maybe stop trying to list off all the guys you want called up, at least for another week or so, the likelihood that they make more than one or two of these types of changes before then is very small.
5. The Offense Can’t Afford Sub-Par Bryan Reynolds
Everything we discuss this early in the season is going to suffer from the same issue, small sample size. The best thing I can do is to mention it often, because honestly you can’t really evaluate what you have if you’re going to be ready to make changes after 5, 10, even 25 at bats in this league. You’ll never find out what you have, you’ll never even find patterns to correct.
But plop this Marlins series into the middle of June, pretend these guys all have a full compliment of innings and at bats under their belts, the Pirates won’t win many series in which Bryan Reynolds has 18 at bats with 1 XBH, 5 K’s and a .578 OPS. They don’t have that kind of wiggle room.
Players are always going to have a down series here and there, and when it’s the first one, well, that sucks because it’s absolutely going to get blown up into something it probably isn’t. The scary thing about what Reynolds has done though in my eyes is put up those kind of numbers while the team he’s facing is clearly scared to death to pitch to the guy hitting behind him in Oneil Cruz. As we discussed, the guy is hitting .182, but he’s also been walked 6 times, has 4 stolen bases already and an OPS of .926.
So the Marlins were scared to death to let Oneil Cruz beat them, at least with his bat, and Bryan Reynolds helped make it possible by not being on base enough to force them to give him something to look at.
The Pirates are to blame for having so few hitters like this in the first place, a well documented issue, but that doesn’t change the fact that they turn into the Spanish translation for an American old muscle car, “Nova” AKA, Doesn’t Go when one of them isn’t doing the job.
Reynolds has seen pitches, he’s just not been on them the way he usually is and it’s really left a lot of the heavy lifting up to the guys we didn’t trust to lift.
Again, it’s not Bryan’s fault they haven’t had better backing Cruz up, but Andrew McCutchen and Jack Suwinski both have better numbers than him early on and it didn’t even make the Marlins consider changing their plan.
The players talked a bigger game than management before the season started, the potential of Reynolds and Cruz has to be the biggest reason for optimism on offense as currently constructed, and for that to play out in any fashion, BOTH have to be going.
3–31-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
You can’t win every game but you can’t lose every game either, hopefully. Sometimes, things don’t go as you plan and today’s opposing starter knows that all too well.
The Pirates head to the west side of the state to face the Tampa Bay Rays and Drew Rasmussen, who posted a 2.83 ERA over 28.2 innings last season in a multi-innings relief role but looks to return to starting games this year after injury temporarily derailed his career trajectory.
Drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 6th round of the 2018 MLB Draft, Rasmussen made his MLB debut on August 19, 2020, posting a 5.87 ERA over 15.1 innings with 21 strikeouts to 9 walks.
He was relegated to the bullpen to start the 2021 season before a May trade to the Rays as part of the return in the Willy Adames deal provided new opportunities for Rasmussen.
Over the remainder of 2021 and 2022 he made some tweaks and utilized that Tampa Bay pitcher magic to become a dominant force as he threw 205 innings over that time, posting a 2.72 ERA with 173 strikeouts to 44 walks.
He started the 2023 season strong, posting a 2.62 ERA over 8 starts, allowing zero runs scored in 5 of those outings, before suffering a flexor strain injury which required internal brace surgery and missing the rest of the 2023 campaign.
Ramussen returned in 2024 with a vengeance as he posted career best rates for strikeouts (30.2%), walks (5.2%), barreled balls (0%) and average exit velocity (86.2 MPH).
In fact, although it was a small sample size, Rasmussen was arguably the best reliever in MLB over that stretch.
Looking at his pitch mix, he offers a high-90s 4-seamer which can touch 100, a mid-90s sinker which aids in his well above-average ground ball rate (career 48.5%), a high-80s cutter with sharp break down and away from lefties and a mid-80s sweeper that he will typically deploy down and in against right-handed hitters.
Big thing for Pirates batters today is going to be looking for heat up in the zone, specifically if he hangs his sinker. Among his other three offerings last season, none had a bating average higher than .250 or a whiff rate under 30% but the sinker was hit at a .316 clip and batters swung and missed less than 17% of the time.
Staying on the hard stuff and spitting on the breaking balls falling down and out of the zone will be difficult but necessary for any measure of success against Ramussen. He has REALLY a good arsenal of pitches, pinpoint control and serious deception that could get him Cy Young votes by end of the year.
The Bucs remain in the Sunshine State for series two of the 2025 season – this time, to square off with the Tampa Bay Rays. While Pittsburgh is coming off of a frustrating series against the Marlins, Tampa Bay is fresh off of a 2-1 series win versus Colorado.
Colorado gave them a good fight in the opening series keeping each game close. The Pirates will be looking to rebound here, and Game 1 is an intriguing matchup of converted relief pitchers (Mlodzinski vs Rasmussen). All eyes will be on how Mlodzinski’s stuff can hold up to the rigors of a starting role whereas Rasmussen has undeniably good stuff but has rarely been able to remain on the mound long enough to prove his efficacy over the course of a Major League season.
Runs may be tough to come by in this series with pitching being a major strength of this Rays club. Fortunately for the Pirates they will have staff ace, Paul Skenes (currently slated for game 3), and that always takes a heavy burden off of the offense. Old friend Shane Baz will toe the rubber in Game 2 for Tampa Bay and though his Major League output has also been limited by injury his track record is strong with a career 3.38 ERA & 1.08 WHIP.
Can the Pirates post enough offense to hang with the Rays? Their bats were kept mostly in check by Colorado, but there is firepower lurking in the Tampa Bay lineup. One of the bigger tasks for the Bucs will be to get on the board early. The Rays feature a deep bullpen capable of making an impact on any game with flame throwers Mason Montgomery, Hunter Bigge, Edwin Uceta, & Pete Fairbanks.
Pirates:Oneil Cruz – Don’t be fooled by the batting average, Cruz is locked in at the dish. Currently boasting a 37.5/12.5 BB/K% ratio, .429 wOBA, & 185 wRC+, he has opened the season looking like a man on a mission in the batter’s box and on the basepaths. Oneil currently leads the league in stolen bases with 4.
Rays:Junior Caminero – The phenom has not put up gaudy production yet, but he has the look of an absolute terror. Boasting a hellacious 81 mph bat speed (tied with Oneil Cruz) that is the 100th percentile & an early average EV of 97mph, this youngster is primed to do damage. It is early going for his career, but the sky is the limit for what he can do on the diamond.
Pirates:Endy Rodriguez – In the very early going of game that count Endy has struggled to maintain his scorching hot Spring. Of course, the sample size is even smaller than that of Spring baseball, but he has not looked comfortable at the dish. He has shown quality patience at the plate (22.2 BB%) but has also been overmatched (44.4 K%). The Bucs will need him to get it going in a big way to help the cause.
Rays:Yandy Diaz – Diaz had a rough opening series going 1/9 thus far. He has been a consistent producer for the Rays in his tenure and will need to get it going again to help hang crooked numbers on the scoreboard.
Pittsburgh should be coming into this series with something to prove after a supremely disappointing opening series against a weak Miami team. This matchup with the Rays will provide them a chance at redemption. Let’s hope that they’re up to the task.
Similarly, Tampa Bay was pushed to the brink in each game with the Rockies. While they did come away with a series win, each win was hard fought. They too will be looking to prove themselves here. This should be a fun test for the Pirates. Let’s hope they answer some of the lingering questions and silence some of the doubts as well.
Steel City Pirates 