The Pirates offense finally showed up in Colorado and led the Bucs to an 8-6 win over the Rockies to avoid the sweep. Bryan Reynolds and Nick Gonzales both homered in this one as the Pirates ripped 13 hits and needed all eight runs as the bullpen was tasked with covering six innings after Jared Jones left the game after being hit by a line drive. The bullpen gave up five runs, but held the lead and the Pirates move back to .500 at 39-39. Tyler and Doug recapped this one on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti’s Bros. You can watch/listen here:

Here’s my 3 takeaways from this big win…

BRey is Awesome

Bryan Reynolds had that quote early on in spring when all the hitters arrived to Bradenton and he was asked if he worked on anything in the offseason, he stated that he “needed to fix my swing…so I fixed it.” Well, he sure looks like he accomplished that!

Last year he was worth just 1.3 bWAR and already this season he’s at 3.0 bWAR. His big three-run home run Sunday gave the Pirates an 8-1 lead and was his 11th home run of the season and his 51st RBI through 78 games. He’s played in every game this season and he’s pacing for just over 100 RBIs. His on-base percentage is at .400 which would be the highest of his career. His OPS currently is .884 which would be his second best of his career. Reynolds certainly fixed his swing and he’s having one of the best seasons of his career at age 31. And with a lineup that’s sorely missing Oneil Cruz and Konnor Griffin right now, Reynolds continues to rake and produce out of the three hole. He single-handily bailed the Pirates out of the second game in the A’s series with his four hits and two home runs. All this is to say that BRey is awesome.

Losing JJ Again Would Be a Problem

TJ Rumfield hit a Jared Jones offering back at him in the bottom of the 3rd inning that hit Jones in the arm/elbow area, the ball went to Nick Gonzales who threw on to first for the final out of the third inning, but Jones ran off yelling into his glove clearing upset and in some pain. It didn’t look good for a pitcher that had just got back an MLB mound for the first time since September 2024 after a UCL surgery. Here’s the video thanks to Platinum Key:

Early reports state the x-rays were negative, which is good news because losing another solid pitcher would be a problem for this team.

This team’s strength was supposed to be the starting pitching headed into the year, but currently they are very thin on that front. The bulk of the rotation: Paul Skenes, Braxton Ashcraft, Bubba Chandler, Mitch Keller, Jared Jones and Carmen Mlodzinski have done fine, but beyond that it’s rough. Wilber Dotel was up for a little bit and excelled in a piggybacking role in the bullpen, but then went to the IL. Jose Urquidy pitched in April before being sent down after less than stellar results, Tom Harrington hasn’t been good in Indy, same with Hunter Barco plus he’s banged up and visiting team doctors Monday, Noah Davis has a 4.81 ERA, Antwone Kelly has struggled in the rotation at Indy, Mike Clevinger didn’t even start for Indy and he’s on the IL as well. Losing Jones again would hurt this team where all this pitching depth that had potential has seemingly run out. And obviously if he missed time, Mlodzinski would head back to the rotation but pulling from a bullpen that’s already struggling all season is not the most ideal situation. So with the initial images being negative, that’s good news and let’s hope it’s nothing broken and Jones doesn’t miss anything more than maybe a start.

Was this Santana’s Last Appearance with the Bucs?

I wanted to commend the bullpen in this game…I really did. They had to cover six innings of a 2-1 game before the insurance runs hit and so far it was looking great. Yohan Ramirez came out and tossed two scoreless frames with three strikeouts. Evan Sisk followed that up with two scoreless innings of his own and by that point the game was 8-1 thanks to BRey and the offense. Then Don Kelly called upon Dennis Santana to pitch in an 8-1 game knowing full well what happened last year at Coors. At least I hoped he remembered that awful game from last year! This outing went about as expected. Single, single, three-run bomb to Rumfield. Suddenly, it was 8-4. Kelly left him in and he did record the next three outs, but his ERA is now at 5.23. Is this the last of Santana? The Pirates traded Joey Bart last week to acquire old friend Hunter Stratton. With the team in Colorado, Stratton reported to Triple-A Indy, but I expect Stratton to join the team in Pittsburgh sometime this week. Dotel also is on the way back as he threw a bullpen and they’re looking to have him on a rehab outing so he should be back sooner than later. Someone is going to be sent down or DFA and Santana has sadly just lost it in less than three months this season. I wonder if it’s the last we’ll see of him in the black and gold.