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:
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.
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