The NS9 Report

Welcome to this week’s NS9 Report that starts with a programming change. Previously, the NS9 Report was a look at the upcoming week and what was going on with this Pirates team and the top three things I was looking forward to seeing or finding out with the club for the upcoming week. But I’ve decided to change this weekly post up. Don’t worry, you’ll still be getting the NS9 Report each week on Monday morning, but it’s going to be a more extensive look at the Pirates.

Instead of just looking ahead, I’ll be recapping the week that was and getting you caught up with things you may have missed from the past week as well as talking about the upcoming week and still feature things I’m looking for. I’ll also be sharing interesting facts, stats, highlights or posts that I saw throughout the week and sort of present it to you in a newsletter kind of feel. The NS9 Report will be your one stop shop for everything Pirates from the previous week and the look ahead. I’m excited to get started with the new format and let’s dive right into that now…

RECAPPING THE WEEK THAT WAS

Too Many Lefties
The Pirates left Cleveland off a big series win that could have easily been a sweep, went into Yankee Stadium, lost that series and then lost a pivotal showdown with the Cubs at home to finish 2-4 on the week. The bats went away for most of the week too as the Bucs went on a terrible run of facing a ton of lefties. They saw a string of four lefties that included Ryan Weathers, Max Fried, Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga. Not only does this team struggle against left-handed pitching, but they basically have no shot against Shota:

Just one earned run in 38 innings is unheard of, it’s incredible. And while Imanaga has been a solid MLB pitcher since coming over from Japan in 2024, he’s hardly been dominant sporting a career 3.40 ERA/4.28 FIP in 75 starts. Yet the Pirates just can’t figure out a way to get to Shota. So naturally the Pirates lost all four of those games against lefties and the only two games they won were against righties and both were former Pirates! The Pirates scored three off of Gerrit Cole despite him striking out 11 and then they ripped Jameson Taillon to the tune of seven earned runs Sunday in an 8-7 win that avoided a sweep by the Cubs. At one point, the Pirates had gone 32 innings without an extra-base hit. That ended in the 2nd inning on Sunday when Esmerlyn Valdez clubbed his 14th homer of the season.

Honestly, watching last week unfold it seemed a lot worse than a 2-4 record. Maybe that was because the Cubs beat the hell out of the Pirates 11-0 on Paul Skenes Day or maybe because they were close to being swept and going 1-5 on the week, but the team is still right there in the wildcard race and there’s plenty of baseball to go.

Shawn Ross 1st MLB Homer
Pretty neat moment for Shawn Ross on Sunday afternoon as he recorded not only his first hit, first RBI, but notched his first Major League homer as he belted one to deep left off Taillon:

Ross is up here for catching depth with injuries to Endy Rodriguez and Rafael Flores and no one was expecting that from the 26-year-old rookie but he hit a no doubter that would have been out of every ballpark in the Majors. With his first start at catcher on Sunday, he becomes the Pirates 5th player to play catcher this season joining Endy, Flores, Henry Davis and the previously-traded Joey Bart.

Ke!
Speaking of improbable home runs that defy belief, take a look at our ol’ friend Ke’Bryan Hayes on Sunday…

Hayes hitting just his third home run this season against the Cardinals helping the Reds to a win over those Cardinals and pushing the Pirates back into third place…we will take it! By the way, Hayes has an OPS+ of 21. Yikes!

News & Notes

Bullpen Help Anyone?
We’ve been saying it for weeks now. That Ben Cherington needs to get on the phone and make a trade happen to help this bullpen ASAP. To date, he’s made some trades but it’s more dumpster diving than anything else as two of the relief arms he’s acquired were just DFA’d by their club.

Cherington has traded for three relief arms so far this season and that’s Hunter Stratton, Brandon Eisert and Ron Marinaccio (or as Jim calls him Meatball Ron…not good). While it’s very small sample size, those three have not helped at all:

A 10.80 ERA in 8.1 innings. Not good, folks, not good. Marinaccio was DFA’d by the Padres, Stratton by the Braves and Eisert was pretty much on his way out with the White Sox so I’m not sure what were expecting or what Ben Cherington was expecting for that matter. He needs to do better and go get some quality, proven arms and time is of the essence here.

Pirates Did Make a Trade Sunday
Speaking of trades and players who were DFA’d, the Pirates did make a small deal on Sunday:

The Pirates signed Jose Urquidy in February to a 1-year, $1.5M deal as a potential 5th starter/bullpen depth option. He beat out Mike Clevinger for a roster spot in spring training and made the Opening Day roster, but it did not go well. He pitched five games out of the pen to the tune of an 8.53 ERA in just 6.1 innings. He went to Triple-A, hit the IL at one point and then was actually pitching much better in Indianapolis over the past month. I’m not going to harp on this deal too much. It just didn’t work out with Urquidy, but with all the issues the Pirates have had finding relievers to get outs consistently, I thought we would see Urquidy get a second shot here soon. Or at least make a start or two to help with inning limits to young starters like Bubba Chandler, Jared Jones or Braxton Ashcraft. But guess not. Urquidy goes to the White Sox and get a 21-year-old pitcher who’s in rookie ball.

Top Pick Signs
It took a while, but the Pirates signed their first round pick (5th overall) Derek Curiel to an under slot deal.

Curiel spent the weekend at PNC Park, they had a presser announcing the signing and then he made his rounds which included the broadcast booth with Greg Brown. It was funny to hear him say he looks up to his friend Konnor Griffin even though Curiel is older than him. Curiel was a college bat, but just shows how far along Griffin is making it to the Majors as young as he did at the age of 19. Curiel slots in at number 95 on Baseball America’s most updated Top 100 Prospects list. We’ll see soon where and when his pro career begins as he starts on his journey to the Major Leagues.

The Upcoming Week

D-Backs and Reds on Deck
The Pirates are still in the thick of the NL wildcard race, tied with the Nationals and one game behind the Diamondbacks for the last wildcard spot. Well that’s perfect because the D-Backs are coming to town for a three-game series starting Monday. Some are saying it’s the biggest series in the past decade. I mean sure, but basically every series from here on out is huge and each one will just get bigger. Here’s the pitching probables for this huge series courtesy of Dominic Campbell:

At least we only face one lefty in this series. The Pirates bats should be able to get to Kelly and Pfaadt. It’s a big series and they get them at home. After this series, the Pirates head back on the road in what may be the roadtrip of the season. Eight games against two division rivals. They’ll play four against the Reds Thursday through Sunday and then head right to Milwaukee for four against the first-place Brewers. No off days anywhere in sight too. This is a massive stretch of games coming up. The Pirates continue to hang around in the wildcard race, but they’re also running out of time and need to take advantage soon. Even during this tough stretch of games, this is a week against two teams that you should be able to handle.

A quick reminder that anything can happen though in the wildcard race with a prolonged winning streak or losing streak because this is totally something the Pirates would do:

Trade Deadline
You could say this is the biggest week of the Pirates season. Not just for the seven crucial games that are coming up this week, but because it’s the MLB trade deadline as well. The deadline is Monday, August 3 at 6:00PM ET. That means this is the last week for trades. This is the last chance to significantly improve this bullpen. We’ve been yelling for Cherington to improve this bullpen since about May and he’s yet to make an impact move besides the little moves he’s made off the scrap heap that I mentioned above. It’s time to get the job done and actually improve the pen. He literally can’t wait any longer, this is the last week he can find a trade partner. They likely also need a starting pitcher as well.

I’m interested to see what happens over the next week, what trades they’ll make…if they do go aggressive like a report had said they would. Will they add payroll in the process? Or will they just continue to go small and not really improve anything? I am worried that this team just has too many holes to all fill at the deadline. One quality relief arm is not going to be enough for this team. They need at least two, if not three relief arms and they could also benefit from picking up an MLB starter as well. You could also argue that they need a right-handed bat that can play strictly against lefties and help Esmerlyn Valdez out as someone else that can hit southpaws so the Pirates aren’t just throwing a game away when they face a lefty. Is it too many holes to fill in a week? Probably. Will Cherington mortgage the future to get someone like Mason Miller or even Luke Weaver? I doubt Mr. Conservative will do that, but we will find out in a week’s time. I’m sure this will be my main topic on next week’s NS9 Report.

Horwitz and Endy Returning Soon?
We need it. Endy Rodriguez made two rehab starts at Triple-A Indianapolis on Friday and Saturday and is on his way back. Meanwhile, Spencer Horwitz is at Single-A Bradenton doing his rehab and he’s play three games already and homered on Saturday. Both could be activated as soon as today. What a boost Horwitz could be to this roster. He’s been out since June 24 with a hamstring strain and was hitting .280/.386/.455 for a 130 OPS+. The man is a tough at-bat as he’s walked as many times as he’s struck out with 40 each on the season. He’ll be a welcomed addition to this lineup. Let’s hope both are back and ready to go at some point this week.

More NS9

We Have an App!
If you haven’t downloaded the new North Shore Nine app, shame on you for six weeks! But you can correct that wrong by downloading it here. The app has live Pirates scores, all of our videos, podcasts, blog articles from Neil and I and you can earn points to become a top fan to win monthly prizes, live chat throughout the day and during game. Come join the NS9 community and let us know what you think of the app. We listen to all the feedback.

That’s all I have for this week’s NS9 Report. Until next week, let’s get some legit bullpen arms and win some games.