The NS9 Report is the start to your week. Posted bright and early every Monday morning, I’ll break down the three things that I’m looking for each week in Pirates land.

Big Test Coming Up with the Yankees
Things are starting to get real. The Pirates swept the first place Brewers to finish the first half and then came out after the All-Star break and ripped the Guardians to take two-of-three from them. They improve to 52-48, now in a virtual tie with the Cardinals for third place in the NL Central and for the third wildcard spot. For all the blown saves and frustrating losses this season, the Pirates are right there in the wildcard hunt and have 62 games left to control their own destiny. And now they head to the Bronx to face the New York Yankees.

The Pirates haven’t been to Yankee Stadium since 2024 when they closed out the season there by taking two-of-three from the Yanks. The Pirates were fortunate to miss Jose Ramirez this weekend when facing the Guardians and this week the Yankees just came off of a doubleheader with the Dodgers where they used nine relievers. The Yankees also are missing Aaron Judge and the Pirates will miss their best starter in Cam Schlittler (the Yankees also miss Paul Skenes). The Pirates are in the middle of this tough stretch of games against good teams and this will be a big test for them. This isn’t the ’27 Yankees or even the 2000 Yankees, but the team is solid, has pitching and can hit the ball over the fence. Braxton Ashcraft will pitch game one Monday night, but how about the pitching matchup on Wednesday afternoon? Mitch Keller versus former Bucco Gerrit Cole. Whoa baby, talk about some fun drama. I’m excited to see how this Pirates team handles themself in New York against the pinstripes, and I’m even more excited to see what the bats could do in a hitting park like Yankee Stadium. Of course, the Pirates opened the season in New York against the Mets and it didn’t go very well for the black and gold then. I’m hoping for better results this time around.

Bullpen Trade with Deadline Approaching
OK, it’s July 20. I understand a lot of trades don’t happen in May or June or even early July, but it’s time. Ben Cherington needs to get on the phone and find a trade partner or two of them. This team needs bullpen help NOW. The MLB trade deadline is August 3 at 6:00PM EST this season. We are two weeks out. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a trade come down this week.

And Cherington has been working on this problem, but the two relievers he picked up so far during the season—Hunter Stratton and Brandon Eisert, haven’t been great. Eisert just got here, but he’s struggled through three games (13.50 ERA) and Stratton has seen 2.1 innings with a 7.71 ERA and was sent back down. Not exactly the help we were looking for. This bullpen needs serious, proven arms and they need multiple of them. I think with the sweep of the Brewers and the Guardians series win, the team will clearly be buying at this point as they are in the thick of the wildcard race. They owe it to this team to go get some legit, back-of-the-bullpen arms because this pen continues to blow games and have very few options that Don Kelly can rely on. Let’s hope we see one of these trades this week to help the team ASAP.

I Can’t Stop Talking About this Offense
This offense has been great even with the injuries to it as Jim and I talked about this morning on Bucco Brew which you can watch here:

Jim said something on Bucco Brew that stopped me in my tracks. When talking about the Yankees lineup, he said “I would put the Pirates lineup up against anyone.” And I just thought if someone would have told us that back in March, they would have been considered insane. But it’s true! This offense is second in MLB in runs and basically top 5 in any offensive category you can think of. They have carried this team this season. And since June 1, even Henry Davis (108 wRC+) and Marcell Ozuna (111 wRC+) has been an above average hitter. And Jared Triolo has been close to leave average with a 94 wRC+.

Even the depth has been having games for the Pirates this season. Sunday, we had the Billy Cook game where he did it all at the plate and in the field. We had a Tyler Callihan game earlier this season, Endy Rodriguez has come up and hit, Jacob Gonzalez shows up after the trade and homered this weekend and added an RBI double. This team is hitting and everyone is contributing and producing. It’s been fun to watch. And they’ll need to keep it going at least until the Pirates make some trades and try to fix this bullpen.

New OffBeat Out
Alex Stumpf is churning out an OffBeat episode every Monday through Friday and here’s his latest where he breaks down the Billy Cook game from Sunday:

Make sure to check out all of Alex Stumpf’s work and all his OffBeat episodes are on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts. These shows are a quick 15-minute daily look at this Pirates team from a closeup look by Stumpf who covers the team daily.

And let’s start Monday by watching Esmerlyn Valdez‘s blast again from Sunday courtesty of SportsNet Pittsburgh…FLAP THE WINGS, FLY ON HOME!