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.
Go West, Young Man
The Pirates embark on their first West Coast trip of the 2026 season. On Tuesday, they’ll begin a three-game series in Arizona against the Diamondbacks and then head to San Francisco for a weekend series with the Giants as they get out of divisional play until May 19. Last season the Pirates went 4-2 against the D-Backs and 4-2 against the Giants, including a sweep of the Giants in San Francisco. This season we’ll see both the D-Backs and Giants at PNC Park in the second half.
Both opponents are struggling at the moment. Arizona is 16-17 and have lost four straight. They come into this series after a three-game sweep by the Cubs in Wrigley Field. The Giants are doing even worse. They’re in dead last of the NL West at 13-21, have lost six straight games and are 2-8 in their last 10. They’ve went 0-6 on their roadtrip after being swept by the Phillies and the Rays. They’re back home before this weekend series with the Pirates, but they get the 20-13 Padres.
I hate when fans just start counting wins…”Oh just take four wins this roadtrip…” No wins are guaranteed especially roadtrips across the country. The Pirates went an abysmal 27-54 on the road in 2025. So far this season, they’re a respectable 8-7 on the road. Keeping that road record at .500 or better will be paramount if this can ultimately compete for a playoff spot at the end of the season. I’ll be looking for them to continue the better road play this week against two teams they currently have a better record against.
Win Probability Added after 35 Games
Let’s visit the WPA stat now that we’re 35 games into the season. WPA stands for Win Probability Added and tells you how much each player attributed (or didn’t) toward a win.
Let’s start with hitters. Probably no surprise that Brandon Lowe leads the Pirates bats with a 0.85 WPA. His home runs especially early in the season led the way to some big wins. Next is Bryan Reynolds at 0.50. This is a drastic turnaround for him from last season when he was the second worst hitter at a -2.93 WPA. Good to see BRey fix that swing and turn in a nice start to the season already even before June hits which is historically his month. Here’s the next 3:
Ryan O’Hearn 0.46
Oneil Cruz 0.27
Nick Gonzales 0.13
Even after a rough start to the season, Konnor Griffin is next on the list at 0.10. I have a feeling if we check this again after another 35 games, Griffin will easily be in that top five.
Here are the worst five hitters in terms of WPA:
Marcell Ozuna -1.17
Joey Bart -0.75
Jared Triolo -0.60
Nick Yorke -0.45
Henry Davis -0.40
No surprises here. Ozuna has heating up a little, but he took a lot of crucial at-bats batting in the middle of the lineup for this team through most of April where he didn’t come through so that dug him a WPA hole. And then there’s that catching tandem of Bart and Davis both showing up on this list.
For pitchers, here are the top 5:
Gregory Soto 1.01
Yohan Ramirez 0.90
Isaac Mattson 0.87
Mitch Keller 0.80
Braxton Ashcraft 0.65
It makes sense that Soto, Ramirez and Mattson show up here with how much they’ve pitched and how they’ve pitched in some high leverage spots already this season. Soto has pitched 17 innings in the team’s first 35 games to the tune of a 1.59 ERA. He has three wins and one save so far. Ramirez has thrown 21.2 innings already and Mattson is 16.2 innings.
Hunter Barco -0.63
Justin Lawrence -0.54
Evan Sisk -0.40
Dennis Santana -0.28
Jose Urquidy -0.21
Yikes, this is not the list you want Dennis Santana showing up in considering he pitches in the most high leverage spots along with Soto. Santana hasn’t been awful with the results overall (3.07 ERA with 2 saves in 14.2 innings) and he’s only given up an earned run in 2 of his 15 appearances, but his four-run blowup on April 27 certainly did not help his ERA or WPA. I’ll review these numbers after 70 games and we’ll see where we’re at. I expect Santana to drop off the bottom five list and for Paul Skenes to show up in the Top 5.
Milestones
Mitch Keller is at 868 strikeouts for his career and is sitting one behind Dock Ellis for 8th on the all-time Pirates strikeout list for a pitcher. Keller is slated to start the finale in Arizona Thursday so expect him to pass Dock then. The next up on the list after Ellis will be Steve Blass with 896 strikeouts. The eight-year veteran is moving his way up the list on Pirates royalty passing the likes of Dock Ellis and Steve Blass. It’ll be cool to see him keep shoving and passing names on the list as Keller is off to a fabulous start to the season.
Another milestone that we may see at anytime is Marcell Ozuna as his next home run with be number 300. He’s off to a slow start this season but has three long balls, is sitting at 299 and he has started to heat up in May. When he hits number 300, he’ll become just the 15th Dominican-born player to hit 300 MLB home runs. Let’s hope he not only gets it on this roadtrip, but he also hits 301, 302 and 303 too.
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