The Pirates are on a 2 game winning streak and are 9 games under .500 heading into a weekend series with the San Francisco Giants. After that the Pirates go to Washington and then to Detroit. Looking at the pitching matchups, you can tell it's going to be a fun week of baseball to watch.
First, the Pirates face Jonathan Sanchez on Friday night. While Sanchez isn't really known as an ace around the league, he is putting up ace-like numbers this year. Sanchez is 3-4 with a 2.90 ERA and is striking out 9.1 batters per 9 innings, that ranks him 7th among National League starters in that category. The Pirates will send out Zach Duke to take on Sanchez and the Giants.
On Sunday the Pirates face Tim Lincecum. Last year's NL Cy Young had a great start to the year but has had a rough time of it lately. He has given up 14 runs in his last 3 starts, and that's over a span of 15.1 innings. His strikeouts are down in those starts as well, as he has only struck out 6, 5, and 3 batters respectively. Before those 3 starts his season ERA was at 1.76, but it has now inflated to 3.14. His K/9 rate is still an impressive 10.4, and with the Pirates offense it will be a tough job getting runners on base.
After a makeup game with the Cubs on Monday, the Pirates travel to Washington to face the Nationals. Stephen Strasburg, one of the most anticipated prospects in Major League history, will be making his first major league start. Strasburg is as filthy as anybody in the league. He can reach triple digits on the radar gun, and his cutter is nearly unhittable when it's on. We don't know who will be making the start for the Pirates Tuesday, but we're gonna have to bring our bats if we want any chance to win. The cameras are probably going to be on Strasburg sitting in the dugout more often than anything happening on the field when the Pirates on defense anyway.
After all the Strasburg hype is over, the Pirates head to Detroit to face Justin Verlander, another one of the league's top strikeout pitchers. Verlander has a 3.75 ERA with 8.4 K/9. He has 5 wins in 11 starts but has only lost 4 games. He is one of the hardest throwing starters in the league and he can also reach triple digits.
After Verlander is done, the Pirates will face the recently famous Armando Galarraga, who was robbed of a perfect game last night by umpire Jim Joyce. I hadn't heard Galarraga's name at all before this year, and he surely wouldn't be mentioned in this post if I had written it yesterday, but surprisingly he has been putting up very good numbers. He has posted a 2.57 ERA, although he has only made 3 starts. He has walked only 4 batters in those 3 starts, and that was huge in the gem he pitched last night. Galarraga threw under 90 pitches in his complete game, one-hit* shutout of the Cleveland Indians.
It's gonna be a rough 10 game stretch for the Bucs. I don't know what the record for team strikeouts in 10 games is, but the Pirates have a pretty good chance at breaking that one. Sanchez, Lincecum, Strasburg, and Verlander will all be near the top of the league in strikeouts at the end of the year, and the Pirates have the challenge of facing them all in the near future.
So my word of advice to fellow Pirate fans, don't worry about the wins coming in the next 10 days, just enjoy watching some of the game's greatest throw the ball against some of the league's worst. Should be fun.
Let's Go Bucs.
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