The Pirates open a 6 game home stand against two of the worst clubs in the league, the Los Angeles Angels and the San Francisco Giants. They both have rather poor offensive clubs ranking 24th and 23rd in runs scored. What is interesting is they have allowed less runs per game than the Pirates ranking just ahead of them at 20th and 21st. Neither team has shown much signs of perking up. In August the Angels were 11-17 and the Giants 10-18. Of course the Pirates were 12-15. The Pirates need to win all 6 games to get back in the race.
I hope the Pirates will stop platooning Jared Triolo with Jacob Gonzalez. Triolo is on a bit of a hot streak. In the last 7 games his slash line is .364/.417/.500. He has had hot streaks like this before and they do seem to occur in the 2nd half of the season. Jacob Gonzalez has shown he can’t hit or field. I never thought I would say this but Triolo needs to be in the lineup every day. Repeating myself once again the Pirates need to start playing a set lineup. They do not need to give anyone days off. They do not play on Monday the rest of the season. This should be the starting lineup and batting order. Mangum DH Reynolds LF Lowe 2b Valdez RF Gonzales 3b Cruz CF Flores C Horwitz 1b Triolo SS. Once Griffin comes back have him lead off play SS. Gonzales becomes the DH. Jake Mangum with his recent struggles has dropped to an OPS+ of 96. In defensive runs save he is a +5 defender overall but -1 in centerfield. This is the best lineup the Pirates can put on the field for this stretch run. I wonder how many times we will see it, let alone with that batting order. Henry (.166/.263/.293 Slash Line) Davis will probably start tonight with Skenes pitching. I always thought you were supposed to try to win with your best players. The Pirates haven’t thought like that for 10 years. It is do or die starting tonight. Stay tuned.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 