It’s a been a while since the Pittsburgh Pirates have had bragging rights over just about anyone, but that has changed this year, as the Bucs are currently rolling along with a 32-28 record and have moved into third place in the NL Central following a three-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins over the weekend.
The Pirates scored 25 runs in the three games against the Twins, with Sunday’s 9-3 victory also showing another good outing from Braxton Ashcraft. There were also dingers from Ryan O’Hearn, his 8th of the year, plus the first homer of the year from Nick Gonzales, with both guys hovering near .300 batting, with Gonzo and .308 and O’Hearn now at .294.
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Bryan Reynolds, Jake Mangum and Spencer Horwitz all had their moments in the Twins series, as the Bucs lineup is pretty much dangerous from top to bottom, outside of when Henry Davis is playing, and even he got in on the act on Sunday, with 2 RBIs, while Horwitz is now hitting .289 and is looking like a smart pick up from GM Ben Cherington.
Oh, and the Bucs dropped a little social media bragging rights on Twins as well, posting this after Sunday’s sweep.
Of course, it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows for the Bucs, as rookie phenom Konnor Griffin was just put on the 10-day IL. He has a forearm strain, but the Pirates don’t expect that he’ll be out long. After a slow start, Griffin has been coming into his own, now hitting .270 on the season with 4 homers and 22 RBIs.
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There’s also the Carmen Mlodzinski drama right now in which he was moved to bullpen to make room for Jared Jones and responded by telling the team he would not be ready to pitch out of the bullpen. Ben Cherington then placed him on the Restricted List. The restricted list rule says:
“The restricted list is for players who are under contract but unable to play due to unexcused, personal or non-baseball reasons. There’s no limit to how long a player can stay on the restricted list, but he isn’t paid and doesn’t earn service time.”
So I guess we’ll see what happens next, but Jaiman will have some analysis and commentary on the Carmen situation tomorrow, so we’ll wait to hear from him about some more. We may have some additional clarity by tomorrow as well.
The Bucs are off tonight but will return to action tomorrow as the head to Houston to take on the Astros. That’s an 8:10PM series game to kick off the game.
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