Though there were almost no fans in attendance to see it, something extremely dumb and good happened in last night’s silly Pirates-Marlins game: with one out in the bottom of the 5th inning, with the bases loaded, Marlins second baseman Starlin Castro skied a fly ball to right field for what would normally produce…
Pirates reliever Felipe Rivero has changed his name to Felipe Vázquez, matching the surname of his sister, Prescilla Vázquez.
For every normal fan watching extra innings of today’s game between the Pirates and Tigers, it looked like Detroit won 11-10 in the 10th on a walk-off hit by JaCoby Jones, which scored Nicholas Castellanos on a thrilling play at the plate. The Tigers rushed out of the dugout and onto the field to celebrate, but had to…
There’s just one more day of regular spring training left, but there are still cool highlights to be had. Case in point: this sweet steal of home by Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Lolo Sanchez today, off a righty pitcher throwing from the stretch. The 18-year-old is among the organization’s top prospects and stole 14…
Let us use the Rays as an example, because, hell, if the Rays didn’t want to be used as the poster team for hemorrhaging salary with no clear goal other than to shovel cash into its ownership’s maw, maybe they shouldn’t have so conspicuously nuked a roster that was five games out of a playoff spot.
The Pirates have released a statement in response to reports that catcher Elias Diaz’s mother has been kidnapped in Venezuela:
Next winter will be the real bellwether for the state of MLB payroll spending—handwringing over shrinking payroll today might disappear all at once if the movement of next winter’s studs lifts all boats—but the early indicators of this winter are troubling. The hot stove is cool, there’s a boatload of free agents…
Watch that clip up there. It says all there is to say about what Andrew McCutchen meant to Pirates fans in general, and to Pittsburgh in particular. For a long time, it was damn near impossible to imagine a Pirates player who possessed enough star power to affect young fans like that. Now that McCutchen is gone, it’s…
The Pirates have been playing with the burners of the hot stove for weeks now over the possibility of a Gerrit Cole trade, and now that it’s finally happened, they have surprisingly little to show for it.
The idea, or part of it, was to tell Francisco Cabrera what he did to me. I wanted to let him know that the greatest moment of his otherwise anonymous big-league career was such a gut-punch in my life. I wanted to relate to him how funereal things were for me the next day at school, and how long that feeling of dread…
John Jaso, the dreaded pirate-looking dude who plays for the Pirates, told reporters yesterday he is probably calling it a career now that the season is over and his contract is up. Better yet: He’s retiring from baseball to sail the seven seas. No piracy, hopefully.
Reliever Juan Nicasio has been having a career-best season; in his second year with the Pirates, he’s striking out nearly 25 percent of batters with a 2.85 ERA. This week, Pittsburgh placed him on irrevocable waivers to let Philadelphia take him for absolutely nothing in return, so that, uh, they could dump his…
Since making his weird and improbable return to major league baseball at age 35 in the second half of 2015, Rich Hill has been almost singularly enjoyable to watch when he’s a) in a groove and b) without a blister. He hasn’t had many outings like that lately, but when he has them, his curveball is breathtaking, he’s…
Pirates third baseman Jung Ho Kang might never come back to Major League Baseball as he still can’t get a work visa after admitting guilt and receiving a deferred prison sentence for a 2016 DUI in South Korea, Pirates GM Neal Huntington told MLB.com Sunday. Kang has been charged with three DUIs in Korea since 2009.
Here come the Pittsburgh Pirates, winners of five games in a row and eight of their last 10, making a push in the crowded and confounding NL Central. The team nobody was paying much attention to last month is suddenly two games behind the Cubs (who have won their last six games), three games behind the Brewers, who…
Brewers catcher Stephen Vogt was pulled from tonight’s game against the Pirates after a rough collision at the plate with Pittsburgh pitcher Chad Kuhl.
You know where a Jedd Gyorko home run ball belongs?
It was a rough first inning for the Cubs’ Jon Lester today. He took the mound at 1:10 p.m. and promptly gave up a leadoff single to Pittsburgh’s Josh Harrison. A groundout and a walk put runners on first and second with one out and David Freese at the plate. This is precisely when it all went to shit.
The Phillies lost to the Pirates last night, dropping them to an MLB-worst 28-56. In the second inning, the Pirates’ Jose Osuna threw out consecutive base runners trying to stretch singles into doubles. It wasn’t all Phillies blunders: The Phils’ Andrew Knapp scored from first on a botched pickoff throw by catcher…
A wailing fire alarm. A car slamming into the front window of a diner, brakes screeching as customers scream. A baseball bat that has slipped from the hitter’s fingers and is flung into the crowd.
