Pirates (Mlodzinski) vs Cubs (Imanaga): 4/10/26, 1:20pm

[Brock Beauchamp]

Are the Pirates good now? Is this the world we live in?

	SUN	MON	TUE	WED	THU	TOT
Brown, B	42	0	0	31	0	73
Milner	14	0	17	10	0	41
Webb, J	20	0	14	0	0	34
Maton	0	19	26	0	0	45
Thielbar	28	0	2	0	0	30
Harvey	0	0	0	16	0	16
Palencia	13	0	0	0	0	13
Martin	0	10	0	0	0	10

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

ma jin skee

[Bertz]

Mlodzinski was a bit of a monster out of the pen last year in long relief, so I'm honestly a little worried he's the goods.

Pirates are still a team who I'm not especially impressed by on the position player side.  They've improved substantially year over year but they were horrific last year so that's still probably not enough.  I think the difference YoY is last year games against them were usually "first team to 3 runs wins" and now it’s likely more like "first team to 4".

[squally1313]

1 minute ago, Bertz said:

Mlodzinski was a bit of a monster out of the pen last year in long relief, so I'm honestly a little worried he's the goods.

Pirates are still a team who I'm not especially impressed by on the position player side.  They've improved substantially year over year but they were horrific last year so that's still probably not enough.  I think the difference YoY is last year games against them were usually "first team to 3 runs wins" and now it’s likely more like "first team to 4".

Agreed. There was a fun Fangraphs article right before the season about how the Pirates pitching plus the Athletics offense is like a 90 win team. Signing O'Hearn and Lowe in 2026 is fine as like, secondary tweaks to an already established offense. Making them the focal points of your offense while you start a 19 year old and hope that Henry Davis and Oneil Cruz figure horsefeathers out is a different story. 

[Bertz]

1 minute ago, squally1313 said:

Agreed. There was a fun Fangraphs article right before the season about how the Pirates pitching plus the Athletics offense is like a 90 win team. Signing O'Hearn and Lowe in 2026 is fine as like, secondary tweaks to an already established offense. Making them the focal points of your offense while you start a 19 year old and hope that Henry Davis and Oneil Cruz figure horsefeathers out is a different story. 

Also worth noting they also turned their defense into a disaster just to squeeze in these modest offensive improvements.

[Bertz]

Wonder if Webb's being put out to pasture

[Post Count Padder]

28 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Wonder if Webb's being put out to pasture

Maton to the IL. 

Also Carlson DFAd for Seiya. Kinda surprised it wasn't Kingery but I guess there's better OF depth in Iowa in case he gets claimed vs infield. 

[Bertz]

6 minutes ago, Post Count Padder said:

Maton to the IL. 

Also Carlson DFAd for Seiya. Kinda surprised it wasn't Kingery but I guess there's better OF depth in Iowa in case he gets claimed vs infield. 

Maton said something about his mechanivs veing out of wack and it's tough to fix those on the fly while pitching in games that matter.  So I assume this is very much a phantom IL stint.

Carlson makes sense to me.  With the starts to the season Shaw/Conforto/Alcantara are having probably safe to cut him loose.  Kingery has slightly more utility because him being around lets Counsell be aggressive with moving Shaw in/out of games.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

[Bertz]

10 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

That's a good looking lineup

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

4 minutes ago, Bertz said:

That's a good looking lineup

yeah, I think that's the best config at the moment

*maybe swap amaya with kelly but it's not like kelly has been bad

Edited April 10 by Tangled Up in Plaid

[KCCub]

Just now, Bertz said:

That's a good looking lineup

Yea, that’s my preferred setup at the top. I was hoping CC would stick with Nico at leadoff moving forwards and I just really like Busch in the 2 hole. 

[chibears55]

1 hour ago, Post Count Padder said:

Maton to the IL. 

Also Carlson DFAd for Seiya. Kinda surprised it wasn't Kingery but I guess there's better OF depth in Iowa in case he gets claimed vs infield. 

Knew both would happen,  I said Maton was gonna be put on IL after his first outing against Tampa..lol

I figured Carlson was gonna get booted when Suzuki came back, no need for 2 outfielders off the bench

 

[chibears55]

22 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Glad theyre keeping Hoerner on top, good to see everyone healthy and in the lineup finally. 

Let go win a ballgame 

[mk49]

I prefer Amaya, when Shota starts, but the lineup looks good with Seiya.

[Bertz]

Generally good news on a Shota day

 

[chibears55]

8 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Generally good news on a Shota day

 

I still cant log into X, its asking for a generator code for verification when I log in, I have no such code 🤦

[Stratos]

5 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

I still cant log into X, its asking for a generator code for verification when I log in, I have no such code 🤦

Contact Elon.

[squally1313]

Setting aside small sample size struggles, Ballesteros/Swanson/PCA/catcher is probably my preferred bottom of the lineup configuration. If Ballesteros can't outhit PCA, he probably needs to learn catcher real quick. 

(resets 'Number of Days without commenting on the lineup' sign back to zero)

[Nolansomebody]

Can’t wait to see Seiya back in it

[chibears55]

Should of challenged, now he gotta throw more pitches, already over 30

[Nolansomebody]

Pat and Ron just had a whole conversation about getting asked to high school dances.

baseball radio, man.

[UMFan83]

Leadoff walk and the inning is over 2 pitches later lol.  3 double play caliber balls hit in 2 innings, 2 of them converted into GIDPs

Edited April 10 by UMFan83

[chibears55]

Walks leadoff hitter, Suzuki and PCA up there swinging at first pitches 🤦🤦

[mk49]

A crazy quick inning.  Shota couldn't rest much at all.