Game Thread: Back home to face the Rockies

The first place Pirates return to PNC Park after a successful road trip, as Steven Brault (2-0, 3.46) faces off against Colorado’s German Marquez (0-1, 4.97)

Marquez is a 23 year old, 6’1”, 185 lb right-hander who’s starting his second full year with the Rockies. In 2017 he worked 162 innings in 29 starts, averaging 2.7 walks and 8.2 strikeouts for every 9 innings.

Marquez has shown reverse splits in his young major league career, with a 112 tOPS+ on a 280/341/537 line against right handed batters, vs 88 tOPS+, 277/343/420 against lefties.

Another hard thrower, Marquez throws the same mix of four-seam/curve/two-seam to batters on both sides of the plate, last year averaging 95.0 mph on the four-seam and 94.0 on the two-seam. He throws all his pitches for strikes, and gets his swings and misses on the curve (41% by RHB, 35% by LHB) while the whiff rates on his fastballs are generally below 10%.

With Josh Harrison on the disabled list with a broken hand, Adam Frazier is starting in his place at second base and leading off.

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ROCKIES

1 R D.J. LeMahieu 2B

2 R Chris Iannetta C

3 L Charlie Blackmon CF

4 R Ian Desmond 1B

5 L Carlos Gonzalez RF

6 R Trevor Story SS

7 R Pat Valaika 3B

8 L Gerardo Parra LF

9 R German Marquez RHP

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PIRATES

1 L Adam Frazier 2B

2 L Gregory Polanco RF

3 R Starling Marte CF

4 S Josh Bell 1B

5 L Corey Dickerson LF

6 R Francisco Cervelli C

7 L Colin Moran 3B

8 R Jordy Mercer SS

9 L Steven Brault LHP