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Series preview: Pirate ship makes a stop in New York

The Pirates take a bite out of the Big Apple this weekend.

By Jeremy_Brener
Pittsburgh Pirates v New York Mets Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

Pittsburgh Pirates (32-54) vs. New York Mets (45-38), July 8-11, 2021

Location: Citi Field, Flushing, NY

TV: AT&T Sports Pittsburgh

Radio: KDKA-AM

Mets SB Nation Site: Amazin’ Avenue

The Pirates look to wind down the first half of the season with a three-game set against the Mets.

Here’s a look at what we can expect this weekend:

Projected Starters

Thursday, 7:10 p.m. EST

JT Brubaker (4-8, 4.09 ERA) vs. Taijuan Walker (7-3, 2.44 ERA)

Friday, 7:10 p.m. EST

TBD vs. Marcus Stroman (6-6, 2.60 ERA)

Saturday, 4:10 p.m. EST

Tyler Anderson (4-8, 4.39 ERA) vs. Tylor Megill (0-0, 3.77 ERA)

Sunday, 1:10 p.m. EST

Chase De Jong (1-3, 5.06 ERA) vs. TBD

Projected Lineups

Pirates

  1. Adam Frazier (2B)
  2. Ke’Bryan Hayes (3B)
  3. Bryan Reynolds (CF)
  4. Jacob Stallings (C)
  5. John Nogowski (1B)
  6. Ben Gamel (LF)
  7. Kevin Newman (SS)
  8. Jared Oliva (RF)
  9. Starting Pitcher

Mets

  1. Brandon Nimmo (CF)
  2. Francisco Lindor (SS)
  3. Dominic Smith (LF)
  4. Pete Alonso (1B)
  5. Jeff McNeil (2B)
  6. Michael Conforto (RF)
  7. Jonathan Villar (3B)
  8. James McCann (C)
  9. Starting Pitcher

If you hate offense, you’ll probably really like this four-game set between the Mets and Pirates.

The two teams rank 29th and 30th respectively in runs scored this season. However, while the Pirates sit in last place in their division, the Mets find themselves on top of the NL East in the final series before the All-Star Break.

The Mets are in this position because they have played the fewest games in Major League Baseball, but they also allow the fewest runs in the bigs. This is large in part due to Jacob deGrom’s historic season, but luckily for the Buccos, deGrom pitched yesterday and is not expected to make an appearance during the series. But that doesn’t mean the Pirates are out of the woods.

Taijuan Walker and Marcus Stroman both have an ERA under 3.00 and have pitched well in the first half of the season.

The Mets and Pirates will face each other in the last pre-ASB series and the first post-ASB series, which means they are going to be the only lineups they’ll see until July 18. If the Mets can win a good number of these games, they can put some significant distance between them and the rest of their division, but if the last series showed anything, you never know when the cannons on the pirate ship will go off.

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