Pirates at Brewers Preview and Pick – After a 28-3 Brewers blowout last week in Pittsburgh, the Pirates and Brewers go head to head once again. This time however, the game is in Milwaukee.
Pirates at Brewers Preview and Pick – Who has the Edge?
After a memorable trade deadline, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee ironically may be hoping for the same outcome for different reasons. The Brewers obviously are trying to keep their momentum heading into the postseason, while the Pirates might consider tanking to secure the #1 overall pick in this year’s draft.
Unfortunately for Rodolfo Castro, his remarkable streak of hits-only-being-home-runs to start his promising rookie campaign came to an end this past weekend against the Philadelphia Phillies. Not surprisingly, he was the only bright spot for Pittsburgh in their last outing against the Brewers.
Over the weekend however, guys like Ben Gamel, Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Bryan Reynolds all went 2-5 in a convincing 7-0 victory on Friday with Gregory Polanco scoring two runs. On Saturday night, Gamel also came up with two hits (a Jacob Stallings walkoff hit) prior to the Bucs eventually falling in the series finale 15-4.
Besides Reynolds, the group is more or less considered to be a punchless one. Nonetheless, Gamel is still hot at bad and may even benefit considering he is playing at a new ball park like American Family Field.
I like the Brewers to continue blowing out Pittsburgh once again. Not only are they the better team, but Pittsburgh must lose in order to secure the top draft pick. I do not see the Pirates having any reason to try to spoil Milwakuee’s momentum.
Pitcher Matchups
Monday: Bryce Wilson vs. Eric Lauer
At the trade deadline, the Pirates traded away Richard Rodriguez to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for Bryce Wilson. Despite struggling in his first 22 starts in the majors, he did shine against the Los Angeles Dodgers in last year’s NLCS.
At just 23 years old, Wilson is already known to be a contact-heavy pitcher at this point in the season. After all, he did rank towards the bottom in the league at around 5% in strikeout rate. With that being said, he has been able to avoid the walks as he has pounded the zone.
Because of that however, it has resulted in a lot of hard contact where hitters are putting a batting average of about .265 with an expected slugging of .476 against him so far. With his seven starts this year for the Braves, he had a 4.83 ERA.
Tuesday: Max Kranick vs. Adrian Houser
Max Kranick will try to rebound from his last game on Wednesday against the Brewers where he surrendered six runs on ten hits in just five innings. This will be only his fifth career start; The first coming with five no-hit innings against the Cardinals on June 27th.
On July 10th however, he was recalled and got progressively worse with each start. In total, Kranick has allowed 13 runs on 21 hits to go along with five walks in just eleven innings.
Wednesday: TBD vs. Freddy Peralta
For the Pirates, no pitcher has been announced for Wednesday. As far as Milwaukee goes, it will be intriguing to see how long Peralta will pitch for, which will in all likelihood be minimal considering their playoff hopes. This game will likely be one where Peralta will play to just keep his arm loose.
Make sure to check out all of our betting picks and previews here.
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