The Pittsburgh Pirates are reaching the point where all of the talk soon is going to be which players are their top trade assets at the July 31 trade deadline.
The Pirates fell to 18-26 on the season with a 9-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles tonight at PNC Park and their season just seems to be crashing down and we’re not even 50 games in.
The Pirates have several holes in their lineup, a bullpen problem and a starting pitching problem, two areas that were expected to be the Pirates strength this season. Hate to bury them 44 games in but right now this is just a bad team with not a lot of help on the way, other than Gregory Polanco in about three to four weeks.
Francisco Liriano (0-4, 4.86 ERA) the NL’s comeback player of the year in 2013, was roughed up tonight, allowing 9 hits and 6 earned runs in 5 innings pitched. Liriano who won 16 games last season, is now winless in 13 consecutive regular season starts.
The disappointment for Liriano is that he was coming off one of his best starts of the season last Wednesday in Milwaukee and was not able to build off that.
Chris Davis homered three times in the win for Baltimore, twice against Liriano.
“I was leaving too many pitches over the middle of the plate Liriano said. “I couldn’t repeat two good pitches in a row.”