The Pirates open a two-game series with the Detroit Tigers are PNC Park tonight.
Rookie Mitch Keller will get his third career start. He is 0-1 with a 15.43 ERA , having given up 12 runs in just seven innings in his first two appearances of the season. Detroit will send veteran lefty Daniel Norris top the mound. He’s just 2-5 with a 4.52 ERA and has lost his last four decisions.
With the Pirates idle and the Reds winning last night, the Bucs have fallen into last place in the NL Central, trailing Cincinnati by a half-game and the first-place Brewers by 7-and-a-half games.
Ken Rosenthal of “The Athletic” reports that the Pirates are interested in finding a trade partner to take outfielder Corey Dickerson. Dickerson is earning $8.5 million in his final season of arbitration eligibility. He just returned from the injured list June 8th after missing two months. The Bucs prefer to keep the two players who filled in for Dickerson while he was out, Melky Cabrera and Bryan Reynolds, who are cheaper options, but Rosenthal says there is outside interest in Cabrera as well, so he could be dealt too as the Bucs search for pitching on the trade market.
Voting for “The Primary” for this year’s All-Star game will wrap up Friday afternoon. Pirates first baseman Josh Bell, who leads the big leagues in RBI, leads the voting at first base with more than 80,000 votes more than Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman. Melky Cabrera is the only other Bucco showing up in the voting, but he’s currently 16th with 252,000 votes. After The Primary wraps up, the top three vote-getters at each position and the top-nine outfielders will advance to The Starters Election, which begins at noon on June 26th and will run until 4 PM June 27th. The All Star Game is July 27th in Cleveland.
