The Pirates started the season with five straight wins. They enter the All-Star break with four straight after sweeping the White Sox over the weekend. It’s the first time the Pirates have been at .500 at the All-Star break since 2016. Greg Brown has the story of the win on Chicago’s South Side.
Manager Derek Shelton says the team is playing some of its best baseball.
Shelton likes the all-around game the Pirates are putting together, but says they’ll be challenged coming out of the break.
Starter Mitch Keller had his streak of consecutive games pitching at least five innings broken after 49 games. Shelton says Keller just didn’t look right.
The Pirates will start a six-game homestand Friday, hosting the Phillies and then the Cardinals before six on the road at Arizona and Houston.
Pitcher Jared Jones has not thrown since being put on the injured list on July 4th. On The Ben Cherington Show on WCCS yesterday, the Pirates’ GM said Jones will begin throwing after the All-Star break and continue his rehab in Bradenton but “it will be a little bit of time” before he is ready to return to action. Cherington said pitcher Bailey Falter will throw during the break. He expects him to return “pretty soon.”
The 2024 MLB Draft opened last night with the Pirates making three picks in the first two rounds, and all of them were high school players. They started with the highest-ranked prep player in the nation, shortstop Konnor Griffin, the 2024 Gatorade National Player of the Year, whom MLB Network’s Jim Callis called the player with “the highest ceiling in the class,” with 30 home run/30 stolen bases potential, a “plus shortstop”, or a “Gold Glove centerfielder.” Pirates amateur scouting director Justin Horowitz called Griffin a “potential five-tool superstar.”
With the 37th pick of the draft, a competitive balance choice between the first and second rounds, the Pirates took right-handed pitcher Levi Sterling. And with pick number 47, the Bucs took another shortstop, Wyatt Sanford, whose father once played for the Pirates. Sanford is a defensive-oriented shortstop with a questionable bat.
The Guardians made history with the first pick of the draft, choosing Oregon State’s Travis Bazzana, who became the first second baseman to go Number-1 overall in draft history. He’s also the first native Australian to go number one. The first eight picks of the draft were all college players before the Pirates took the first high schooler at number nine.
Rounds 3 through 10 begin at 2 o’clock this afternoon and the draft concludes with rounds 11 through 20 tomorrow.
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