Pirates

Pirates Preview: Velasquez Looking to Redeem Himself in St. Louis

Published

1 year ago

April 13, 2023

The Pittsburgh Pirates (7-5) start a seven-game road trip, and their first stop will be against the St. Louis Cardinals (5-7). This is the first game in a four-game series.

The Pirates’ offense was held to just three hits and no runs against the Houston Astros on Wednesday afternoon in their series finale.

Rich Hill performed rather well despite not doing it in the prettiest way, but nonetheless, the Pirates fell 7-0 against the Astros, and remain in second place in the N.L. Central behind the Milwaukee Brewers.

First pitch at Busch Stadium is expected to be at 7:45 p.m. You can watch all of the action on AT&T Sportsnet, or listen to the game on the Pirates radio network, 93.7 The Fan.

Weather

At first pitch, you can expect mostly cloudy skies with a temperature of around 70 degrees. There is no rain to be expected, but a slight seven mph win will be blowing southeast.

The Pirates will send out RHP Vince Velasquez

In what looked like a scary moment for Velasquez in his last start with a potential injury, he is good to go and will toe the rubber looking for a redemption start.

Velasquez has a bloated ERA to start the year with a 9.82 in two starts, and quite frankly, he’s looked rather bad in each outing.

Velasquez has yet to get out of the fifth inning in either start and in his last start, he couldn’t get out of the third inning. Granted, the pull was probably due to injury concerns, but still.

Velasquez has faced the Cardinals in seven games (six starts) and holds a 1-3 record with an ERA of 5.67 in 33.1 innings.

The Cardinals will send out, LHP Jordan Montgomery.

Montgomery dominated his last outing on April 8 against the Brewers.

Montgomery went seven strong innings while giving up just three hits, no earned runs, two walks, and struck out nine on 100 pitches (61 strikes).

He mixed his pitches well with a sinker (30% usage), four-seam (28% usage), changeup (17% usage), curveball (17%) usage, and threw a few cutters (8% usage).

Montgomery’s main weapon in terms of swing and miss was his changeup. On nine total swings, he induced six swings and misses and allowed just one ball in play off of it.

Montgomery has faced the Pirates two times (both starts) and holds a 1-1 record with an ERA of 3.00 in 12 innings pitched.

Interesting Batting Match Ups

Tyler O’Neil is 3-4 with two homers off of Velasquez

Tommy Edman is 3-6 against Velasquez

Paul Goldschmidt is 5-14 with one homer against Velasquez

Nolan Arenado is 3-19 with six Ks against Velasquez

Andrew McCutchen is 4-11 with one double and one homer off of Mongomery

Ji-Man Choi is 4-8 against Montgomery

Carlos Santana is 2-4 with one double and one homer off Montgomery

Tidbits

The Pirates have hit two or more home runs on four occasions this season. On those occasions, the Pirates are 4-0.
This will be the first of two road trips to St. Louis for the Pirates. The next road trip will take place on Sept. 1-3.
The Pirates are tied for tenth in MLB with 15 home runs as a team. The other teams they are tied with are the Brewers, Braves, Marlins, and Blue Jays. The Cardinals are tied for eighth with 16.