Opening Day for the Pittsburgh Pirates is coming up. When the black and gold of the Pirates step on the field at PNC Park and Francisco Liriano takes the hill against the Chicago Cubs on Monday, baseball will assume its rightful place in the lives of sports fans everywhere: center stage. No other day in the sports world compares to Opening Day. Opening Day is the same day when a rookie like Jason Heyward can hit a home run in his first Major League at-bat. A day when a player like Karl ... Read More

Jeff Snedden — Last offseason, the Pittsburgh Pirates made a controversial move when they signed SP Francisco Liriano — who was coming off one of his worst major league seasons — to solidify the starting rotation.  The deal with Liriano was originally going to be for two years and $14 million, but after a mishap with shutting his arm in the car door resulted in a broken right arm, the Pirates reformatted the deal into a one-year, $1 million guarantee with a vesting option for 2014.  Even with ... Read More

The Pirates have optioned RHP Brandon Cumpton to Triple-A Indianapolis to drop their roster number to 30 with only 4 days until Opening Day. They will need to cut four more players before then -- They can have 26 with Stewart starting the season on the DL. Cumpton threw 20 1/3 innings in spring training with a 1 - 0 record and a 2.21 ERA while striking out 12 and walking 6. It may not be the last you see of the pitcher as he is in line with Jeff Locke to fill any holes in the starting ... Read More

Travis Ishikawa to the rescue? Probably not what Pirates brass planned, but at least for the moment, that looks to be what the Pirates are hoping of the journeyman first baseman after Andrew Lambo was reassigned to AAA Indianapolis. To say that Lambo had his struggles this spring (.095 BA, .095 Slugging, .269 OPS) would be an understatement. After being considered a virtual lock to be the left-handed hitting part of the first base platoon with Gaby Sanchez, Lambo's four hits in 46 plate ... Read More

For the rest of the week, four of our staff writers will go division by division to make our playoff predictions, while looking at a major storyline for each team. Our four-man panel includes — Travis Berardi — Pirates beat writer Gar Bercury — Co-Pitt beat writer Michael Waterloo — Co-Owner/Columnist Matt Welch — D-2 coverage/The Times West Virginian. Yesterday, we took a look at the National League East. Today, it's the NL Central.   St. Louis Cardinals — “Do ... Read More

Worried about the reports from a couple of days ago saying that Starling Marte turned down the Pirates contract extensions during the offseason? Well, worry no more. This morning, Ken Rosenthal broke the story that the Pirates and Marte were "close" on a six-year extension.   Sources: #Pirates, Marte close on six-year extension. — Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) March 26, 2014   Less than a half an hour later, Jim Duquette reported that the two sides had in fact agreed to a ... Read More

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates today acquired right-handed pitcher Vance Worley from the Minnesota Twins for cash considerations in a minor league deal. The announcement was made by Pirates Senior Vice President, General Manager Neal Huntington. Worley, who was outrighted off Minnesota's roster on Friday, went 1-5 in 10 starts with the Twins last year while also spending time at Triple-A Rochester, where he posted a 6-3 record and a 3.88 ERA in nine starts. The 26-year-old Worley made ... Read More

The Pirates made their next round of cuts to get the roster down to 31, including an injured Chris Stewart. - Andrew Lambo (Indianapolis) - Jaff Decker (Indianapolis) - Jared Hughes (Indianapolis) The final eight — Michael Martinez, Omir Santos, Robert Andino, Zack Thornton, Chris Dickerson, Jay Jackson, Daniel Schlereth and Adam Wilk — were all transferred to minor league camp. ... Read More