Pittsburgh Pirates Mailbag: May 16, 2018

It’s that time of the week again – mailbag time

Happy Wednesday, everyone! With it being Wednesday that means it is also Pittsburgh Pirates mailbag day here at Rum Bunter.

As always, thank you to everyone who submitted questions to this week’s mailbag and participated. Let’s delve into this week’s questions.

Nope, it does not. Despite struggling in a start for Double-A Altoona on Monday night, Nick Kingham will still start for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday night.

For a lot of reasons, it is difficult to put any sort of stock into minor league stats. So I would not worry about Kingham struggling with Altoona on Monday one bit. He will return to the Pirate rotation this weekend and you can expect him to pitch well.

Good idea? No, I think it was a GREAT idea.

Even when Josh Harrison gets healthy Francisco Cervelli should be the team’s primary leadoff hitter. Cervelli entered Tuesday night’s victory over the White Sox with a 12.5% walk rate a .414 on-base percentage. While his walk rate is good for third best on the team, his OBP leads the squad.

It’s not like this is new to Cervelli either as he owns a lifetime 10.1% walk rate and .361 OBP. There is no better spot to put your best on-base man than leadoff and that is where Cervelli should be.

Barring injury, nothing will change in the Pirate outfield. So far this season Corey Dickerson, Starling Marte, and Gregory Polanco has been one of the best outfields in all of baseball. However, the injury bug may have appeared.

Marte left last night’s game with ‘right side discomfort.’ Many times any sort of side discomfort can lead to an oblique injury and oblique injuries tend to linger, and linger, and then linger some more.

Now, admittedly, this is jumping the gun big time but if Marte were to end up on the disabled list it opens a door for Austin Meadows to take over in center field for the Pirates. Without a disabled list stint for Marte, or either of the other two outfielders, Meadows will continue to play at Triple-A until September call-ups.

Honestly, I have no idea. I am not a boycotter and never will be, no matter how irritate I may get with Bob Nutting at times. I most certainly am not going to boycott a team that is 24-17, playing great baseball, and a ton of fun to watch.

If I had to guess though, sadly, no matter how well the Pirates play this season, a lot of the boycotters will probably stay away. Their loss.

Next: A Pair of Pirate Prospects Named MiLB Players of the Week

That will do it for this week. If you ever have a question for the mailbag look for our Tweet each week asking for questions.