Pittsburgh Pirates News: Max Kranick to Start on Wednesday

Following Tuesday night’s game manager Derek Shelton announced that Max Kranick will start for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday

Originally, Mitch Keller was scheduled to start for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday night. This, however, is no longer the case, as manager Derek Shelton announced a change to pitching plans following Tuesday night’s 4-2 loss in Chicago.

Right-handed pitcher Max Kranick will instead start for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday night. This will be Kranick’s 6th start of the season and of his still young Major League career.

Prior to Wednesday’s first pitch the Pittsburgh Pirates will need to add Kranick to the active roster.  Currently Kranick is on the team’s taxi squad. However, with rosters set to expand from 26 players to 28 due to the calendar flipping to September, the Pirates will not need to make a true roster move to add Kranick to the active roster.

Kranick pitched 5 perfect innings in his MLB debut against the St. Louis Cardinals in June. Since then, Kranick has struggled allowing 16 earned runs in 15 innings pitched. Obviously, any time a pitcher has allowed more earned runs than they have innings pitched it is not a good thing.

Overall this season Kranick has pitched 20 innings in his 5 starts. In these 20 innings of work Kranick owns a 7.20 ERA, 4.16 FIP, he’s walked 8.4% of batters faced, struck out 18.9% and has allowed home runs at a rate of 0.90 HR/9. He has also been burnt by a .369 batting average on balls in play.

With rosters expanded and the team out of the postseason race the month of September should be one of opportunity for young Pirate players. One of these players is Kranick and his opportunity will begin on Wednesday night.