On the fringe of the wild card in the National League, the Pittsburgh Pirates did their best to clear the books for 2017.
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NOTES: Toronto acquired LHP Francisco Liriano (6-11, 5.46 ERA) from the Pirates, and RHPs Scott Feldman (5-3, 2.90 ERA) and Mike Bolsinger (1-4, 6.83 ERA) from the Astros and Dodgers, respectively. But after Astros right-hander Ken Giles eluded danger in the eighth inning, stranding two baserunners to preserve the one-run lead, Harris fell behind 3-0 to Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin before surrendering a game-tying home run with the count full.It marked the third blown save in five opportunities for Harris since his first All-Star Game appearance.Stroman was no slouch, recording a career-high 13 strikeouts against just one walk. With just two months of control remaining for Chavez, there’s not much to lose here for the Jays, as they didn’t plan to use him as a starter down the stretch anyways.
Toronto general manager Ross Atkins said, “We feel like… transitioning him to a relief role will be the best thing for us being in a Game 7 of the World Series”. “With that in mind, we considered alternatives and now we have the option to do that”. Pittsburgh also acquired right-hander Ivan Nova from the Yankees for two players to be named. When Francisco Liriano was sent to Pittsburgh, he had a bit of a revival in his career as he went 35-25 between 2013 to 2015.
“The financial flexibility and adding Drew Hutchinson with our ability to reallocate those dollars onto this club in different ways going forward (were attractive)”, Huntington said.
It is hard to understand exactly what the Pirates are doing following a flurry of moves that came on the heels also making a significant trade Saturday. Feldman is in the final year of a three-year, $30 million contract. Sanchez is 11-1 with an American League-leading 2.71 ERA in 21 starts this year. Niese and Liriano have been traded while Jeff Locke and Juan Nicasio have been moved to the bullpen, though Locke will get a spot start this week in Atlanta. After dominating in three seasons with Pittsburgh, Liriano has fallen completely off the map this season.
You are not serious about getting to the postseason, though, if you are, as Huntington said, going to have Ryan Vogelsong and Nova and a hodgepodge of rookies in your rotation.
The 52-51 Pirates rearranged their starting rotation this afternoon.
Huntington did say the Pirates will reallocate the dollars saved and invest them into the team and added “we won’t just spend money to spend money”. “The starting pitching was our biggest challenge and we felt like we addressed that somewhat internally and somewhat externally”. Considering the questions surrounding Liriano’s performance, the Blue Jays managed to extract two quality prospects from the Pirates in order to get the deal done. Blue Jay hitters fanned 22 times and the Astros had 18 hitters go down swinging. He has posted an impressive 6-5 record, with a 3.26 ERA in AAA with a 9.7 K/9, so he’s not a lost cause. He’s made five starts but has pitched nearly exclusively out of the bullpen since the end of April.
Ten hours later, he found himself on the mound in the bottom of the 14th inning, facing his old team in a 1-1 deadlock against his new team, the Blue Jays. “It was kind of convenient actually”, he said.
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Mike Bolsinger is a 28-year-old who hasn’t been able to secure a full-time major-league job, though he started a career-high 21 games last season. He has also spent some time in the minors in 2016.
