Pirates Series Takeaways: Hat Tip to Keller, Middle Relief Still a Concern, City Connects

Keller has a chance to pass several more former pitchers ahead of him this year. Next up are Deacon Phillippe (861), Dock Ellis (869) and Steve Blass (896).

Middling Relief

The Pirates should be feeling pretty confident about the back of their bullpen. Dennis Santana has been lights out since joining the team. Gregory Soto looks like money well spent. Isaac Mattson continues to give hitters fits with essentially one pitch.

But the Pirates should be varying levels of concerned with the rest of the bullpen.

Mason Montgomery is trending in the right direction. If he can consistently command his stuff, he’s going to be really, really good. Yohan Ramírez has largely been good this season and doing what he did on Saturday — covering the final three innings — was commendable. But he’s been a journeyman reliever his entire career.

Justin Lawrence, like the others, has really good stuff. But he’s been knocked around so far this season. Maybe his two straight scoreless outings are a sign he’s headed in the right direction but it’s too early to tell. Evan Sisk was part of the problematic fifth inning post-delay on Saturday. His spot on the roster feels interchangeable as the season goes on.

Cam Sanders was here to start the weekend. He was not here at the end. The Pirates sent him back down to Triple-A after allowing four runs in the aforementioned fifth inning of Saturday’s game. He was replaced by Wilber Dotel, who is an intriguing prospect but might be more of a short-term solution in the bullpen before going back to Indianapolis to rejoin the rotation.

The options the Pirates have in Triple-A are limited. Ben Cherington said on his weekly radio show on 93.7 The Fan that it’s probably too early to make external additions. So for now, the Pirates will have to do a lot of hoping and praying.

City Connects

I’ll say it, and I won’t be the first to do so. The Pirates new city connect uniforms are awesome.

Pittsburgh wore the new uniforms — a combination of black jerseys, black pants and a mustard-gold hat — for the first time in Friday night’s win over the Washington Nationals.

The look was Batman-esq with the color of the jerseys and the font of the ‘Pirates’ script across the front. Fittingly, A.J. Burnett was in town to help celebrate the launch of the new digs and threw out the first pitch before the game on Friday.

Burnett gave his stamp of approval on the unis.

“I think I would have worn them every five days,” Burnett said. “I just think they’re really sharp. Everything they did with them — black and gold inside, even a little red accent pops out. I think it’s gorgeous.”

I didn’t necessarily hate the previous City Connect uniforms the Pirates wore, the yellow ones with “PGH” written in black letters across the front. But I definitely didn’t love them, either.

The new ones, however, are great. The best of the eight teams who got new ones, which is saying something considering I do really like the ones the Baltimore Orioles and Atlanta Braves wear in particular.

I’m not the only one likes these ones a lot better than the previous.

“I definitely like them more than last year’s,” first baseman Spencer Horwitz said. “I think it’s kind of going with our theme that we got going too, pretty gritty. As long as we keep winning in them we’ll keep rocking them.”

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