The Pittsburgh Pirates will continue their west coast road trip with a trip to Oracle Park to take on the San Francisco Giants. The Pirates are well out of the playoff picture, as expected, and after splitting a four-game set with the Arizona Diamondbacks sit at 45-66 on the year. San Francisco has had a brutal start to the second half of the season and have'fallen below .500 at 54-57, leaving them 7.5 games back of the last NL wild card spot. Find out who else is in the running with our MLB picks.
San Francisco has been a solid offensive unit this season averaging 4.56 runs per game but lacks the star power of the top echelon of teams in the National League. Joc Pederson started the year hot but has fallen off since, he leads the team with 17 home runs and 45 RBIs, but has yet to hit a homer and has driven in just two runs in August. It's a balanced effort but just one more big bat in this lineup would have gone a long way as the postseason approaches.'
The left-handed Carlos Rodon will get the start in hopes of continuing to roll through lineups as he has the last two seasons. Rodon is 10-6 with a 2.95 ERA and 1.07 WHIP on the year. He's coming off another solid outing allowing a run on five hits and striking out three in 5.1 innings of work. Rodon is coming off the best season of his career, and although the numbers are up a little bit from last year, he's clearly turned a corner as he approaches thirty.'