PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan)- If you are a baseball fan and you’ve been checking in at all on Major League Baseball’s postseason, you’re likely to hear a familiar name or two.
Or three. Or four. Or five.
These playoffs have featured former Pittsburgh Pirates on multiple playoff rosters, both in the National and American Leagues.
Take Tuesday night, for example. The Tampa Bay Rays knotted up their ALDS series with the New York Yankees with a 7-5 win. The starting pitcher for Tampa? Former Bucco top prospect Tyler Glasnow, a key piece in a trade to acquire Chris Archer.
Glasnow went 5 innings, gave up 4 earned runs including two home runs surrendered to red hot slugger Giancarlo Stanton. But he also showed off fastballs of 100 mph at least 8 different times and struck out 10 Yankees along the way. Meanwhile on the other side, J.A. Happ came in for 2.2 innings of work for the Yanks and got roughed up bit, giving up 4 earned runs and a couple home runs.
Looking elsewhere in that game’s lineup card, you’ll find Austin Meadows, another member of the Archer trade, who served as the DH and leadoff hitter going 1 for 4 with an RBI.
Of course, in Game 1 of that series, the Bronx Bombers provided four homeruns in support of their ace, Gerrit Cole. Cole went 6 innings, gave up 3 runs and a couple of homers but struck out 8 Rays hitters.
If you jump over to the National League in a game that took place before Yankees-Rays, the Marlins and Braves featured some old friends as well.
The Braves took care of the Marlins 9-5 to win Game 1 and the final man to pitch for Atlanta? Former Pirates set up man and closer Mark Melancon. He worked a scoreless 9th inning while racking up a couple of strikeouts.
On the other side, former Pirate Corey Dickerson got the start in left field for Miami, while Matt Joyce recorded a pinch hit RBI.
Starling Marte would have also been in the starting lineup for the Marlins had he not broken a finger.
In all, I’ve got 16 former Pirates as having been on postseason rosters this year including the likes of Oliver Perez, Jordan Luplow, Charlie Morton, Jarrod Dyson, Joakim Soria, Robbie Grossman, Tyler Lyons, Sean Rodriguez.