Pittsburgh Pirates at San Francisco Giants 7/25/21 - MLB Picks & Predictions

The Pittsburgh Pirates will hope to build off a win in the series opener when they close out a series with the San Fransisco Giants at Oracle Park. San Fransisco has been one of the best teams in the MLB this year, coming in with an MLB best record 61-36 after winning three of four over the Dodgers and dropping the series opener. Pittsburgh snapped a four-game losing streak with the win, but is still well out of the playoff picture at 37-60 and fifth in the NL Central.

San Fransisco has been an above-average offense this season led by the resurgence of a couple of veterans, as a team they’re hitting .244 which ranks 11th in the MLB, and scoring 4.91 runs per game which ranks 7th in scoring offense. Shortstop Brandon Crawford is leading the way for the offense, hitting .286 with 18 homeruns and 58 RBIs, all three of which are leading the team thus far. 

The Giants will hand the ball to the left-hander Alex Wood who is off to a solid start to his season where he’s 8-3 with a 3.88 ERA and an impressive 1.17 WHIP on the year. He’s struck out over a batter per innings, sending down 94 batters by the way of the strikeout in 88.1 innings this season. Wood didn't have his best stuff in his last outing but nonetheless had a solid start allowing three runs on six hits in five innings.

Pittsburgh comes into this game hitting .238 as a team which ranks 17th in the MLB but they haven’t been able to turn that into runs, as they’re scoring just 3.67 runs per game which is the least in the MLB thus far this season. The rebuild has been a long one for the Pirates and they’ve got a long way to go still, but left fielder Bryan Reynolds has proven to be one of the best players in the organization leading the team with 18 homeruns and 56 RBIs, while hitting .307 on the season. 

Pittsburgh will send out the right-hander JT Brubaker to get the start, he’s had his struggles this season going 4-9 witha  4.68 ERA and 1.20 WHIP in 92 innings this season. Brubaker is coming off one of the worst outings of his season when he allowed four runs on six hits and issued three walks in just 3.2 innings, he put Pittsburgh in a hole that they weren’t able to climb out of in a 7-6 loss to the Mets.