Charlie v Jorge De La Rosa; Lefty Lineup & Notes

Today's Game - Charlie Morton (8-5, 4.20) closes out the quickie home stand against Jorge De La Rosa (7-6, 4.61), continuing the trend of southpaw opponents for the Buccos. Good Charlie, bad Charlie - who knows who is going to show up? When he's in command of his formidable stuff, he's a beast, but on days when the ball has a mind of its own...ouch. Charlie is 2-1/3.62 in six career starts v the Rox, and has been charged with two or fewer earned runs in four of the six outings. He went 0-1 with a 3.45 ERA in two starts in 2014.

Veteran hurler De La Rosa has been uneven this year, a common malady of Rox pitchers. He's gotten beat up a home with an ERA of nearly six, but in 11 road starts, he's 5-4/3.51. DLR faced the Bucs once in 2014, and tossed a strong six innings although he didn't get a decision. Overall, he's posted a slash of 4-3/3.75 against the Pirates. The game starts at 1:35 and will be on Root Sports and 93.7 The Fan.

A lefty lineup - Pedro, The Kid and JHK (.244 BA v LHP) sit out in today's musical chairs arrangement. The dog days bench that NH has put together equals the one Chuck Tanner had back in the day.

• The Pirates will attempt to sweep the Rockies at home for the second straight season. Pittsburgh enters today with a league-leading 13 sweeps, the most sweeps for the Bucs since also record ing 13 in 1991. The last time Pittsburgh had more than 13 sweeps in a season came in 1990 (16).
• Pittsburgh has a MLB leading 29-15 (.659) record in one-run games this season. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the last time that Pittsburgh finished with the best record in the majors in one-run games was in 1958 after going 30-19 (.612).
• Showtime: beginning Tuesday night, 26 of Pittsburgh’s final 33 games will come NL Central rivals.
• The Bucs announced that the rainout DH against the Cubs on 9/15 will be day-night games, so separate admission will be required for both contests. 
• AJ Cassavell makes a case for tweaking the September call-up rosters - keep the rosters full, but turn in a 22-man list for the game.