The Pirates took a 3-0 lead and held on for a 5-1 victory to take the series over the Mariners to move back over .500 at 41-40 halfway through the season. Henry Davis and Brandon Lowe both homered to lead the offense and Don Kelly wins his 100th victory as a Pirates manager. Bubba Chandler kept the Mariners at bay with one run allowed in 5.1 innings and the bullpen held it the rest of the way for the win. Cody and Doug break this series win down on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti’s Bros. You can watch/listen here…

Here’s my 3 takeaways from this win…

How Good Was the Brandon Lowe Trade?

Ben Cherington has sure had some clunker trades in his Pirates tenure, but I gotta give him his flowers again on the Brandon Lowe trade. All three players acquired in that trade contributed to a victory in this one. Brandon Lowe belted a solo home run to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead. It’s his team-leading 19th home run as he’s on pace for 38 bombs this season (please stay healthy) and he should be an All-Star. Jake Mangum had a huge sliding catch with two outs and bases loaded to end the threat in the 4th inning and Mason Montgomery came in to relief Yohan Ramirez and got out of a bases-loaded jam and then pitched a scoreless 8th inning. Huge parts of the game and it all contributed to a win. Our standards were low, but Cherington has outdone himself with that trade. People are calling it the pickup of the offseason with Lowe, but all three players are playing a role here with this team. And Mike Burrows has a 5.48 ERA for the Astros. You couldn’t have pulled off a better trade in MLB The Show.

O HENRY OPPO BOMB

Henry Davis clubbed a two-run home run to give the Pirates a 3-0 lead and the best part was it was an opposite field home run. He later doubled in the 9th inning and scored an insurance run. I’ve done this before though and I’m not doing it again. I’m not saying Davis is going to suddenly turn it around now and be a good hitter, but this is why the Pirates aren’t going to give up on him anytime soon like most of Pirates Twitter want to happen. He was their number one overall pick, he’s going to get a lot of chances. Davis and Endy Rodriguez are both going to play and that’s just the reality of it. Joey Bart is gone in the trade to Atlanta and it’s the Endy/Davis show for now. I really hope Davis can find some more consistency and become something at the plate. He doesn’t need to be a .300 hitter, but .250 with 15-20 home runs would be sweet. He clearly has pop and there’s the potential for more. He was drafted 1.1 for his hitting tool. Let’s hope he can show it some more this season. Plus, Paul Skenes prefers him so Henry has that going for him at least.

Don Kelly’s 100th Victory

Don Kelly has had mixed reviews in a little over a year as the Pirates manager, but Thursday afternoon with the 5-1 victory, he notched his 100th victory. He’s now 100-105 as an MLB manager. I don’t know what to think of Kelly as a manager so far, I think he’s been fine to date and definitely doesn’t have many good options when managing the bullpen but I thought he did a good job with the bullpen in this win. He needed to cover 3.2 innings from a mid pen to hold a 3-1 lead. He called on Evan Sisk first then Yohan Ramirez. Ramirez is the one I thought was the questionable move, but credit to Kelly for pulling him after a forceout and back-to-back walks in the 7th inning. He went to Montgomery who got the strikeout and then pitched a scoreless 8th inning. This bullpen has blown tons of leads this season, but Thursday was not one of them. It’s tough to quantify value and wins for managers, so take this chart for what you want to take it for, but it shows Kelly has been middle of the road when it comes to win probability decisions like pinch-hits and bullpen changes:

Again, I think Kelly has been fine. He hasn’t had much to work with regarding the bullpen, but the team is 41-40 with three injuries to major offensive pieces and a crap bullpen. Let’s see how the next 81 games go.