Pittsburgh Pirates

In starting pitcher Edinson Volquez's first four games with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2014, the righty went 1-0 with a 1.71 ERA.  

Suddenly, it looked like the Pirates made a great decision in signing him to a one-year deal during the offseason.  

The Pittsburgh Pirates received a major boost last Saturday when their young starting pitcher, Gerrit Cole, made his first start in over three weeks.  

The 23-year-old had been shelved with right shoulder fatigue, which had caused him to lose velocity on his fastball and yield more hits to batters.  

After being removed from his role as the closer of the Pittsburgh Pirates one week ago, Jason Grilli was settling into his new role as a normal reliever.

Pedro Alvarez has always been a polarizing player for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The man affectionately known as El Toro has undisputed power in his bat as evidenced by the National League-leading 36 home runs he hit last year. However, that power comes at a cost in the form of dismally-low batting averages, loads of strikeouts and poor fielding at third base.

News broke Friday afternoon that the Pittsburgh Pirates have removed Jason Grilli from the closer’s role, according to Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Rob Biertempfel.

The Pittsburgh Pirates shocked Major League Baseball last year by winning 94 games and coming within a win of reaching the National League Championship Series, but this year's version of the team will have a hard time duplicating that success.

The technical term for Andrew McCutchen's performance in 2012 and 2013 is "a hard act to follow."

All he did was hit .322 with a .932 OPS across those two seasons, with last year's National League MVP award being the bow on top of it all. It's hard to ask a guy to be any better than that.

Grab a pen and mark this down: Friday, June 13, 2014, at Marlins Park in Miami, Florida. That's the date and the venue of Gregory Polanco's coming-out party.

Oh, and the other two members of the Pittsburgh Pirates' homegrown outfield also showed up.

The Pittsburgh Pirates already have two homegrown talents in their outfield in Starling Marte and 2013 National League MVP Andrew McCutchen.

Now here comes a third. At long last, the Pirates are calling super-prospect Gregory Polanco to The Show.

The news was first reported by Polanco himself, who sent the word out via Twitter:

Over the last few seasons, we have seen the emergence of a number of young pitching prospects in Major League Baseball.  

Unfortunately, 2014 has been the year of torn ulnar collateral ligaments, resulting in season-ending Tommy John surgery for a lot of those young stars.