{"id":144788,"date":"2026-03-21T17:45:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T17:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/144788\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T17:45:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T17:45:36","slug":"pirates-mlb-opening-day-opponent-sets-starting-rotation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/144788\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates’ MLB Opening Day Opponent Sets Starting Rotation"},"content":{"rendered":"

In some of the least surprising news of spring training, the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> recently announced<\/a> that NL Cy Young award winner Paul Skenes will start the team’s Opening Day game on Thursday against the New York Mets.<\/p>\n

Pirates fans now know which three starting pitchers their team’s offense will be facing during the upcoming three-game set against the Mets.<\/p>\n

New York manager Carlos Mendoza revealed his group’s starters for the Mets’ first six contests of the campaign on Saturday.<\/p>\n

“First 6 Mets games: 1. Peralta. 2. Peterson. 3. McLean. 4. Holmes. 5. Senga. 6. Peralta. \u2026 Manaea will be part of a piggyback situation but Mendoza won\u2019t say which game,” MLB insider Joel Sherman posted on Bluesky.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

First 6 Mets games: 1. Peralta. 2. Peterson. 3. McLean. 4. Holmes. 5. Senga. 6. Peralta. \u2026 Manaea will be part of a piggyback situation but Mendoza won\u2019t say which game.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Joel Sherman (@joelsherman.bsky.social<\/a>) March 21, 2026 at 10:18 AM<\/a><\/p>\n

Expectations are high in Pittsburgh this year as the Pirates will look to make\u00a0the playoffs for the first time in 11 years.<\/p>\n

With Skenes leading the rotation and top prospect Konnor Griffin potentially making the Opening Day roster at shortstop, some are even predicting<\/a> that Pittsburgh could win the NL Central for the first time since 1992.<\/p>\n

Though manager Don Kelly hasn’t revealed the team’s full starting rotation yet, baseball fans know Skenes will be matched up against two-time All-Star Freddy Peralta on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Mets will follow with 2025 All-Star left-hander David Peterson on Saturday (after Friday’s off day) and throw promising rookie right-hander Nolan McLean on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Among the candidates to start Saturday’s and Sunday’s contest for Kelly include rookie Bubba Chandler, 2023 All-Star Mitch Keller and second-year pro Braxton Ashcraft.<\/p>\n

More MLB: Pirates Option Offseason Acquisition Amid Dominant Spring<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In some of the least surprising news of spring training, the Pittsburgh Pirates recently announced that NL Cy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-144788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-pittsburgh","9":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","10":"tag-pittsburgh-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}