{"id":156524,"date":"2026-04-03T18:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/156524\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T18:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:36:19","slug":"orioles-vs-pirates-picks-pittsburgh-solid-play-in-home-opener-konnor-griffins-big-league-debut-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/156524\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles vs. Pirates picks: Pittsburgh solid play in home opener, Konnor Griffin’s big-league debut Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn’t enter this week expecting to preview two Pirates<\/a> games in the span of 72 hours, but the Bucs have forced my hand for Friday afternoon’s home opener against Baltimore. It will be the big-league debut of shortstop and MLB<\/a> No. 1 overall prospect Konnor Griffin<\/a>. And with the very solid Mitch Keller<\/a> on the mound, I like the Bucs. Bit of an unusual first pitch time of 4:12. Why not just 4:05 or 4:10?\u00a0 Apparently, it’s a fairly recent tradition in the home opener as a nod to Pittsburgh’s 412 area code. Cool.<\/p>\n

Check out our bet365 promo code<\/a> to see the great new offer available when you wager on MLB futures.<\/p>\n

On March 3 in this space, I looked at National League Rookie of the Year futures, and Griffin was the +280 favorite as the 19-year-old had gotten off to a strong start power-wise in the Grapefruit League. But he cooled off considerably, finishing the spring hitting just .171 with a .268 on-base percentage and 13 strikeouts but also four homers and nine RBI in 41 at-bats.<\/p>\n

Griffin’s NL ROY odds generally rose to around +500 when he was reassigned to minor league camp on March 21, with Mets<\/a> righty Nolan McLean<\/a> (my preseason pick) sliding into the +280 favored spot. But Griffin is right back atop the DraftKings board with this news at +240, ahead of the Reds<\/a>‘ Sal Stewart<\/a> (+350), Cardinals<\/a>‘ JJ Wetherholt<\/a> (+450) and McLean (+600).<\/p>\n

There was some thought that the Bucs sent Griffin down simply to delay his service-time clock, but calling him up this early will go ahead and start it. The 6-foot-3, 222-pounder started the season at Triple-A Indianapolis, where he had seven hits in his 16 at-bats (.438 AVG, 1.196 OPS) with three stolen bases. The Pirates and Griffin already are negotiating on a long-term deal to buy out some arbitration years and perhaps a year or two of free agency. Reports? Nine years at a max of $140 million.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Why do this now? Through six games, Pittsburgh shortstops (Jared Triolo<\/a> and Nick Gonzales<\/a>) have a .546 OPS, 17th in MLB, and only the White Sox<\/a> (-3) have been worse than the Pirates (-2) in FanGraphs’ defensive runs saved category. If Griffin, who also projects as a Gold Glove-caliber defender, remains with the team the rest of the season, the Bucs would be eligible to receive a draft pick through the Prospect Promotion Incentive as part of the most recent CBA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fans who want to wager on MLB futures and tail Matt Severance’s picks can check out the latest BetMGM promo code<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Mariners<\/a> set a bit of a recent financial precedent by signing top prospect Colt Emerson<\/a> to an eight-year, $95 million extension this week. That base salary was the largest ever given to a player with zero service time, and the 20-year-old shortstop hasn’t been called up yet. <\/p>\n

As for tonight, Griffin’s first big-league at-bat will come against solid Orioles<\/a> right-hander Kyle Bradish<\/a>. He was a rising star in 2023 before injuries derailed his 2024-25 campaigns for the most part, although he was still good in limited action. Bradish allowed two earned and two hits over 4.2 innings in losing his 2026 opener to a bad Minnesota team.<\/p>\n

It’s somewhat ironic Griffin is debuting vs. the Orioles because their star shortstop, Gunnar Henderson<\/a>, was the consensus No. 1 overall prospect entering 2022 and has largely lived up to that. What did Henderson do at the plate in his big-league debut? He was 2-for-4 with a solo homer on Aug. 31, 2022, in Cleveland. <\/p>\n

The SportsLine Projection Model forecasts Griffin with 0.64 hits Thursday, second-lowest among projected Pirates starters. DraftKings has him priced -208 for Over 0.5 hits (that’s a crazy price, and I might have to look at +155 for Under). For the season, FanGraphs projects him at .261 with 11 homers, 56 RBI, 118 strikeouts and 22 stolen bases. Those are NL ROY-caliber numbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Check out the latest DraftKings promo code<\/a>\u00a0and bet on Friday’s game.<\/p>\n

While the Orioles are probably the better team, I do like Pittsburgh today with all the excitement and Keller on the hill. He got a criminal amount of run support last season (like Paul Skenes<\/a>) and had 15 losses despite decent numbers. His home career splits are significantly better than away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Keller dominated his 2026 opener at the Mets, with six shutout innings and three hits allowed, but yet again got no help from his offense in a no-decision. Keller is 1-1 with a 0.69 ERA in 13 career innings vs. Baltimore with 14 strikeouts to just one walk. New Oriole Pete Alonso<\/a> can’t hit him a lick at 1-for-15 with five Ks.<\/p>\n

Pick: Pirates +1.5 (-160). I’ll not turn down when I think a team that should be a slight favorite gets +1.5 at home. The model has the Orioles 4.4-4.3, and I do expect a lower-scoring game. Check out other expert picks in the daily newsletter.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I didn’t enter this week expecting to preview two Pirates games in the span of 72 hours, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[63594,11848,34484,29827,70941,7159,70942,37448,45318,14709,70940,70882,17150,1423,70934,70933,70935,4606,57211,69006,70938,70936,70937,70939,22146,4608,73,75,74,10997,70943,23786,45323],"class_list":{"0":"post-156524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-baltimore-orioles","9":"tag-betting","10":"tag-chicago-white-sox","11":"tag-cincinnati-reds","12":"tag-colt-emerson","13":"tag-gambling","14":"tag-gunnar-henderson","15":"tag-jared-triolo","16":"tag-jj-wetherholt","17":"tag-konnor-griffin","18":"tag-konnor-griffin-player-props","19":"tag-kyle-bradish","20":"tag-mitch-keller","21":"tag-mlb","22":"tag-mlb-odds","23":"tag-mlb-picks","24":"tag-mlb-predictions","25":"tag-new-york-mets","26":"tag-nick-gonzales","27":"tag-nolan-mclean","28":"tag-orioles-pirates-best-bets","29":"tag-orioles-pirates-odds","30":"tag-orioles-pirates-picks","31":"tag-orioles-pirates-predictions","32":"tag-paul-skenes","33":"tag-pete-alonso","34":"tag-pittsburgh","35":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","36":"tag-pittsburgh-news","37":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","38":"tag-sal-stewart","39":"tag-seattle-mariners","40":"tag-st-louis-cardinals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156524","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=156524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}