Right-hander Tanner Rainey has reunited with the Pirates on a minor league deal and will report to Triple-A Indianapolis, as relayed by Alex Stumpf of MLB.com. He was designated for assignment by the Bucs just over a week ago but had cleared waivers and elected free agency, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com.
Rainey, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Pirates in the offseason. He was selected to their roster in early May and spent almost a month on the roster. In that time, he struggled mightily through 11 appearances where he surrendered nine runs on seven hits and six walks while striking out six across 7 2/3 innings of work. A look under the hood reveals that eight of those appearances were actually scoreless, as he allowed all nine runs across the other three outings while combining to record just two outs in those appearances.
Meltdowns like that are sure to balloon a pitcher’s ERA, but Rainey retained the peripherals of a perfectly decent middle reliever. He struck out 24.3% of his opponents, and while his 16.2% walk rate was definitely alarming his ability to keep the ball on the ground and miss barrels was enough to allow him to maintain a solid 3.46 FIP and a decent 4.32 SIERA. Those numbers would be a marked improvement over last year, when he pitched to a 4.76 ERA and 5.42 FIP in 51 frames for the Nationals while walking 12.6% of his opponents and striking out just 19.0%.
Of course, the Pirates were surely hoping to help Rainey discover the form he flashed earlier in his Nationals career when they initially signed him. From 2019 to 2023, Rainey posted a 4.39 ERA with a 4.54 FIP in his 140 appearances for the club. That includes one major outlier season, however, as 2021 saw him torched to the tune of a 7.39 ERA in 31 2/3 innings of work. Rainey’s ERA was under 4.00 in the other four years of that stretch, and he even got some high-leverage work in during the 2022 campaign when he collected 12 saves.
If Rainey can get right, it wouldn’t be a shock to see him get another opportunity for a beleaguered Pirates team that could certainly use some help in the bullpen. Their 4.22 ERA ranks 20th in baseball, and key pieces like Tim Mayza and Justin Lawrence are currently on the shelf. Dennis Santana, David Bednar, and Caleb Ferguson are a decent late-inning trio, but Pittsburgh could use more solid middle relief options than Ryan Borucki and Kyle Nicolas. Of course, Rainey will need to compete with other non-roster veterans like Yohan Ramirez and Ryder Ryan to capitalize on those opportunities.
Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images
When it’s Rainey it pours.
When it’s Rainey, they scores
Seems like the rest of MLB are not interested in the players the Pirates DFA. What does that tell you about the job Cherington is doing in signing these players initially.
Leave it to Cherington to re-sign a pitcher that no one else wants
His list also includes Tommy Pham and Canario
Pham and Canario are pitchers? Who knew.
the intent was obvious and only an immature person would think otherwise
Hard to believe after watching his last outing, it was a well deserved DFA, they would re-sign.
They’re just doing this guy a favor. He’s been roasted this year.. you know how relievers are though. They bounce back usually. Best of luck I guess
Logical move. It is a minor league contract, low risk, medium reward. He pitched well in eight of his eleven outings as noted in the article, but fell apart in the other three. He is not taking up a roster spot, so worth the risk.
Note that the Pirates are above .500 under Kelly while they were .316 under Shelton. They have improved in both runs per game and hits per game, while reducing how many runs their opponents score per game. Will be interesting to see if they can continue these trends.
A negative trend is that they are striking out a little more under Kelly than Shelton while not striking out their opponents as much.
yes, this is a low risk move until they add him to the roster and bring him back up only to watch him melt again by blowing a lead
Speaking of strikeouts, Cruz leads the majors in strikeouts including called third strikes
Cutch overtook Clemente for 3rd place on the all time home run list in today’s game
At 38, he’s still a force to be reckoned with
Saw that Mlodzinski is back. Please keep him in the bullpen where he can help. End the starter experiment.
Wow, Bubba Chandler crashed and burned today.
I noted that he crashed and burned today, quite badly if you look at the game. Did I say he was a wash? No. I said he crashed and burned today which is factual, not an opinion. I said nothing more.. Yes, I am serious. This game is important in his development in relationship to how he responds and pitches next time out. How players respond to failure is important. Don’t jump to conclusions.
same can be said about this lackluster offense.
Another double digit strike out performance, 4 hits, Pham has another goose egg performance and Cruz adds 2 more strikeouts to his league leading total
With Skenes pitching today will the offense bounce back ?
Who was it that said that when Horowitz came off of the IL, our offense would improve?
It hasn’t changed much and maybe he shouldn’t be batting clean up