PITTSBURGH - The Pirates closed out a sweep over the Cardinals tonight, starting the season 3-0 with a 5-1 victory. The biggest takeaway from the night was the debut of Juan Nicasio. It's way too early to call him the next Ray Searage success story, but based on the stuff he showed tonight, and the results he put up, it's easy to imagine he's heading down that path.
Nicasio flashed a fastball that was sitting 95-97, touching 98 MPH in the early innings, along with a slider that was 86-87 MPH and showing a lot of success. That kind of stuff is what you'd expect from a Pirates reclamation project, making it so that the success really isn't that surprising after the fact.