Pittsburgh Pirates @ Miami Marlins - March 29, 2025

As I gear up for the matchup between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Miami Marlins at loanDepot park, it’s hard not to get excited about what’s in store. Both teams come into this game with a 1-1 record, but the real intrigue lies on the mound where we have two pitchers yet to notch a win this season.

Bailey Falter takes the hill for the Pirates. While his record stands at 0-0, he boasts an impressive 4.221 ERA and has been striking out batters at a rate of 8.37 per nine innings. This indicates that he can miss bats effectively, which is crucial against a Marlins lineup that has shown some offensive prowess early in the season.

On the other side, Valente Bellozo will be making his start for Miami. His stats show an identical win-loss record of 0-0 but a higher ERA of 4.794 coupled with slightly fewer strikeouts at 8.13 per nine innings. This could suggest that while Bellozo may keep games competitive, he might struggle more than Falter when it comes to shutting down opposing hitters.

When we look at team statistics, Pittsburgh edges out Miami in runs scored per game (4.105 vs. 3.932) and RBIs (3.969 vs. 3.772). However, both teams are struggling with batting averages—Pittsburgh sits at .229 while Miami is just marginally better at .239—and their on-base slugging percentages are quite close as well (65.91% for Pittsburgh compared to Miami’s 66.314%).

In their last encounter, Pittsburgh managed to squeeze out a narrow victory over Miami with a final score of 4-3, indicating that these games are likely to be tightly contested affairs—especially given how evenly matched these teams appear statistically.

The oddsmakers opened this game with the Pirates as -135 moneyline favorites and set an Over/Under total of 8.5 runs for the contest—a number I expect could very well be surpassed based on current trends and performances from both offenses.

Miami’s recent form shows they have been solid against the spread lately (5-0 ATS in their last five games), suggesting they can keep things competitive even if they struggle offensively overall this season thus far.

Given all these factors combined with my prediction that Pittsburgh will take home another victory tonight against Miami, I’m inclined to lean towards betting on them winning outright while also favoring the Over on total runs scored due to both teams’ capabilities and pitching matchups leading me to believe we’ll see some fireworks offensively tonight!

So grab your popcorn; it looks like we’re in for an exciting showdown!