Neither lineup is at full strength either. Nolan Schanuel's intercostal strain has Vaughn Grissom manning first base for the Angels, and Oneil Cruz is still working back into a groove after missing time with a hand fracture in Pittsburgh. Both teams still have two games apiece to play — the Angels host the Yankees again, the Pirates host the Giants twice — before any of this settles into what actually shows up Saturday.
Pittsburgh's currently on its first 3-game winning streak, capped by a wild 13-12 walk-off win over San Francisco where Brandon Lowe went 4-for-4 with his 29th homer and Skenes somehow blew a 5-run lead and still got saved. That's a lineup that's found its groove even while the rotation behind Skenes gets stretched thin.
The Angels, meanwhile, are stuck in the kind of season where a good week doesn't change the math — a 10-1 blowout of the Yankees snapped a 7-game skid, only for LA to drop right back into the loss column the next night. At 53-86, this is shaping up as one of the worst seasons in franchise history, and it's happening under first-year manager Kurt Suzuki after Ron Washington's health-related exit.
None of that changes what's actually at stake Saturday: Pittsburgh is still fighting for relevance in a crowded Wild Card picture, while the Angels are mostly playing out the string and hoping the kids look good doing it. This is the middle game of a series that opens Friday, so how sharp either bullpen looks by the weekend depends a lot on what happens before this one even starts.