{"id":2881,"date":"2025-05-03T21:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T21:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/2881\/"},"modified":"2025-05-03T21:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T21:37:07","slug":"pirates-select-tanner-rainey-place-isiah-kiner-falefa-on-injured-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/2881\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Select Tanner Rainey, Place Isiah Kiner-Falefa On Injured List"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pirates are selecting the contract of right-hander Tanner Rainey<\/a>, according to a club announcement. Right-hander Justin Lawrence<\/a> was transferred to the 60-day injured list to make room for Rainey on the 40-man roster, while Rainey\u2019s active roster spot will come at the expense of infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa<\/a>. The veteran utility man is being placed on the 10-day injured list due to a right hamstring strain, and the move is retroactive to May 1.<\/p>\n

Rainey, 32, signed with the Pirates on a minor league deal back in December after being non-tendered by the Nationals just a couple of weeks prior. Originally drafted in the second round of the 2015 draft by the Reds, Rainey debuted with Cincinnati back in 2018 but was flipped to Washington prior to the 2019 season and has spent the vast majority of his career in the nation\u2019s capital. In parts of six seasons with the Nats, Rainey has generally been a serviceable middle reliever with a 4.49 ERA (94 ERA+) and a 28.5% strikeout rate in his 182 1\/3 innings of work.<\/p>\n

Those numbers are decent enough, and he even earned some run as the club\u2019s closer while the team was rebuilding in 2022 as he picked up 12 saves, but Rainey\u2019s hefty 14.1% walk rate largely locked him out of the late innings with the club. His performance in 2024, when he pitched to a 4.76 ERA (86 ERA+) with a 5.42 FIP and a 12.6% walk rate against a strikeout rate of just 19.0%, was enough to convince the Nationals to move on from him rather than pay him an arbitration-level salary. Even so, the Pirates were interested enough in his strikeout-heavy profile to bring him into the fold as a potential depth option. He\u2019ll now get a new big league opportunity with his third organization amid a season where the Pirates\u2019 bullpen has largely been in flux.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Kiner-Falefa exits Pittsburgh\u2019s positional mix after hitting .280\/.333\/.330 in 109 plate appearances across his first 30 games of the year. The veteran\u2019s lack of power means that line is overall good for a wRC+ of 87, but he\u2019s been getting on base at a solid clip, keeping his strikeouts under control, and playing solid defense as the club\u2019s reular shortstop. The Pirates will need to figure things out at the position without Kiner-Falefa\u2019s steady glove, and that could be easier said than done. It would be a surprise if the Pirates opted to move Oneil Cruz back onto the infield dirt after he\u2019s worked to improve as their everyday center fielder, which could leave the club to rely on Jared Triolo as its everyday shortstop for the time being.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pirates are selecting the contract of right-hander Tanner Rainey, according to a club announcement. Right-hander Justin Lawrence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,2057,308,4,2058],"class_list":{"0":"post-2881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-isiah-kiner-falefa","10":"tag-justin-lawrence","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-tanner-rainey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114446063640095293","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}