Let’s go Bucs!
Pirates finally showing signs of life
Well, shiver our timbers.
?The long suffering Pittsburgh Pirates are showing some life this season. Before their loss on Wednesday, their record (45-41) put them four games over .500 this late in a season for the first time since 1992, the team’s most recent winning season before a major North American professional sports record 18 straight losing seasons.
We’ve lambasted the team — and ownership — in this space before, and it’s a welcome change to see winning baseball in July. The series-finale loss to the Astros on Wednesday dropped them to three games over .500, so it’s just barely winning baseball, but — after 18 seasons of futility — we’ll take it.
It’s been nothing short of amazing to watch the Buccos this year. It’s been years since we were still able to hold onto hope this far into the season. Hitting win No. 45 is notable because, to put things in perspective, the Pirates did not win their 45th game last season until Sept. 3.
Now, granted, the Pirates have not really won anything yet. It’s actually quite an indictment of the team that just being alive at this point in the season is a victory of sorts, but that’s what you get after such a prolonged period of putrid play. And of course, the bottom could still fall out on this season. We’d not be Pirates fans if we weren’t eternally bracing ourselves for one of those patented Pirates losing streaks. But hope springs eternal, fed this year by the fact that the team hasn’t lost consecutive games since losing four straight June 17-20. It’s been quite a streak for the Pirates, having won four of five and 10 of 14. Meanwhile, Jeff Karstens’ win on Wednesday was the 34th win of the season for a Pittsburgh starter; that matches how many the entire starting staff had in 2010.
The league has seen a leveling this year, as offense is down and pitching on the rise. The shift toward parity is good for teams like the Pirates, and skipper Clint Hurdle deserves a lot of credit for changing the atmosphere in Pittsburgh and getting the most out of his team.
The question now becomes, what happens next? Will the Nuttings make moves to strengthen the team — either via trades or locking up core players to long-term contracts — or are we going to see another fire sale of quality players shipped out of town in exchange for prospects? Paul Maholm, with a losing record but a 3.08 ERA, is set to see a big bump in salary next year — big as in approaching $10 million. It will be interesting to see how the notoriously spending-averse Nuttings handle him and other producing Pirates.
While there are about three months for the wheels to come off, the Buccos are giving us reason for optimism this year. After 18 losing seasons, perhaps the 19th time is a charm.