Not as bad as it seemed.

[Illinest]

This 10 game losing streak...

First - we were going to get swept by the Phillies. Especially a Phillies team that just added Pence. If you think back to the all star break I think most of us were pointing at 2-5 as a reasonable result for the series against the Phillies and the Braves. That's exactly what we got.

Then the Cubs series was weird because we actually had more hits than the Cubs in two of the games and a third game was very close at 1-0. I do believe that the Pirates were on the wrong end of some of the luck that carried them early to wins earlier in the year.

Only the series against the Padres really disheartened me.
Now look - we're 114 games in and only 4 games below .500. It's all fine and good to say 'our goal needs to be the playoffs' but realistically the team needs to progress through mediocrity into competence before we can hope to be good. .500 is - maybe not a goal so much as a milestone. It's something for the fans. That's us.

But what reason do we have for hope? Well I think the lineup is actually halfway competent finally. It's getting better at least. I think Lee is a quality pick-up and Ludwick isn't terrible. There are still some big question marks I grant you but we don't need to put together a whole winning season. We've already got 55 wins in the bank. We only need to win 4 more than what we lose. 26-22.

 

[magnumo]

Outstanding post, Illinest. I usually don't do "me too" or "i agree" or "+1" posts, but this one is too good to pass up. And I look forward to the return of Presley and Tabata..... both of whom should help the lineup even more.

The big question mark remaining is the pitching. There's a remarkable stat buried on the Pirates' clubhouse page at ESPN.com. I'll quote it here:

Pirates Pitching Is Difference Between Winning & Losing

The Pirates snapped their 10-game losing streak on Monday with a 5-0 win over the Giants. How were they able to do it? Pitching. In their past 10 wins, the team's ERA has been 1.45. In their past 10 losses, however, the Pirates have had an 8.05 ERA.

That is an astonishing difference. In my view, the fate of the team for the remainder of the season will be determined by which Pirate pitching staff shows up. (And that also will determine whether things are as bad as they seemed.)

 

[element1286]

It was certainly a case of everything that could have gone wrong over those 10 days did go wrong; but it doesn't change the fact they went 0-10, with seven of those games at home vs teams the Pirates are better than. I can see the Phils series as a better team beating us, and the Cubs series as a bit of luck running out, but that still leaves the Padres series.

Until the Padres series I was accepting as to what was happening, as even good teams have losing streaks, so certainly mediocre teams will have them. But the Padres series really put doubt into my head about a second half collapse type scenario.

Hopefully last night they got back on track somewhat. It was satisfying seeing Morton shut down the Giants, and the Pirates string hits together off Vogelsong.

Also, Lee doesn't look right to me, he swing through three pitches he should have been able to handle. The 86 mph cutter on the outer half of the plate belt high in his third ab is a pitch he should crush. Hopefully it is just the lingering effects of his hand.

 

[thedddd]

element, I thought the same thing with Lee.

Illinest I agree with your overall thought and watching that whole Cub series was frustrating seeing all the hits and no runs. The strikeouts came at bad times (Randy Wells had 7 k's!) but the Pirates still lost.

The good part with how bad the pitching was during that stretch they have a 3 game series against a team now with poor hitting. Hopefully that is the shot in the arm they need to get back to .500.

 

[Illinest]

2 out of 3 from the Giants. It's a step on the path to .500.

 

[element1286]

Definitely a nice bounceback, but they gotta win some games against Milwaukee this weekend.

 

[Illinest]

Well it's still slipping away overall but it's nice to be able to say that we took 5/10 against Reds, Cards, Brewers.

On the plus side - Presley is back.
On the negative side - Maholm is injured.
On the plus side - Ohlendorf is back.
On the negative side - God only knows if he'll be effective.