Pirates Dreadful Season Continues

The Pirates head into the All-Star break on yet another six game losing streak, all six on the road once again. I have actually written this opening three times in the last two weeks, each time this post getting bumped by other news. The common link each time I have written this piece has been how dreadful the Pirates have been.

The first edition came immediately following the Pirates first win after 17 consecutive road losses. The second time the Buccos had actually managed to win two of three from the Cubbies, giving them a whopping four wins in a 23 game stretch at that point. This time, the Pirates are fresh off another miserable road trip where they were swept in Houston and in Milwaukee, two teams that had been playing nearly as bad as the Pirates had been.

The Pirates play for most of the first half of the season has been quite simply horrible, almost downright embarrassing. The current six game losing streak has pushed their road record on the season to 11-38, which for perspective’s sake would equate to a 126 loss season. These Pirates are playing some historically bad baseball on the road. Worse yet, the Bucs play at home has not been much better recently. Overall, the Pirates have nine wins in 36 games in June and July. NINE FREAKIN’ WINS…

Not only are the Pirates losing, they are playing terrible baseball. Horrible fielding, bad baserunning, poor at-bats and a general lack of fundamentals have exemplified this current stretch of embarrassing baseball. As we begin the All-Star festivities tonight, the Pirates are a National League worst 30-58, a record that puts them on pace for 107 losses this season. That number of losses would be more than even the worst pessimist would have guessed to start the year. With the halfway point behind us and no end in sight to the losing, it is time to take a quick look at what has gone right (very little) and what has gone wrong (way too much) so far this season:

The Good

Andrew McCutchen – McCutchen has picked up right where he left off last year and that has the young phenom well on his way to stardom. After batting .286/.365/.471 with 12 HRs and 22 SBs in only 433 at-bats as a rookie, “Cutch” has followed it up with a .287/.363/.435, 8 HRs and 20 SBs as a sophomore and that despite a recent slump. Yes, a few more timely hits would be nice, but those hits will come as McCutchen matures. Despite getting ripped off from an All-Star appearance this year, you can be sure that McCutchen is well on his way to multiple All-Star classics.

Evan Meek – Meek has been dominant out of the bullpen. The former Rule-5 pick, maybe Neal Huntington’s best move as a GM to date, has held opponents to a .184 batting average, sports a 1.11 ERA, a 0.95 WHIP, and has struck out 45 batters in 48 innings against only 14 walks. He probably did not deserve his All-Star bid, but Meek definitely looks as though he will be the Buccos closer in the not so distant future.

Arrivals of Walker, Tabata, Lincoln and Alvarez – Only Neil Walker has performed reasonably well since his call-up to the big leagues but all four of these Pirates’ prospects earned their trip to the show and none have looked totally outclassed. The Pirates’ future is very dependent on these four guys, along with the two guys above, so to see them in their big league uniforms is a positive in itself.

And that’s about it on the list of the positives. Paul Maholm and Garrett Jones have performed well, and that is more than most of this organization can attest to, but neither has exceeded expectations. On the contrary, there have been too many negatives to list in this space. As the halfway point nears we will try to limit our list to the most glaring deficiencies at the halfway mark.

The Bad

Ryan Doumit – I have to vent for a quick second: Has any catcher in the history of baseball missed more foul tips than this guy?! Little league catchers don’t get hit from foul tips and pitches in the dirt as much as this guy. Throw in his total inability to throw a runner out, the pitchers’ slow delivery be damned, and Doumit has to be the worst defensive catcher in baseball. He is not a very good hitter either, and any hope that he was going to be a cornerstone for this franchise is out the door. Sure, he can still be a productive Major League catcher. Most teams would take a .260-.280 hitting, 15-20 home run guy as their backstop. But Doumit is 29-years-old now, there is no more potential with him. He is what he is, and that is an average catcher at best.

Lastings Milledge – I am not going to crush Milledge in this space. He has played hard, competed and seems to have matured a great deal since his arrival. His talent simply did not match the hype, however, and I think we are getting the definitive answer on his role going forward. He is a good fourth outfielder. The simple fact is that you cannot have a corner outfielder, especially one that is not even a superior fielder, hitting only 5-10 home runs over the course of a season and be in your everyday line-up. Milledge does enough to be a productive player off the bench and start a couple of times per week, but I think any hope that he could be the starting right fielder long-term has left.

Neal Huntington – I could have put Ryan Church, Bobby Crosby, Aki Iwamura, or Jeff Clement here but those guys all have one thing in common; they were brought here by general manager Neal Huntington. I will not bore you with stats, you can look them up for yourself, but these four Huntington acquisitions have been just terrible. Poor talent evaluation has done this franchise in for 15 plus years now, and the only hope for any small revenue team is the ability to recognize cheap and available talent. It is still way too early to judge the Huntington drafts, but his signings and trades on the Major League level are not giving much hope, or optimism, to the franchise right now.

Walker, Tabata, Lincoln and Alvarez – It is entirely too early to judge the performance of any these guys to this point. Like I said earlier, just seeing them in the big leagues is a step in the right direction. Each of them has shown glimmers of their potential, but the overall performance has not been there yet. It would be nice to see a string of hits and stolen bases from Tabata, a few big home runs and less strike outs from Alvarez, and a few gems in a row from Lincoln. They could be coming, but to this point we have not seen enough of it. At the very least, they do give us something to watch as the season progresses. Their development, along with that of McCutchen, are going to be vital to the near future of this team.