The sky isn’t falling for the Pirates, nor are they destined to fall apart despite a three-game sweep at the hands of the Tampa Bay Rays. This isn’t the beginning of the end, nor is it a sign that the first month of the season was built on luck or smoke and mirrors.

The baseball season is long and grinding and hard, it really is, and teams, even the best ones, will go through little lulls and even get swept from time to time.

I say this because there is a faction of people who have been waiting to pounce on the Pirates at the first sign of trouble, as they are convinced the team is doomed as long as it is owned by Bob Nutting. The hatred for Nutting is easy to see and easy to find, but it leads to an irrational view of the team.

The Pirates are not an 85- or 90-win team, and anybody who thought they were because of their hot start were deluding themselves. On the flip side, they aren’t a 95- or 100-loss team, either.

I picked them to win about 75 games this year, and I think that is about where they will end up. That doesn’t sound great, but that would be an improvement of 13 wins over last year.

That would be a significant step forward, a true sign of progress, which is what they were charged with doing this season. All of the groundwork was laid the last three seasons, but this was the year the team had to show improvement on the field, and a jump of a dozen or so wins would indeed be that.

That’s realistic, and that’s likely what the Pirates are right now — a team that isn’t quite ready to finish with a winning record but is certainly capable of playing some long stretches of reasonably good baseball.

One of the reasons I believe the Pirates aren’t quite ready to push for a winning record and the playoff chase is that they still have too many holes in their lineup. Manager Derek Shelton has done a great job of tricking it up and making it work, and he has had a few players play above their heads to help that cause, but that only works for so long.

I have written many times that 162 games do not lie about who a team is, and a team with the holes the Pirates have will eventually level off, especially if the pitching doesn’t hold up. And for the record, I am not convinced the pitching staff can continue at the pace it has been on — and that’s assuming they all stay healthy.

The Pirates, though, played the Rays and scored a total of four runs in three games. The Rays admittedly are one of the best teams in baseball and have an excellent pitching staff, but there was more at work in the Pirates’ offensive struggles.

Andrew McCutchen was really hot early, but he is now batting .238. I don’t expect him to struggle that badly for the season, but at his age, what is realistic about what he can accomplish at the plate over a long season?

Ke’Bryan Hayes is hitting .225 without power, and that is unfortunately who he has been for the bulk of his career. I expect him to hit better than .225 on the season, but his lack of power numbers is concerning.

Connor Joe began the season completely on fire, but he has started to cool off and sort of return to the hitter he has been his entire career. He is still hitting .283, but that is a significant drop from where he was about just a short time ago. He is likely to settle in right around his career batting average of .252, which is a significant drop from where he is now.

Austin Hedges was a terrible (lifetime .188) hitter when he came to the Pirates in the offseason and we were convinced that his value as a catcher and handling the pitching staff would trump his weak bat. It hasn’t and it won’t, and the fact some are upset that he is an automatic out is mind-boggling to me.

He can’t hit. He could never hit. He won’t hit. That is who he is.

The long and short of it is the Pirates are still a team with too many outs in their lineup over the long haul. They are a team whose record has been propped up by a few players having out-of-their-mind-like experiences at the plate in the first month.

I don’t believe the Pirates are crashing, though, and I don’t think they aren’t better. I just think they are returning back to their mean. That’s OK because they are probably still a full season and offseason away from really being ready to contend for a wild card.

All the Rays series did was highlight the fact that the Pirates hitters are not as good as they were in April and the offense in general is going to be at risk for extended dry spells. That makes it tough to have a winning record.

The Pirates are definitely better than they were last year; they just aren’t and won’t be one of the best teams in baseball like they have been for the long haul. That’s not an indictment of them. It is just a realistic look at who they are and where they are in the rebuilding process.