That Pirates championship parade people were planning a week ago is apparently on hold for a few days after a disaster of a seven-game stretch.
The Pirates were once 20-8 and had “on-pace guy” types dreaming of a 95-win season, which was always silly but there is nothing wrong with dreaming big. And even after this seven-game losing streak, there are still many optimistic types using the “if I had told you after 35 games they would be 20-15, you would have taken it” line.
All of it is ridiculous and shows a real lack of understanding of the long grind that is the 162-game baseball season. And the same goes for the crowd who has pounced on this losing streak as proof the team still stinks and is destined for 100 losses again.
Enough.
The team is neither a 95-win team nor a 60-win team. It is something in between, maybe 72-75, and what has happened this past week has been a natural regression to the mean. We all knew there would be a regression, just like there will be a leveling off of the downward spiral at some point soon.
The question then becomes, what does the rest of the season look like? I think that’s actually a little bit exciting because I don’t expect this team to be playing meaningless baseball in August. That is for two reasons — they are better than they were the last two seasons, and the division they are in stinks.
That second fact is probably the biggest factor as to why the Pirates will hang around the playoff chase for a long time — the National League Central is the AFC South of baseball this year.
You remember the AFC South, where the Jaguars started off 2-6 and ended up winning the division at 9-8. And had they lost to Tennessee in the final week of the season, the Titans would have won the division with a losing record.
I’m not saying the NL Central will be won by someone with a losing record, but it is realistic to think that 85-86 wins might be enough to get the job done. In fact, the rest of the division is so bad that the Pirates just lost seven games in a row and are still in first place.
That’s because the second- and third-place teams, the Brewers and Cubs, were a combined 7-13 over their last 10 games. The Cardinals were 2-8 in their last 10 games and appear to be in all kinds of trouble right now. The Reds managed to go 5-5 over that stretch, but let’s face it, they stink, which is why they are still 5 1/2 games back.
Taking a deeper dive into things, I actually think Milwaukee may emerge as the best team, as the Brewers have just enough of a mix of pitching, hitting, youth and veterans that they are likely going to hover around .500 all season.
The Cubs are intriguing, also, as they have by far the best run differential in the division at plus-46, which in a small sample size is not a great gauge of sustainability but it is not meaningless, either. The Cubs at 17-17 are probably the most dangerous team as they have scored a bunch of runs and have a pitching staff with some potential to improve.
All of the teams, though, are like the Pirates in that they have some really clear flaws and lack depth in places, so it’s unlikely any of them are capable of running away from the pack. This division is a far cry from a few years ago, when the Pirates and Cubs finished with 98 and 97 wins, respectively, and finished second and third.
That helps the Pirates because it means they only need to play .500 — or very close to that — baseball the rest of the way to be in that 83-85 win range.
If they can pull that off, it probably would mean they are at least in the race until deep into the season, and that would be a huge improvement over what they have done the last few years.
The Pirates’ pitching depth is worrisome, but there are some younger players waiting in the minors who may be ready to come up and help. The Pirates have been smart with their pitchers and generally manipulated their rotation well, so I would expect that to continue.
The lineup is a little more troublesome because I don’t think the production is what we have seen in the last week is far below what it is capable of, especially without Oneil Cruz. Consider the last time they won, they scored 16 runs but in the seven games since, they have scored a total of nine.
Power and speed carried the Pirates through April, but both have slowed way down and that’s not a surprise. That’s not to say they will average fewer than two runs per game the rest of the way, but there will be more days when runs are tough to scratch out than the days when they are scoring at will.
The Pirates are definitely better this year than last, and combined with the fact that the NL Central is currently in a state of transition and lacking a lead dog, they will likely still be alive when we get to the dog days of summer.
