Mid-Season Review

6-27-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

Following their win on Wednesday, the Pirates are just shy of the halfway mark of the season – having eclipsed 80 of the 162 game slate and currently sit with a 39-41 record.

As of this morning, their .488 winning percentage sits them at 9th in the National League and 2.5 games back of the final wild card. This is tied for the best start to the year since the 2015 season when the Pirates last made the playoffs.

Expectations entering this season were elevated. General Manager Ben Cherington repeatedly stated during PiratesFest that the team was expecting to compete this year. Heck, Derek Shelton tossed out winning the division as being on the table. Are they still pacing to reach the goal of Buctober baseball on the North Shore once more? Let’s break it down:

First, let’s start with the positives. This rotation has unexpectedly become among the best in baseball. Sure, we all hoped that Mitch Keller would bounce back to his 2023 pre-All Star Break form (3.31 ERA in 117 innings) rather than his second half slump stats (5.59 ERA in 77.1 innings).

But what he and the rest of this starting group has done has been wholly unprecedented as they’ve combined for a 3.55 ERA over 436.2 innings pitched – good for 7th best in MLB and 3rd in NL behind just the Phillies and Dodgers.

Jared Jones was not expected to break camp with the club. Bailey Falter was widely derided for still being in camp during Spring Training, much less being in play for the rotation. Paul Skenes is still less than a year removed from being drafted 1-1 overall. And yet, each of these pitchers have been pivotal in steering the ship for this squad through injuries and inconsistency.

Skenes, Jones and Keller are among the best trio of starting pitchers in all of MLB. If the team can make playoffs, these three could give them a chance to win any game – so long as Jones and Skenes aren’t shutdown before they get that chance.

Now for the bad news: Even with the solid series against Cincinnati where the offense posted 5+ runs and 10+ hits in each game, the offense has been underperforming.

In games where they have scored 3+ runs, they have won 34 of 52 (.654 winning percentage) but that means they have 2 or less runs in 28 games, posting a 5-23 record in those instances – a .179 winning percentage.

Offense is down across the board, granted, but the Pirates have been at or near the bottom in most every statistical category. And they have 7 hitters who have 60+ plate appearances and posted under 70 wRC+ and sub-.600 OPS.

Another short-coming for this squad has come from the bullpen as this team has already blown the lead 20 times this year. Only the Colorado bullpen has surrendered the lead as many times (also 20) and only the Rockies (5.78) and the Angels (5.04) have a worse reliever ERA than the Pirates (4.76).

Granted, there were some early season struggles by David Bednar (5.17 ERA in 31.1 innings) and Carmen Mlodzinski (4.50 in 18) but some other relievers have provided negative net value out of the pen with only Colin Holderman (0.7) and Hunter Stratton (0.6) providing more than 0.2 fWAR in the first half of the season.

Since June 1, there has been more consistency with the back-end arms as 6 relievers have a 3.00 ERA or lower in that stretch.

Clearly, the team has room for improvement but they’ve won 12 of their last 21 games and 5 of their last 7 series played. Additionally, they are winning close matches (14-12 in 1-run games) and extra inning affairs (5-4).

The team is trending in the right direction and maybe, just maybe, the next 82 games will lead to Buctober baseball once more.

Let’s Go Bucs!