7-14-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter
They’ve been pronounced dead countless times this season. The front office, buffoons for claiming they had what they believed to be a competitive ball club put together.
Stubborn in an effort to make their meager offseason investments work, they forced us to watch some “bad” players. Some of them pushed through it, some still haven’t managed to put together anything to merit the faith.
Two Rookie Phenom pitchers burst on the scene, one on the verge of history with every outing he makes. Paired expertly with a recently extended veteran hurler and a barrage of capable arms behind them to fill in the gaps, some we haven’t even tapped into yet.
A bullpen fortified with young fireballers and veteran back end complete with high end pedigree.
An offense that has pushed through a putrid month to scratch and claw their way into looking very league average, with a penchant for hitting the long ball.
Let’s do some cool cypherin’.
Last year, this club had a fairly large jump in their record of 14 wins, to do so again would almost assuredly put them in a Wild Card spot.
Through 96 games in 2023 the Pirates owned a record of 42-54, and this year, they sit at 48-48.
66 games remain.
For this team to finish with the record they had last year, they’d have to go 28-38. .500 would obviously require 33-33. A 14 game improvement would take 42-24 probably a lot to ask as currently constructed. A little help, you probably land somewhere in the middle of those two figures and you’re in the dance conversation.
It’s not too late, I believe they will add, even if they shed some vets here and there who don’t fit as well anymore along the way. Just a couple nice additions and I believe they have enough to push for this.
Like I said a few weeks back in 5 Pirates Thoughts at 5, what this team does at the deadline would be determined largely by what this group of players did in this run up to the All Star Break. All they did was go 14-11, finally break this ridiculous record of no streaks in either direction and work their team back to .500 on the backs of a 5 game winning steak.
Is it a sure bet? Oh hell no, they come out of the break and face the Phillies, Cardinals and Diamondbacks, but if you want to be in the playoff picture, you have to beat playoff teams.
For the first time since 2018, I think they have a team that is capable of entering every series feeling like they have a chance to win.
They’re better. They need help. They aren’t anywhere close to perfect, but they are a rapidly improving baseball team that has ridden some of the best pitching in the game and a sub standard offense to the break even point with about a third of the season remaining.
Contending baseball, yup, in the very definition of the word, they are.
You don’t have to ignore all the warts to be enthusiastic about what you’re seeing, you just have to realize while you’ve been trained on those warts, the team has been digging some others out at the core elsewhere.
Your baseball team is coming together, even if you hated the plan, even if you believe the owner will never get it over the top, the team is becoming something that can hang with anyone, and take what they should.
Sometimes the first step is the hardest, we’ll see in this last 66 games if this team and whatever they add into it has what it takes to bushwhack their way into a winning season.
Steel City Pirates 