Just a month and a half ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates were tied for first place in the NL Central and primed to finish above .500 for the first time since 1992…just weeks later, the team is back in fourth place and 11 games under the .500 mark.
A Cinderella, feel good story for the majority of the season, we took a look at the Pirates back on July 25th and pointed out that the Pirates would likely come back to earth, saying: “While the Pirates have been a terrific story so far, they will be hard pressed to hold off the Brewers and Cards.”
At the time, the Pirates were being held together by lots of luck, a solid pitching staff and Andrew McCutchen. The team was playing above their Pythagorean record and barely had a positive run differential. Their record was generous with stats like that. Going down the wire, the pitching staff was sitting 5th in ERA but we warned would “likely regress in the second half.”
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At the time, the Pirates were 10th in the league in FIP, and their pitching staff has regressed as expected. While they are still average (currently eighth in the league) the staff has been unable to make up for the team’s continued stagnant offense (14th in OPS).
Andrew McCutchen, the team’s lone offensive standout throughout the first half has fallen off as well. He already had produced 4.6 fWAR at the time of the last writing, yet has less than 1 over the past month.
Since July 25th, McCutchen has hit just .240 with a .767 OPS.
Coincidentally, the Pirates first game after that earlier article came out was the 19-inning loss against the Atlanta Braves that came compliments of a blind umpire. Seeing as how the Pirates were lucky throughout the first half of the season, maybe this incredible loss that ended on the controversial call was the turning point in the Pirates season.
The Pirates are just 12-29 since July 25th and have fallen to 19.5 games behind the division leading Brewers; creating one of the quickest implosions in MLB in a while.
It appears that the series with the Atlanta Braves set the Pirates spiraling down. It would almost make sense, seeing as how the Pirates last winning season was ended with Sid Bream’s slide.
Luckily for Pirates fans, the team held onto the majority of its minor league players at the deadline (their only relevant acquisitions were minor ones for Ryan Ludwick and Derrek Lee) and spent a lot of money signing highly rated draft picks. With another losing season now a near certainty, Pirate fans can at least look at this season’s first half and their terrific draft for good things to come in the future.
Used with permission of the author.
Brett is the editor and a contributor for www.BravesFTW.com. He has covered MLB and the Braves for numerous websites and is a regular contributor to Sports Climax. Follow Brett on Twitter.
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