We should be clear about something: the Pirates have played nine games. They’re 5-4 because they’ve lost four of their last five, but a 5-4 start isn’t a hot start or a cold start or anything at all other than a decent run through nine games (5-4 is actually on pace to win 90 games). There is lots of consternation over what the Pirates will do in April and May this year, because of what’s happened the last two years. I have a conflicted thought process about this; yes, the Pirates started 18-22 last year and yes, the Pirates lost the NL Central by two games, and yes, it’d be easy to draw a line from four games below .500 in late May to two games behind the Cardinals on day 162, but that ignores a couple of things. One is that the Pirates lost 42 games after May 22nd last year, almost twice as many as they’d lost before it. The other is that 98 wins is a boatload of wins and no points are awarded for style. If you won 98 games, you won 98 games. If you lost the division by two games, it happened because you lost 64 games and those losses in April and May don’t count more or less than losses in June or July or August or September.
This is another point at which my head and my gut diverge. My gut tells me that the Pirates could really use a solid start in the 26 games before the Cubs come to PNC Park in early May. They spent much of the winter being discounted by almost everyone; a distant third team in a 2+ team NL Central race, a seventh team in a race for five playoff spots in the National League. I think they’re better than that and I’m sure the players think that, too, and I was hoping they’d kick the door in the way the Royals did last year and set a pace that division would immediately struggle to keep up with.
My head, though, tells me that maybe the Pirates start slow for a reason. You learn a lot about players in the first six weeks of the season; you learn that Jung Ho Kang is an every day player and that Arquimedes Caminero has the stuff to be helpful in your bullpen but maybe Rob Scahill doesn’t. You learn that Josh Harrison didn’t magically ascend to a new plane of baseball existence with one good year and that Pedro Alvarez can’t play first base, but that Francisco Cervelli was a great acquisition and that AJ Burnett still has a little bit of something left in the tank. This year the Pirates are wondering what Gregory Polanco can really do, how healthy Kang is, what Josh Harrison’s true talent level is, how a sabermetric shuffle to their lineup plays out on the field instead of in run simulators, what sort of role guys like Juan Nicasio and Ryan Vogelsong and Kyle Lobstein will play, and a few other things. Some of the questions will have good answers, some will have bad answers, and all of the answers will help the Pirates play better baseball in a few weeks.
All of this being said, geez, playing from behind is exhausting on me as a fan and it’s gotta be exhausting for the players, too. What the Pirates need right now is a win to stop this less-than-pretty little patch of baseball, and to get a win they’re going to need six or seven innings from a starting pitcher. Gerrit Cole takes the mound for them this afternoon; he flashed some good stuff after a rough first inning against the Reds, and I’m hoping that every outing gets him closer to 100%. If you recall last season, Cole’s first start came at Great American Ballpark and it was a little bit iffy, his second start was electric at the Home Opener, and he was off to the races at that point. Let’s hope that 2016 follows the same pattern; the Pirates need a starter to step up today, and their ace is on the mound.
First pitch today is at 12:35. Cole starts, Chris Stewart is catching him. Everything else is the same.
Photo by Kirk Irwin/Getty Images
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