Pittsburgh Pirates Wake Up Call – Offense Gone Dry

Our daily Wake-Up Call gets you ready for the day with a look at all things Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Pirates are clearly struggling right now. Not only is the back-end of the rotation not performing up to par, but the offense as a whole has gone completely dry. Part of this is obviously due to the massive losses of Jung Ho Kang and Starling Marte, as well as injuries to David Freese and Adam Frazier. Those are four key pieces of this offense that can’t just be replaced by some next-man-up philosophy. But it’s also due to current starters that are greatly under-performing. Andrew McCutchen has had an awful start to the year. Francisco Cervelli, Gregory Polanco, and Josh Bell are all batting under .250. Bell’s struggles are okay as long as he improves as a whole by the end of the season. And Cervelli isn’t paid to knock the cover off the ball. But McCutchen and Polanco struggling at this point is unacceptable. This has been a a season of bumps so far, but these players need to at least play to an average level, and they aren’t doing that so far.

The team has been no-hit through at least six innings in back-to-back games now. If this team doesn’t turn it around fast, they’ll be sellers long before the trade deadline.

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