It's July 21st and the Pittsburgh Pirates are still relevant. If NFL players and owners weren't still arguing over a new CBA, Steeler training camp would be opening soon, which has generally signaled the end of the Pirates season.
The Buccos are currently six games over .500 and only half a game back of the division-leading Milwaukee Brewers. People are starting to pay attention to the Pittsburgh Pirates. People are starting to write articles about them. Not just schmucks like me, but actual people that work for actual big websites and get paid and everything. On Monday night, when the Pirates visit the Atlanta Braves, the game is going to be broadcast on ESPN. That will mark only the third time since the turn of the century that the Pirates have appeared on the World Wide Leader.
The only trouble is that they're also currently shin deep in a 13 game set that could turn into a pool of awesome or a quagmire of suck. These 13 games pit the Pirates against teams with a combined winning percentage of .558. They've gotten this far with solid pitching and defense, timely hitting, and beating up on the crappy teams in the NL Central, posting a 24-14 record against teams in their division. Take out their 0-5 record against the Brewers out of that and the Buccos are 24-9 against teams in the Central that aren't from Wisconsin.
They've already escaped the "easiest" part of this stretch with two wins against the Reds. That series was a microcosm of the season thus far. The Pirates won the first two games 2-0 and 1-0 on solid pitching, excellent work by their middle relievers, and timely hitting. They lost the third game 3-1 because the offense fizzled out and Jeff Karstens allowed two unearned runs. They trusted in the defense and the defense let them down.
Over the course of the next ten games, we'll get a chance to see if the Pirates can play with the big boys. After three games at home against the Cardinals, they hit the road with a four game set in Atlanta and three games at Philadelphia. The Phillies currently hold the best record in the majors, though the Pirates did take two out of three from them earlier this year at PNC Park. The Braves aren't far behind the Phillies in the NL East and would be leading the NL Central by five games if the divisions got realigned tomorrow.
To this point, all the experts that are paying attention have stated that the Pirates have either overachieved or gotten lucky thus far. They claim that they're not full-on believers yet and that defense, pitching, and timely hitting is not sustainable. They think that a collapse is probable, if not imminent. Colin Cowherd mentioned on his radio show last week that the current 13 game string-of-death was the make-or-break point of the season for the Buccos, with a firm declaration that they would end up on the "break" side of that scenario.
But, the fact remains that they're three games in and they're 2-1. If they can at least split these next ten games -- with a preference towards winning the three division games against St. Louis -- then the experts will have to admit that they're just achieving, not overachieving.
I think that they're straight-up achieving right now. We're 96 games into the season -- almost 60 percent of the way there -- and, though the lug nuts have been loose at times, the wheels don't seem to be coming off. After the make-or-break segment of the schedule, the Pirates have it fairly easy. They will face teams with a collective winning percentage of .484 in the second half, which is one of the easier schedules in the major leagues. That .484 percentage includes these 13 games against .558 teams, so the balance of the remaining games is below that mark.
This is not to say that the Pirates are a perfect team and will easily win the division. The rotation could unravel. The defense could implode. The offense, strange as it may sound, could actually get worse. Some guys are coming back from the disabled list, but that will only help so much. Getting Pedro Alvarez and Jose Tabata and Chris Snyder back will only add blush and eyeliner to the pig, it won't make it pretty. Ultimately, the Pirates need to trade for a bat before the trade deadline, but the make-or-break segment will end around 10 p.m. Eastern time on July 31st, which is past the 3 p.m. deadline for trades.
The other issue is that, right now, the Pirates are playing with house money. If they don't win the division -- and, given the fact that Atlanta is five games up in the wild card race, the Buccos will need to win the division to make it to the playoffs -- then they were never expected to win the division and isn't it nice that they played hard and got close after all these years? If they do nothing and somehow win the division, then Nutting and Huntington will look like geniuses for not sacrificing the future to win now.
It's a dicey situation, so it will be interesting to see how the next ten days play out.
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