The Other Shoe

We've all been waiting for the other shoe to drop for the Pirates.  We were waiting in late May when stats started popping up about how they hadn't been over .500 this late in the season since George W. Bush's first term.  We were waiting in late June when it seemed impossible that they could win another close game with clutch bullpen help and timely hitting.  We were waiting for them to collapse right before the All-Star break.  We were waiting for them to collapse right after the All-Star break.

Then came that crucial 13 game string against strong competition.  We were sure that they would fall apart then.  They were actually far enough above .500 that a rough streak against good teams wouldn't hurt them too much in the standings.  Then the 19th inning debacle against the Braves.  Then the Phillies swept the Buccos at Philly.  But, that could actually be excused.  It wasn't so much that Philadelphia excused the Pirates as a shoddy club.  It was that the Philadelphia Phillies announced, emphatically, that they are a really, really good team.  So much so that ESPN.com took a look at other great NL teams of the last 30 years to see how the Phillies stack up.

As the saying goes, though, one sweep does not a ten game losing streak make.  That's a saying, right?  No?  Well, it is now.

The Pirates got crushed in consecutive home series by the Cubs and Padres.  The rotation had an extremely bad run, the bullpen imploded, the hitting was not-so-timely, and the offense is not built to score ten or more runs in any game.  For anyone that thought Derrek Lee and Ryan Ludwick were going to save this line-up, I have some Bear Sterns stock I would like to sell you.  Leave your PayPal information in the comments.

Bad news is that they didn't get Hunter Pence.  A real team with genuine playoff aspirations and deep pockets got him.  Good news is that they gave up a player to be named later and some cash for two old guys that are helping -- and will help -- the offense, if for no other reason than they make it easier for Clint Hurdle to set his line-up against lefties.  Also, we were able to finally, mercifully, put the Lyle Overbay Experiment to sleep.  It's kinda funny that he went to go live on a farm, in Indianapolis.

The thing is that it would be mean -- and inaccurate -- to characterize this team as just the "Same Old Pirates."  This is a team that captured our imagination from late May through the beginning of Steeler training camp.  They gave us something that Pirate fans have not felt in a very long time: Hope.  Many casual fans have jumped off the bandwagon.  That's fine.  There will be plenty of room for them the same time next year.

This is a young deep with a fairly strong minor league system.  Charlie Morton, James McDonald and possibly Paul Maholm and Jeff Karstens should only get better.  Neil Walker, Chase D'Arnaud, Brandon Wood, Alex Pressley, and possibly even Andrew McCutchen will get better.  There's always the hope that Brad Lincoln will pan out.  I think that Gerrit Cole will contribute sooner, rather than later, in a Stephen-Strasburg-but-not-needing-Tommy-John-surgery kind of way.

The Buccos went from sucking, to not sucking, to overachieving, to just plain achieving in a little over half a season.  To say that they've regressed to their former, sucking ways in just seven games is jumping the gun.  They're not going to win the division.  They're not going to win the wild card.  But, dammit, they stayed relevant up through when camp opened in Latrobe, and that's significant.

I know that Hurdle thinks that 500 is just a number, but that's the most realistic number that this team has left.  It's the number that the fans -- fair weather or not -- have been thinking about since Clinton left office.  That's all they have and that's where they need to get.  In a season full of ups and downs, breaking even would be a huge victory.