Don’t look now, but the Pirates are holding their own.
Yes, it’s only a few weeks into the season. Yes, they’re still under .500. But this 2021 season will be about celebrating small accomplishments, not eyeing a World Championship or Wild Card spot.
Those dreams are on hold for hopefully only 2-3 more years.
So let’s look at some of the positive things going on lately with the Pirates.
After winning the first game of the season, the Bucs dropped the next six, but since then have won two of the last three series.
The one they didn’t win was against a Padres team that has World Series aspirations. They also beat former teammate Joe Musgrove who was coming off an impressive no-hitter.
The Bucs have won six of their last nine games and currently have a better record than the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees
Here’s why:
The starting pitching. Good starting pitching can really help carry a team and it's no coincidence that the Pirates rotation is putting together a strong stretch of games and the team has won 6 of their last 9. They haven't all been great, but they've been very strong, led by the great start to the season JT Brubaker has had.
The offense. Led by Colin Moran and Bryan Reynolds, the offense has been exceeding even the most optimistic predictions. Moran is tied for the league lead among first basemen in home runs and tied for second in RBI's while holding down the cleanup spot and Reynolds is looking more like rookie year Bryan Reynolds as opposed to what we saw last year.
The bullpen. This is the one aspect of the team that many thought could be good this year and they have lived up to that billing. Richard Rodriguez may not have the title, but he is this teams closer and a very good one at that. The group as a whole has surrendered just 3 earned runs over their last 28.2 IP.
Derek Shelton. Shelton deserves a lot of credit for being the right manager for this kind of team. Not every manager is able to motivate a young team with little major league experience, but he has turned this into a never-quit kind of group that battles until the final out.