The Pittsburgh Pirates are heading to the West Coast already in a deep hole at 8-15 and we’re not a full month into the season yet.
The team needs to start scoring runs soon against the Angels and Dodgers or the season will be out of hand before May.
The Post-Gazette’s Jason Mackey, filling in for The Fan Morning Show Monday, talked about what they need to do so they don’t drop to 10 games or over under .500.
There are some things that show not all hope is lost for the Bucs.
Hitters are making hard contact, have low chase rate and a few other metrics that show it isn’t all doom and gloom…yet.
But, the reality is the hitters are not scoring runs and quality starts from pitchers like Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller are being wasted.
Compared to last season, the Pirates are a half-run worse and need to figure things out soon.
A few things they can do now:
Jack Suwinski shouldn’t be in Pittsburgh. He’s batting .128 and not getting consistent playing time.
Alexander Canario can’t come in for pinch-hitting situations. He’s batting .087.
Mackey says promoting someone like Matt Gorksi would be better than Canario.
Gorski is hitting .308 in Triple-A and an OPS of .887.
“They have to do something,” said Mackey. “They can’t ride this out much longer. They need to score runs, they need to score runs now.
On top of that, the Pirates schedule gets more difficult over the next four series’.