2011 Pittsburgh Pirates Review: A Rough Start for the Bucs

The hardest thing to do is look back on a Pittsburgh Pirates season.

There are rarely great stories of success.

The highlight for us in 2011 was you.

More of you came to this site than ever before.

More of you went to see the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park than we can ever remember.

Unfortunately, 2011 was another frustrating year for the fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  It was another season with 90 losses–the seventh consecutive such season.  Sure it was fun.  But in the end, it was yet another failure.

Here are the most popular stories as selected by you our readers.

January

Our preview was clicked thousands of times, it was kinda true now that we look back on it.

There was an increase of roughly 300,000 in attendance at PNC Park, if only the Bucs had listened to our advice.

Pedro got married. Read all about it here. It turns out Mrs. Alvarez is really freaking cool. Pedro is a lucky guy.

Why Lyle Overbay instead of Derrek Lee? Why Overbay instead of Lance Berkman?

Is Jose Bautista still messing with Neal Huntington? It’s something interesting to think about, maybe it explains why he has held on to some talented pieces rather than moving them at the height of their value.

February

Marty just couldn’t keep his mouth shut.  This became a lot of fun for everyone throughout the year.

March

The breakout year of Joel Hanrahan was awesome.  We enjoyed this post as much as any we did all season.  It would be pretty sweet to see Hanrahan get an at-bat in the majors.  Just look at his swing in this post.

The link also has the Fab 5 articles we did during the year.

Strikeouts were happening a lot in Spring Training.  We pointed it out.  Cocktails for 2 scolded us.  The Pirates went on to set a new record for strikeouts in 2011.

April

We threw out the first pitch at Bryce Harpers debut in Hagerstown.  We were recovering from knee surgery, it wasn’t pretty–high and outside. We have video of it somewhere….we should put that on YouTube someday soon I guess.

Cocktails for 2 made his debut post, and it was very popular of course.

The Pirates only won 12 games in April. This game was everyone’s favorite.

The Bucs finished April with a 12-15 record. Andrew McCutchen had five bombs, but was hitting under 220. Pedro was at .200. Tabata 242. And everyone’s favorite, Lyle Overbay was struggling with a .223 average.

What we didn’t know was that the best was yet to come…