The Pittsburgh Pirates look to wrap up Unfinished Business

The Pittsburgh Pirates had a downright lousy record on the road in 2014, compiling a cumulative record of 37-44 away from picturesque PNC Park, conversed to a 51-30 record at home.  Even if the Pirates can find their way to a five-or-six game improvement, it could mean big things for the Bucs.

One of the challenges of any baseball writer is to find data to backup their points.  And, I think I may have just found our smoking gun.  In road games in which only four total runs were scored (i.e. tight games away from PNC), the Pirates were just 9-37, being outscored 191-100 in the process.  The Pirates, bad on the road to begin with, couldn’t get the offensive production needed to pull out the close ones.  If the problem was truly just an offensive one, that may solve itself with the emerging offensive threat that is the 2015 version of the Bucs.  Overall, the Pirates were only 31-29 in one-run games as well.

The final step to tie up loose ends and bring the World Series back to the Burgh lies in our own backyard.

Next: Step three: Beat up on someone other than the Cubs in the NL Central