Pittsburgh Pirates: Road Trip Report Card #1

Pitching has been a nice surprise

Starting Pitching Grade: A-

If justice always prevailed, the Pittsburgh Pirates would have gone 5-1 on this road trip instead of 3-3, because the starting pitching deserved to come out with more wins than it did.

Out of the six Pirates starting pitching performances over the past week, five were strong, and the other one, from Tyler Glasnow, still showed promise even if his stat line on Saturday in Chicago did not show it.

This week, Pirate starting pitchers combined for 44 1/3 innings, allowing 15 runs.Chad Kuhl, Gerrit Cole, Ivan Nova and Jameson Taillon all have given the Pirates excellent performances that must be very pleasing to Ray Serage and Clint Hurdle. It is not clear as to whether this success will be sustainable or not, as the Pirates still have some question marks in their rotation.

Will Chad Kuhl start pitching more like a number four starter? Is Gerrit Cole an ace? Will Jameson Taillon somehow fall into a sophomore slump?
Yes, there are many questions to ask this early in the season, and since we all should know how important pitching is in baseball, these questions are all important. But overall, there is not a lot more that one could ask for these starters. So far, they have been A-ok.