Pittsburgh Pirates Report Card for week of 4/28-5/4

Analysis: Another Bucco road trip is in the books. As has been a theme of a season still in its infancy, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a Jekyll and Hyde week.

It started smoothly, as Pittsburgh Pirates took its first two games of a weekend series with the Miami Marlins at Marlins Park by a combined score of 16-2. The Bucs took a 10-3 shellacking from the fish in the series finale, however, and the Pirates would ride that sour note from South Beach all the way to the Ohio River.

The Bucs arrived in Cincinnati looking to avenge an embarrassing three-game sweep by the Reds at PNC Park in early April. Sadly, they were not able to do so, as Cincy continued to have its way with the Pirates, taking three out of four games and improving its record against Pittsburgh to 6-1 in 2017.

This road trip saw plenty of positives, such as Gift Ngeope continuing to shine. It also saw some negatives, such as the Pirates offense continuing to struggle. So here is a breakdown of the positives and negatives from this week by way of a report card format dissecting how the Pirates performed in the major facets of the game, starting with the starting rotation.

Pitching: B-

The starting rotation is no longer at a superhuman level. This week saw two starts from Jameson Taillon that weren’t particularly dominant, along with a rocky outing from Chad Kuhl Sunday afternoon in Miami. There were some bright spots, however, as Ivan Nova continued his fantastic run in Black and Gold with a complete game, three-hit shutout of the Marlins Saturday night. Also, Gerrit Cole had a solid outing Monday in Cincinnati despite poor defense raining on his parade, and Tyler Glasnow had his most encouraging performance yet, finally pitching out of the sixth inning and getting his first big league win Tuesday night.

The trip ended on a low for the rotation, however, as Nova proved that he is mortal, allowing four earned runs in the series finale Thursday afternoon in Cincy.

The Pirates starting rotation was not without its faults this week. But it is still clear that these guys are the reason that this team is anywhere close to the .500 mark, and there was never an instance on this road trip where the starting pitching was the glaring weakness in a loss. So while the Bucco starters did not dazzle from start to finish, there were still enough high points for me to give them a decent grade on this report card.

Hitting: C-

I feel like I might have gone a little easy on the Pirates attack. Then again, they did have two 10+ run outbursts this week, so this road trip was not a total loss. Anybody who follows this team should be aware of how bad the offense has been thus far. Thursday afternoon in Cincy perfectly fitted for the Pirates struggles.

Pittsburgh’s mound opponent for its series finale with the Reds was Tim Adleman, a 29-year-old journeyman who has less than 20 games of big league experience. Nonetheless, the Pirates offense struggled, scoring just two runs in six innings against Adleman in the 4-2 loss.

Things are pretty smoky for the Bucco lineup. Gregory Polanco and Andrew McCutchen are both hitting below .240, and those two are the biggest weapons in the arsenal without Starling Marte and Jung-Ho Kang. The fact that the .157 hitting John Jaso hitting in the top half of the batting order is even a thought in manager Clint Hurdle‘s mind should give a pretty good idea of where things are at right now.

Yes, a lot of the Pirates issues offensively are because of the stupidity of Marte and Kang. But there are still plenty of talented bats that are not performing, and that needs to change if this team has hopes of making some noise. The good news is, at this point, there is nowhere to go but up.

Bullpen: C-

It’s hard to evaluate the Pirates bullpen this week, as out of the seven games on the road trip, the ‘pen was only tested in two of them, as these games saw plenty of blowouts. Sadly, the ‘pen and didn’t fare well in either test.

On Sunday, an injury to starter Chad Kuhl forced the firemen into action early. The result was not a pretty one, as five relief pitchers combined to allow six earned runs- five of which given up by the struggling Daniel Hudson in his .1 innings of work.

Hudson’s rough run continued at Great American Ballpark Monday night when Hurdle called on him to keep the ballgame tied at 3 in the bottom of the tenth. He did not get the job done, and the Reds won it on a walk-off from the great Billy Hamilton.

So, while the Bucco bullpen had a pretty relaxed week- heck, they weren’t needed at all on Saturday, on the two occasions in which they were required to come up big, they did not do it. The struggles of Hudson, in particular, are concerning, as he is supposed to be a critical back-end guy. I still like the bullpen as a whole, but it will be interesting to see how they perform if the starting pitching regresses.

Overall: C

The Pirates were what their 3-4 record says they were on this road trip, and that is inconsistent. This week saw flashes of brilliance, as well as some of the worst baseball the Pirates have played all year, which again has become a frustrating pattern in 2017.

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Considering the competition that the Buccos faced this week, they could and should have been better than 3-4. The Bucs are not playing good baseball right now, mainly because the lineup still has not found its rhythm, and nobody outside of Josh Harrison has been particularly impressive with the stick this season;

But considering all the Pirates have gone through with suspensions and injuries, and all that those setbacks have hindered the offensive product, 12-16 is not a terrible place to be.

The good news is that the Pirates starting pitching should remain solid throughout the year, and as I wrote before, the offense is in a state where it can’t get any worse. The Pirates also have a favorable schedule for the rest of May, with ten games against the Brewers, Braves, and Phillies, which will be opportunities to get back in the thick of things as the first half starts to heat up.

Next: Bell's Defense is Improved

At the end of the day, it is only May 5, and there is still a lot of work to be done. All we fans can do is sit back and see what happens.