Pittsburgh Pirates home stand report card for June 15-24

Another home stand is in the books. This week, the Pittsburgh Pirates went 3-6, taking two of three from the Reds, then splitting with the Brewers in an abbreviated two-game series, before finally crashing with four straight losses at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Things are looking pretty bleak for the Bucs at the moment. Here is a breakdown of how the Pirates performed this week in some of the major facets of baseball.

Pitching – the good

Pittsburgh’s starting rotation has been, at best, inconsistent all year long. Despite how this past home stand turned out, however, the starting pitching, for the most part, did its job.

Trevor Williams pitched a gem Monday night in a win over the Brewers and was solid for six innings in Sunday’s loss to Arizona. Ivan Nova has been excellent since returning from the DL, allowing a combined one run in 14 innings in his starts last Saturday and this past Friday, and although Chad Kuhl got shelled Thursday, he did his job for six innings in the first game of the home stand, a 3-2 win over the Reds last Friday night.

Aside from Joe Musgrove, every Pirates starter had at least one good outing this past week. The Bucs stink right now, but the rotation doesn’t.

The Bad

After a hot start to his Pirates career, Musgrove has cooled down. Last Sunday, he allowed six earned runs over 4.1, and this past Saturday, he gave up five over 4. Musgrove has been arguably the Pirates best starter since entering the rotation, but over the past 10 days, he was their worst.

Kuhl’s run of form came to a halt Thursday night, giving up eight runs and failing to go beyond the second inning. While Kuhl and Musgrove both had rough patches this week, on the whole, the starters took a step forward while the club took two steps back.

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