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Pittsburgh Pirates home stand report card for June 15-24
By Joe Smeltzer
Offense – the good
Can you guys think of anything here? The Pirates hitting has been sputtering for a while now. Corey Dickerson has cooled down, Francisco Cervelli is on the DL and Josh Harrison is pretty much a below average hitter. Over the nine-game stretch, the Pirates scored more than two runs twice. That’s not good. For the Bucs to be competitive, they need to hit. Right now, they’re not doing it.
The bad
Sean Rodriguez is possibly the worst hitter in baseball, yet he has started the past three games, two of which were against right-handed starting pitchers. While I’m sure Serpico is an excellent human being, right now, he stinks, and there’s no other way to say it.
While Rodriguez doesn’t deserve to be on a major league roster, he also shouldn’t be the scapegoat for everything wrong with the organization. While the fact that Rodriguez is still with the team is mind-boggling and deserves to be called into question, is he any more to blame for the Pirates struggles than Josh Bell, Gregory Polanco, or, in recent weeks, Dickerson? I don’t think so.
In any case, the city’s love affair with the Ringo Starr-looking utility infielder is dead and buried, and the longer Rodriguez gets a chance to embarrass himself, the worse it will be for everybody involved, himself included.