Pittsburgh Pirates road trip report card for 8/6-8/15

Looking back at the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 4-5 road trip

Over the past week, the Pittsburgh Pirates played seven games on the west coast and two more in the Twin Cities. The road trip had a promising start, with the Bucs winning four of their first six. It went south, however, starting with a 4-3 loss in Sunday’s series finale with the Giants, followed by two more losses to the Minnesota Twins. The Pirates continued their mediocre August and finished the trip a ‘meh’ 4-5.

There were some good things to take from this stretch. Offensively, Adam Frazier and David Freese are stepping up as useful part-time players and Josh Bell has been a stud since coming back from the DL. Pitching-wise, Jameson Taillon is further distancing himself as the anchor of the starting rotation, and Trevor Williams has been a monster since mid-July.

Overall, however, the Bucs aren’t playing good baseball, and here is a breakdown of how they performed in the key facets of the game with this edition of my “report card.”