Pittsburgh Pirates: Injuries Starting to Hit, SP Struggles, & More From Sweep by Jays

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After racing off to an National League best 20-8 start to the season the Pittsburgh Pirates have now lost seven games in a row after being swept by the Toronto Blue Jays

You all know the old saying. When it rains, it pours. Well, right now, the Pittsburgh Pirates are stuck in a hurricane level rain storm. After being swept by the Toronto Blue Jays, the Pirates have now lost seven games in a row.

These seven straight losses have dropped the Pirates to 20-15 on the season. The sweep has dropped them to 6-4-1 in their 11 series played this season, and marks the second series in which they have been swept.

Thankfully, the entire National League Central has been in a slump for over a week. Due to this, the Pirates remain in first place in the NL Central. So, things certainly could be worse for Derek Shelton's club.

Before we look ahead to a potential get right series against the lowly Colorado Rockies, a team the Pirates swept in a road series last month, let's take a look back at the Pirate getting swept by the Blue Jays. Let's dive into takeaways from the series.

Injuries finally starting to hurt the team

The injury bug has already hit the Pirates hard this season. JT Brubaker and Mike Burrows have been lost for the season to Tommy John surgery, and they're currently joined on the injured list by Vince Velasquez.

Losing three of your top six or seven starting pitchers is a recipe for problems for any team. Those problems are starting to pop up for the Pirates. While he has a ton of potential, young righty Johan Oviedo is struggling right now.

Struggles for Oviedo are to be expected. After all, this is his first full MLB season. However, Oviedo struggle while the team is also battling injuries in the starting rotation is a major problem. Even if the Pirates would want to skip a start or two for Oviedo or shift him to the bullpen for a short period of time, they do not have enough starting pitching depth left to do so.

The lineup is being impacted by injuries as well. Andrew McCuchen missed the entire series due to an ankle issue and Ji Hwan Bae exited Friday's game with injury. Two tough blows for a lineup that is alreayd without their highest ceiling hitter in Oneil Cruz. The Pirates are really missing Cruz's defense as well.

Pittsurgh also misses Ji Man Choi more than many people likely thought they would. Sure, Choi was off to a slow start this season before landing on the IL, but he has a career 114 OPS+ and wRC+. With the lineup currently struggle and dealing with additional injuries, Derek Shelton would love to have Choi available right now.

Starting pitching falters throughout the series, poor command a big issue

The single biggest reason the Pittsburgh Pirates got off to such a strong start was due to how well thier starting rotation pitched. Struggles from the starting pitchers sunk the team when they got swept in Tampa Bay during the week, and those struggles carried over into being swept by the Blue Jays.

Rich Hill started on Friday night and turned in the strongest start of the series. However, he still allowed 4 runs in 5.1 innings pitched. Johan Oviedo was lit up like the postgame fireworks on Saturday when he allowed 7 runs. Roansy Contreras was burnt by poor defense in the 1st inning on Sunday, but still allowed a 3-run home run to Whitt Merrifield who had not hit a home run yet this season. Contreras went on to allow 5 runs in 5 innings pitched.

A major issue for both Oviedo and Contreras in this series was poor location. Both pitchers hung breaking pitches and put fastballs in the go zone during their starts. Oviedo and Contreras both struggled to put batters away in two strike counts, and big reason for this was poor location with two strikes.

The poor location is part of what made the starting pitching struggles so frustrating. The home run Contreras allowed to Merrifield came on a pitch Contreras put in the stirke zone. Oviedo hung a poor slider to Brandon Belt with two outs in the 1st inning on Saturday night resulting in a two strike, two out double to score a pair of runs. These were just two examples. Things could have gone much differently in the series had Oviedo and Contreras hit their spots better.

Middle infield woes

When the Pirates lost Oneil Cruz to his fractured ankle it went without saying that it would be a major blow to the club. No player on the team has a higher ceiling than Cruz does. While Rodolfo Castro has done a fine job offensively stepping in for Cruz, the team is missing his defense big time.

Even with Castro hitting the ball well in place of Cruz, odds are, it's not truly in place of Cruz. With Castro putting together the season that he is he likely would have emerged as the team's primary second baseman. This would have created a regular middle infield of Cruz and Castro.

This is a middle infield that would be better offensively, as well as defensively. As he has shown time and time again, Castro is a much better defender at second base than he is at shortstop. The other players who have contributed in the middle infield have struggled offensively. Other than Tucupita Marcano, they've also struggled defensively.

Having a consistent middle infield who play off each other is important. The Pirates have such a revolving door between who has been making starts in the middle infield has prevented this. That was on display in Sunday's loss when the 1st inning defensive miscue of Mark Mathias is one that shortstop possibly should have fielded. With a consistent middle infield who know what each other are going to do, that could have been more likely. Later in the game Castro committed his 7th error of the season, the 6th of which that occurred at shortstop.

Something needs figured out with middle infield. That might be Castro at second base and Marcano at shortstop. Castro has proven that he's not an every day defensive shortstop in the majors, but he should be playing every day with his bat.

Right now, the middle infield is one of many issues for the slumping Pirates.

Chase De Jong needs to go

Chase De Jong had a career year in 2022. However, for a variety of reasons, especially his .222 batting average on balls in play, the success was never sustainable. Well, so far this season he has reverted back to the pitcher he had always been in his major league career.

Prior to landing on the injured list last month De Jong had struggled mightily this season. Sunday afternoon he made his second appearance since being activated off the IL on Friday and those struggles continued.

After dancing around raindrops to pitch a scoreless 8th inning, De Jong allowed 5 runs on a pair of home runs in hte 9th inning. On the season, De Jong now owns a 10.61 ERA and an 8.40 FIP in 9.1 innings pitched. He's allowed 13 hits, walked five batters, and has surrendered three home runs.

It could be that he's the odd man out when a starting pitcher is promoted to take Vince Vealsquez's spot in the rotation, or when Vleasquez returns. He could be jettisoned sooner and replaced by a reliever such as Colin Selby. Regardless, De Jong has no business being on this roster.

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