Pittsburgh Pirates: Pitching, Newcomers Struggle & More Takeaways From Series Loss Against Cleveland

Offensive woes continue

Since the start of May the Pirate offense has been, well, bad. Those struggles continued in this series. Before going any further let's address the elephant in the room - hitting coach Andy Haines. Why Haines is still employed is a mystery. He was bad with the Brewers and derailed Christian Yelich. He's been bad with the Pirates. Haines needs to go.

As for this series, the Bucs were shutout in game one and the only run of game two came via a solo home run from Connor Joe. In game one the Pirates had just four hits and three walks while striking out 12 times. They were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left seven runners on base.

Game two saw the Pirate offense record five hits, while they drew one walk and struck out 11 times. They went 0-for-3 with RISP and left four men on base. Worst of all, this came in a bullpen game for the Guardians.

The 7th inning of game three saw the Pirate offense show some life. Scoring 5 runs in the inning helped power the Pirates to a 7-5 victory, their lone victory in the series. Despite this, it was an overall poor series for an offense that has had far too many series like that since the start of May.