Turning The Corner

The Pirates have put the ugly month of June behind them and are starting to play some good baseball. The Bucs are 3-1 in their last 4 games and the wins have all come because of solid pitching outings. I was expecting to see the Pirates put up some big numbers on the scoreboard and win games that way, but they have done the opposite and have begun winning close, low scoring games again. Paul Maholm, Ross Ohlendorf, Brad Lincoln, and now Daniel McCutchen have all had very solid outings in those games, with Ohlendorf being the only one not to earn a W.

One thing we have seen with the Pirates over the last couple years is that when they get good a good start from one guy, it can often rub off on the next guy, and then the next guy, and so on. It seems that the rotation can feed off one another and really step their game up when the other guys in the rotation are going good.

This is a very good thing to see, because I still fully believe that this offense is going to start scoring a lot more runs sooner or later, hopefully sooner. The loss of Neil Walker's hot bat might be holding us back a little bit, but he should be back soon and hopefully he'll continue what he's been doing at the plate all year long (since his callup). It appears that Pedro Alvarez is figuring some things out and should start driving the ball very often. He hit a monster shot tonight that if hit 10 feet in either direction would have been his first home run of his career. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's gonna be a lot of fun to watch these Pirates for the rest of the year.

Here's the latest offensive report since Pedro's debut: