How the Pirates Win, How the Pirates Lose

The Pirates are 5-5 in this young 2011 season. I've been taking a look at how the Pirates have won the games they've won and how they've lost the games they've lost. Here's what I've found:

The Pirates have won their games by the scores of 6-3, 3-1, 5-4, 4-3, and 4-3. That's a run differential of +8 (22-14). The games they have lost have been by the scores of 2-3, 5-6, 3-5, 4-6, and 1-7. That's a differential of -12 (15-27). All together that leaves the Pirates run differential for the 2011 season at -4. The only blowout game they've been apart of was the Home Opener on Sunday when the Rockies beat them by that 7-1 score.

In the 5 games the Pirates have won, they are scoring 4.4 runs per game, collecting 10 hits a game (helped greatly by the 16 hit performance in the 3rd game with the Cubs), hitting 1 home run per game, walking 3.8 times per game, and striking out 6.8 times per game.

On the flip side, in the 5 games the Pirates have lost, they are scoring 3 runs per game, collecting 6.4 hits per game, hitting 0.8 home runs per game, walking 3 times per game, and striking out 8.4 times per game.

You can see that the numbers between winning and losing aren't that different on the offensive side. Let's take a look at the pitching.

In the Pirates 5 wins, they have given up an average of 2.8 runs per game, given up 8.4 hits per game (not helped by the 14-inning affair on Friday night), given up only .4 home runs per game, walked 4.4 batters per game, and struck out 7.6 batters per game (another number that has been largely blown up by Friday's game).

In the 5 losses, the pitching staff has given up 5.4 runs per game, 8.4 hits per game, .6 home runs per game, they've walked 4.8 batters per game, and struck out 4 batters per game.

The staff has an ERA of 2.52 in games they win, and an ERA of 5.65 in games they lose. Basically, the Pirates have doubled their ERA in games they've lost compared to the games they've won.

So the difference in the pitching numbers is a lot greater than the difference in the offensive numbers when you compare the Pirates wins to their losses. I don't think that will surprise anybody. The offense hasn't been great, but it's been consistent. They've scored at least 3 runs in 8 of their 10 games. They haven't scored more than 6 in a game however, so they are certainly struggling to put together the big inning.

This is a Pirate team that is going to need some big innings to be competitive, and I don't see why this Pirate offense can't put together some of those innings with the solid top 5 hitters they have in the lineup.

The main issue for the offense so far this year has been Pedro Alvarez's lack of production. Alvarez is hitting .195/.250/.220 thus far. He has 8 hits, and only 1 of them has gone for extra bases (a double in the 3rd game against the Cardinals). He isn't driving the ball well and he is striking out a ton. He has 14 strikeouts in 41 at bats, which leads him on a pace to strike out 226 times in a 162-game season (Mark Reynolds led the league last year with 211 strikeouts).

Getting back to the pitching side of it, let's compare the starting rotation to the bullpen. The starters have an ERA of 3.34, and the bullpen has an ERA of 3.24. Both sides have certainly done their job early on this year. The starters are doing a pretty good job going deep into games, averaging 6 innings per start. There's only been 3 occurrences of a Pirate starter going past the 6th inning, two of which came from Kevin Correia (one of those came on Opening Day when Correia only faced one batter in the 7th and gave up a single before being pulled), and the other came from Charlie Morton, who was probably stretched out a little longer than he normally would be because of the Friday night game that exhausted the Pirates bullpen.

All-in-all on the surface it's been a good start for the Pirates this year. Some of the numbers suggest that the pitching will get worse as the season progresses (lack of strikeouts, lots of balls being hit in the air, low BABIP), but they've held their own thus far. I don't think anybody would be upset if the Pirates played .500 ball all season, that's almost become a goal for a lot of fans. Certainly .500 is not the goal, but it would be a giant step forward for this organization.

The Pirates play the Brewers tonight at 7:05, with Kevin Correia on the hill. Check back right here for a liveblog. Let's Go Bucs.