The Pedro Problem

The name "Pedro" hasn't been good to the Pittsburgh Pirates so far this year. There were really high expectations for Pirates 3rd baseman Pedro Alvarez coming into this year, and he has not delivered much of anything to this point.

The biggest problem right now is that Pedro hasn't played a major league game since May 19th, and doesn't expect to play one for at least another 2 weeks.

I'm a positive guy, so let's look at the good in this situation first. Through 36 games in 2011, Alvarez struck out 42 times. That equates to 1.17 strikeouts per game, which would have put Alvarez around 175 strikeouts in a 150 game season. That would have ranked him 2nd all time on the Pirates leader board (Jose Hernandez leads that list with 177 strikeouts in 2003), and even would have been top 50 in baseball history. The good news is, Alvarez has virtually no chance of getting anywhere near that strikeout total now that he's missed so many games with injury. Silver lining.

The Pirates offense has been terrible this year, and has had a really rough patch these last 4 games after an encouraging series in Houston. The biggest problem is that it lacks pop. Lyle Overbay and Garrett Jones were supposed to hit some home runs, but they haven't helped out much at all with just 12 home runs between them. Alvarez was supposed to be at the very least a 20 home run guy this year, with upside of 30-40, but even when he was healthy he was nowhere near that pace, hitting just 2 home runs in his 36 games.

Despite the terrible performance in the season's first month and a half, Pedro's bat is being sorely missed right now. Even the threat of his power is enough to help a lineup, and hope for a turnaround is one thing that gave the Pirates offense hope for a turnaround.

The Pirates have pitched extremely well to this point in the season, and have themselves in a pretty good spot at 2 games under .500 this far into the season, so Alvarez hasn't been missed that much during this month that he's been out. However, the pitching has looked much more vulnerable lately and the offensive struggles have been magnified because of it. You can't score 3 runs a game and expect to win very often. The Pirates need Alvarez back as soon as possible just so we can have that home run hope in the lineup again.

It's unfortunate that we have to hope for so much from Alvarez, because he is really the only big time power hitter in the entire system for right now. There is a lot of pressure on him as a first round draft pick to put up big numbers and be that 30-40 home run a year guy. Unfortunate as it is, Alvarez needs to get healthy and start performing in the big league level soon, or this Pirates team is almost undoubtably heading towards another losing season.

Believe it or not, Alvarez isn't the only Pedro on the team. The Pirates have a guy named Pedro Ciriaco on the 25-man roster right now. No seriously, he's on the team. Ciriaco was recalled after Alvarez went on the DL, almost exactly 1 month ago, and he has a total of 6 plate appearances since then. He is hitless in those 6 plate appearances and has not reached base either. He is used mainly as a pinch runner, and it's never even thought of to start him despite the less than impressive years we are getting from Brandon Wood and Ronny Cedeno. Remember when people were calling for management's head because they chose Josh Rodriguez over Ciriaco out of spring training, saying Ciriaco had big league talent and deserved a shot. You think any of those guys still think that? Yikes.

The Pirates have a lot of baseball ahead of them in 2011, and if they want to make a run at the division, or even at .500 they are going to need a lot more from these two Pedros. No, that's a joke, they just need something from Alvarez, Ciriaco looks nice on the bench and nicer in AAA.