Nobody in the game of baseball played a harder April schedule than the Pittsburgh Pirates. Here are the April records of the teams we played this month:
Phillies: 11-12
Dodgers: 16-7
Giants: 12-10
Diamondbacks: 12-11
Cardinals: 14-8
Rockies: 11-11
Braves: 14-9
Combined: 90-68 (.570 winning percentage)
That's an incredibly tough group of teams to play there, and the Pirates won ten of the 22 games they played against them, that is impressive for a young team like the Bucs.
The reason for all of that good talk is the pitching. Erik Bedard (5), James McDonald (5), Kevin Correia (4), Charlie Morton (3), Jeff Karstens (3), and A.J. Burnett (2) combined to make 22 starts and posted a 2.69 ERA in those 123.2 innings. They have walked 3.1 batters per nine and struck out 6.5 per nine.If any other team would have a combined 2.69 rotation's ERA they would probably be a winning team. However, the Pirates have had some serious troubles on offense. They scored a league low 58 runs in April, which is just 2.64 runs per game. They hit .228/.282/.337 as a team. Only two teams have worse batting averages than us, the Nationals and the Padres. Those same two teams are the only ones to slug lower than us, but nobody has a lower on-base percentage than the Pirates.
Things did turn around a bit at the end of the month. They scored 28 runs in their last seven games, which is four runs a game. Pedro Alvarez has been the Pirates best hitter in the last two weeks and has five home runs and nine extra base hits for the month. He has posted a .327 wOBA, which is above the league average. Things are looking way up for Alvarez, and he has the potential to provide a bunch of offense by himself. Garrett Jones also had a nice start to the season with a .338 wOBA and a .265/.275/.510 triple-slash line.
Andrew McCutchen has struggled a bit lately but finished the month with a .324 wOBA and a .302/.351/.372 triple-slash. He hasn't found his power struck yet either with no homers and just six extra base hits (all doubles). Eventually he'll start hitting some balls over the fence and that will provide a big boost. Jose Tabata has also started to turn it around a bit lately hitting .364/.400/.455 in his last eight games.
The pitching has been phenomenal and the offense is starting to wake up a little bit. If they can keep pitching well, they will almost have to win more games just because of the better offense and the easier schedule. Should be a fun May.