Despite dropping a game to the Cubs earlier today, the Pittsburgh Pirates have surprisingly gotten off to a nice start for a team that everyone was thinking would be last place finishers.
First of all, in the past few days the Pirates have called up Kevin Newman and Jason Martin, and both have been highly successful. Martin will likely be stepping up to a permanent outfield position this week in Corey Dickerson's absence, making the prospect of a Martin-Marte-Melkman outfield a surprisingly impressive one, especially considering Melky Cabrera's early numbers.
Then, the Pirates have finally trusted oft-relief-based pitcher Jordan Lyles with a spot in the rotation, which he's definitely risen to, with an impressive premier start. He joins the already strong trio of Jameson Taillon, Chris "Incites a brawl and still gets to stay in the game" Archer and Trevor Williams. Hell, even Joe Musgrove has stepped up as a rotation option, with impressive results (read: lots of strikeouts). Even if Taillon will have the occasional start where he gets lit up...like, so did Gerrit Cole when he was still here.
Plus, in the absence of a concrete star player, Josh Bell has FINALLY stepped up in a big way, and become the home-run hitting everyman that we all wished he could be last year. Adam Frazier and Colin Moran are impressing as well in this category.
The downsides to this team are its comparative faults to competitors in St. Louis and Milwaukee. This is a very amateurish team at times, and there's still a lack of a real game-making ability from a lot of these guys. There's nominally an ace (Taillon or Archer), and there's nominally a marquee star (Marte), but...you think that it can be better. I mean, we're not at 2007 levels of ineptitude, but we're just circling towards mediocrity, which I really wish wasn't happening to such a fun Pirates team.
I'm expecting good things, but...hopefully the Pirates can throw in some great things along the way.
Coming Tomorrow- One of MANY home-run hitters out of Arlington right now.
Definitely a tough division which amplifies a teams faults. I'd like to see Pittsburgh do better soon. Just not sure what that road for them looks like.
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