Fact Vs. Fiction

The Pro-Nutter crowd came into this season praising the Pirates offense as if a reincarnation of the Lightning and Lumber Company that came along before my time. It was the starting pitching everybody was worried about. Cutch was so confident in this team's offensive potential, he uttered this phrase :

Andrew McCutchen grinned when asked why these Pirates shouldn't be able to hit.

"Maybe if we had our limbs chopped off. That's the only thing I can think of," he replied. "I feel like there's no way, shape or form that we won't score runs. With the lineup we have, some power, the speed, I think we'll get a lot done at the plate and on the basepaths."

So, count Cutch amongst those who are puzzled with the Bucs lack of offensive production. He also looks as if all of his limbs are securely intact, but maybe Dr., Patrick Demeo should check him out. Even though the widely used excuse for this is that all MLB teams are pitching fairly well, the Bucs are still 26th out of 30 teams in batting average with an anemic .236. They are 4th in strikeouts (not in a good way), 22nd in OBP, 26th in slugging %, 23rd in HRs, and 27th in runs scored. Even if this is another " Year of the Pitcher", this unstoppable line up is performing well below even the middle of the pack. I just wander what made people believe so firmly this offensve was going to be so oustanding? Last season, not one player in this season's starting line up hit over .300. That is unfair because Tabata hit .299, but the point holds true. Only one returning player had over 20 HRs last season, Jones with 21, and only 2 had more than 15 (Jones again and Alvarez with 16). The big weapon  added was Overpaid , who did hit 20 HR last year, but also batted .243.

 Since this juggernaut of an offense currently lays dormant, the Nutters prefer to point to a perceived positive instead of an obvious negative: the starting pitching is stellar in their eyes. However, that is not entirely true. The Bucs are an astonishing 11th of 30 in team ERA and 7th of 16 in the NL. BUT they are 21st in runs allowed ( 12/16 in the NL), 26th in Strikeouts, a solid 16th in BB allowed,13th in HR allowed and 17th in hits. Those numbers are not bad overall but certainly not at the level of the praise being heaped upon the bunch. I have been pleasantly suprised by the performance of the pitching staff, but when you take an average pitching staff and a far below average offense, you get a bunch of L's.

The Bucs hope to exorcise some demons tomorrow against the Cubs at Wrigley, where they have put up good numbers over the past 2 seasons. Maybe that "too big to fail" offense will finally show up. DK has been predicting it for a few days now and feels he is due to be right strictly based on the law of averages. But does the law of averages apply to everybody or just those who are average? If so, we could be in for a long slumber of sleeping bats.