Snoozefest

I spent a majority of last night on Jargwatch and did not pay a whole lot of attention to the Bucs. They were facing a Blue Jays pitcher who came into the contest 0-4 with an 8.99 ERA at home. They got 1 run off of him. Paul Maholm's record fell to 4-9 despite pitching 7 innings and giving up only 2 runs. The Pirates have not been a very good offensive club all season. They rely far too much on the home run as their major source of offense and in the month of June, while playing good baseball, they have hit 11 home runs. That is good for 15/16 teams in the NL, one ahead of the dreadful Astros. Their 99 runs scored is 12th, team average is a surprising 7th, but the Bucs are dead last in XBH for the month. Remember 7 games into June when this was the best offense going for the month? Well, on the season they are 15th in the NL in XBH, 13th in runs, 13th in average, 12th in HR, 15th in OPS, tied for 5th in strikeouts, 15th in slugging %.

Those numbers are not good enough. Period. The Bucs have the 5th best team ERA in the NL for the season, yet we are still sitting 1 game above .500. I am tired of people asking me if I believe yet. I am tired of people telling me what the Brewers, Reds, and Cards are doing right now. It is June 30th, not even the All-Star Break, and we are 1 game over .500 and in 3rd place. People need to get their heads out of the clouds, tuck their boners back into their waistbands, and get freaking real.

Look, I fully understand that the Bucs have been down for so long that any glimmer of hope is cause for mild excitement. But let's get real, let's get with the program. The Yankees play like the Yankees because they are the Yankees. I know that sounds like a Mike Tomlin quote, but the truth is that the Bucs don't have the horses. In order to be in 3rd place at the end of June, all it has taken is EVERY PITCHER ON THE TEAM HAVING A CAREER BEST SEASON. If that is not the exception versus the rule, I can't think of a better example. Yes, this team is improved from last year. Frankly, it would be hard not to improve from a 105 loss season.

It's not like the 2010 had key players injured. It's not like we greatly improved the team in the offseason, it was mostly the same guys. Correia has certainly been a surprise, but Overpaid and Diaz are certainly not improvements over anything we previously had in place and for them to help the team, they too would have needed to have career years. The fact that the Bucs are 40-39 is an absolute freaking miracle. This team is a far cry from the '08 Rays and the 2010 Giants, which I have heard comparisons to. A far cry to say the absolute least. Yes, the '08 Rays had about the same payroll, BUT they also had better young players. Longoria, for example, was a rookie that year and hit 27 HR and 85 RBI in 122 games, that's 36 HR and 113 RBI over 162. Upton was on a rookie contract then and hit .273 with a .383 OBP, 9 HR, 67 RBI, and stole 44 bases. Carlos Pena was their highest paid player at $6M, he had a .247 average but hit 31 HR and 102 RBI. They also had James Shields (14-8, 3.56 ERA), Matt Garza (11-9 3.70 ERA) and Edwin Jackson (14-11, 4.42 ERA) on rookie contracts as well, combining for 39 wins. After that, the Rays drastically increased payroll to a level that we have repeatedly heard the Nuttings cannot afford.

So perhaps 40-39 on June 30th is as good as it gets.