Pirates Baseball (As of April 17 results)

As the first week came and went for the Pittsburgh Pirates, they found themselves in a familiar place, the bottom of the NL Central. The Pirates troubles this season only begin with their record. The team has come up with just 18 runs in 10 games and has a team batting average below .200. These stats are easily the worst in the major leagues. However, the competition has a lot to do with these early season offensive struggles. The team so far has faced 4 Cy Young award winner in Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Clayton Kershaw, and Barry Zito. Also they have faced several pitchers who are considered the best in the game like Vance Worley, Matt Cain, Ryan Vogelsong, and coming up against the Diamondbacks Ian Kennedy and Tim Hudson. The runs are very hard to come by against these pitchers to begin with, when you throw in the Pirates history of lackluster hitting, results are not good. The only bright spot in the lineup so far this season is Center Fielder Andrew McCutchen who is batting over .300 early on and had the game winning hit against the Phillies on April 8. A positive to come out of the first 10 games is the starting pitching, the whole staff has kept them in essentially every game and has fought hard against starting pitchers who are considered head and shoulders better than them. If the Pirates can start putting up a few more runs, then the pitchers have a chance to start succeeding and competing.