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This has been an up and down season to say the least. We were banking on our pitching staff thinking our hitting would be dismal, which was correct to start the season, but our starters had died in May. Since the end of May, pitching has been average with the explosion of offense. The Bucco's were second in average for the month of June at .288 and leading July at .343 after 7 games. 

Other than Musgrove, yesterday's lineup featured Marte with the lowest average of .280. Everyone else is near .300 or better. Reynolds, Moran, Newman, Frazier, Melky, Bell, Dickerson, Osuna, Stallings, and last but not least Brault have all been hitting insane the last few weeks. Brault had 2 pitch hit appearances last week and had 2 hits. He has 8 hits in 21 AB. .381 for a pitcher is solid. Bell of course is on an insane ride which MLB mostly ignores in the headlines because he's not a Yankee or Dodger. I hope he wins the derby to make some noise. 

They have been making crazy plays on defense lately, they're just hot. We need the pitching to keep up with the hitting and good things will come. 2.5 games back at the break isn't bad from where we were. Thoughts?

Compared to the rest of major league divisions, the one they're in stinks. They are exactly where I thought they would be, hovering right around .500, and will end up there.

Manfred wrote:Compared to the rest of major league divisions, the one they're in stinks.  They are exactly where I thought they would be, hovering right around .500, and will end up there.

Did you expect the bats to be as good as they've been? Reynolds and Newman could be ROY. Bell could be MVP at this point. Moran is projecting around 90 RBI. Bell already has more RBI's half way than any Pirate had all of last season. It's mind boggling how injuries and just the last name Archer have been so hurtful to the pitching staff. At least the hitting is giving excitement to watch. Never count them out of a game if they have an at bat left.

I think they’re in the best division in baseball. None of them are as good as Dodgers or Yanks but all 5 are better than the bottom couple teams in every division. The way the Bucs bats are going, if they get average pitching the 2nd half and decent bullpen work, they’d run away with the central. On a side note, my playoff predictions for each division are all still in the hunt but my numbers for bell were just a bit light hahahahaha 

Yea the AL Central is pretty horrible. Kansas City and Detroit are arguably the two worst teams in the league. 

The NL central is probably the only division in baseball the Pirates could win this year.  But it is also the only division in baseball where the Pirates could finish in 4th or 5th this year.  IMO the division is 5 slightly above average teams.  I think the best team in the division is the Reds but they may have dug themselves too big of a hole in April.

The NL Central is one that has 5 teams that could legitimately make a run in the playoffs.  The records are so close to .500 bc they are all beating up on each other.  That being said, I for one, did not foresee the kind of offensive output they’ve displayed the past 2 months.  In fact, I continuously knocked the offensive lineup.  In my defense, the starting lineup you see today is very different from the one in May due to the infusion of some young bats and the arrival of Josh Bell as a legit, middle of the order presence.  I’ve argued for some time that the lineup was one power bat away from being solid.  They’ve gotten that from Bell and the results have been awesome.  Injuries have decimated the starting pitching rotation or this team’s record could be much better.  Hopefully, they can get some starters back, and make a run at the playoffs.  Since the Pirates never show the ability to put it all together, my prediction is still between 75-85 wins and 4th or 5th in the division.  

I hate to be a pessimist, but I'd expect the hitting to cool off at some point, and the starting pitching to continue to fade. I hope I'm wrong, but I see them sliding in the second half. And as far as ROY, there is a Met rookie with 29 HRs already, so......

I know blown leads happen. But if the bullpen doesn't have seven blown leads in the seventh inning or later they're 51-38 at the break and 4.5 games up.

And that’s a killer because they have more leads blown after 7 innings this year than they did all of last year. 

Bullpen has been better of late though.