The Pittsburgh Pirates ended July 40-62 and find themselves in the bottom part of the National League standings. Manager Derek Shelton’s team finished with a 9-17 record in July.
Playing on national TV Saturday night hosting the Philadelphia Phillies on FOX, the broadcast identified two eye-popping statistics that label the Bucs in historically bad company.
The 2022 Pirates only achieved 12 wins by starting pitchers through the first 100 games of the season, the fewest in all of baseball since 1906. 116 years ago.
Wouldn’t call it great pic.twitter.com/vTMnCukHDO
— Austin Bechtold (@AustinRBechtold) July 31, 2022
Part of the explanation can be Shelton’s early-season hesitancy to allow starters to pitch more than five innings, or even get to five innings, and the Pirates’ lack of offense. The inexperience and ineffectiveness of the rotation has not provided any favors, but has delivered starts into the sixth and even seventh inning in July where the Pirates could not capitalize.
Other than two outlier series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Pirates have not hit and pitched effectively at the same time all year.
How bad is the Pirates’ hitting? It gets worse when people are on base.
Pittsburgh is second-worst in team batting average (.219) entering Sunday. The team has been atrocious with runners in scoring position, recording the second-lowest team average (.203) before Saturday’s game since 1969. The only team worse than the 2022 Pirates were the 1969 San Diego Padres. The Padres hit only .200 on the season… in their first year of existence as an expansion team.
First-year hitting coach Andy Haines hasn’t had much time with the team to solidify much blame on his end. Only Bryan Reynolds has improved as the season moves along, mostly due to Reynolds’ unorthodox start where he was hitting around .210.
Shelton is a former hitting coach who made a name for himself with the Tampa Bay Rays. Remember the speed hitter???
