Yoyo-like Pirates seek consistency
The Pirates’ season continues to be one of fits and starts as they took a 17-19 record into the weekend.
The Pirates began the season with a 1-4 record, then righted the ship to win 10 of the next 14 and improve to 11-9. But May brought them down again, with five consecutive losses to start the month.
They rallied to win four in a row and get back above .500, but three losses left them two games under.
“We’ve got to work on overall consistency and just keep working, working to stretch things out, working to cash in on opportunities on offense,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “Just keep working and then transfer the work into a game.”
Bad baseball is a familiar feeling in Pittsburgh, but this is a club that has made it to the playoffs in each of the last two seasons after 20 losing seasons and has the personnel to get back to the postseason.
“The overall game just needs to tighten up,” Hurdle said. “You want to make a move, get in the hunt and do some things, you’ve got to play solid baseball day in and day out, and we’ve hung around .500 for the reasons I just mentioned.”
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Signed to a four-year, $27.3-million contract during the opening week of the season for reasons known only to the Pirates, Josh Harrison got his batting average back up to .200 on Thursday when he went 3-for-4 at Philadelphia then lifted his mark to .222 by going 4-for-6 on Friday at Chicago.
That is still a far cry from the .315 he hit last season when he started the season as the 25th man on the roster and wound up second in the National League batting race, four points behind Colorado’s Justin Morneau while also playing in the All-Star Game.
Mired in a 1-for-21 slump, Harrison was given the night off Monday in Philadelphia.
On Tuesday night, he hit a three-run home run off Phillies right-hander Sean O’Sullivan. Harrison went 1-for-3 that night and again Wednesday, but it seemed to awaken his baat.
“You just want to be able to come in every day and contribute to the team,” Harrison said. “It’s just a testament of what I’ve been doing the last week or two — (getting) my groove back and staying within myself.”
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Francisco Liriano leads the major leagues in batting average allowed with a .168 mark as opponents have just 27 hits off him in 161 at-bats over his first seven starts, though the left-hander has a 1-3 record to show for it.
While Liriano’s batting average allowed will almost certainly go up, it is instructive to note that the Pirates’ single-season record is .207 by Oliver Perez in 2004.
The rest of the top five: Bob Veale (.211, 1968), Jose DeLeon (.214, 1984), Rick Reuschel (.215, 1985) and John Candelaria (.217, 1976).
Liriano’s .218 mark last season ranks ninth.