Sure it is only April but besides me who really thought this would happen? Even I had strong doubts.

So far the team has played 22 games against six different teams. The team has an even or positive record against every team this season save the Reds. The team has a -10 run differential, the worst in the division but far from worst in the MLB. If you remove the Reds smack down of 8 runs for and 30 against.. the team would be +3 in run differential.

Sure sure, at the end you cannot just pick and choose stats, but given 22 games and only one team totally having the Pirates number.. seems promising. Will this last?

Well the realist in my says.. no probably not. The optimist in me thinks if the starters can get more consistent in a not bad way and health isn’t a real issue, the team has a real shot at .500 going into July.

In July we will likely see Brault, Anderson and A. Frazier gone in trade. Maybe T. Frazier as well if he doesn’t play his way out of the MLB. I would say Polanco as well but unless he has a 100+ OPS) i doubt there will be much interest. This only happened twice in his career, last in 2018. More so if some new blood steps in, Crow, Yajure, Hayes, N. Gonzalez, Cruz….

Still looks like 2021 is the setup for putting things in place for 2022 soft run shooting for 2023 for a ‘real’ run… But still… need to stabilize the pitching.