The Pittsburgh Pirates capped off a back breaking weak on Sunday losing 6-1 to the Red Sox, their sixth loss in a row. Back-to-back sweeps at the hands of the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox put the Pirates at 11-11. They have a full week of games coming up, four at home versus the Milwaukee Brewers followed by three in San Fransisco versus the Giants. The sky appears to be falling on the Pirates at the moment, as fans look to duck and cover.

In this weekly recap, we will look at each of the three major categories—Offense, Pitching, and Defense—and grade how the Pirates played.

Offense:
Offense? You are asking about Offense? Offense? After back-to-back weeks where the Pirates scored 28 runs per the bats went on hiatus only managing to score 9 runs over six games? And to make things worse, they only managed 33 hits over those games, 16 of which came over the last two games of the weekend, one of which was a blowout. The offense is struggling heavily, even Oneil Cruz has admitted to losing confidence in his plate appearances. The only two Pirates to have even mild success this past week at the plate were Connor Joe and Bryan Reynolds, with Ke’Bryan Hayes getting an honorable mention. Unless the Pirates are able to get the bats going, and immediately, it will be another rough week for them. If that happens, expect to start hearing Jon Nunnally chants on the next homestand.

Pitching:
Jared Jones once again was the only rose amongst a bush of thorns this week. He threw one of the most effective games to date, going five innings giving up one hit, walking none, and striking out seven. Oh, and he threw 50 of his 59 pitches for strikes. Read that again, let it sink in. Within a week of absolute shit for Pirates fans, Jared Jones did something special again. He has been the one bright spot this season. He will pitch twice this week so cross your fingers he can keep the magic flowing. The next best starter this week was, of course, Bailey Falter, who is apparently fueled by hatred. If Falter can continue to pitch well, it could go a long way to helping turn this mess around. The bullpen was mostly a mess, as well, with the only standouts being Colin Holderman and Ryder Ryan, while others like Josh Flemming and Jose Hernandez looked like they might have had solid weeks, however, they actually didn’t quite. Hopefully, things can turn around for pitchers not named Jones this week as they face their first NLC test.

Defense:
Only four errors this week so…progress? Now one of the errors was for catcher interference and one was a horrible throw from Quinn Preister to Hayes, so really just two errors: one of which was a Cruz failure to catch a fly ball, the other Joe spiking the baseball into the right field grass as if he had just scored a touchdown. Neither of these is good, but it is still a step up from what we have seen in the previous two weeks. It can be considered progress and should be. Consider how the rest of the week went for the Pirates the defense; while still not as good as it could or should be, was a “highlight” for the team.

At 11-11, the Pirates are in free fall after a fast start. Ice-cold bats and a faulty bullpen have been destroying chances to win games. They will need to turn it around fast in the middle of a long stretch of games every day. If they can’t, then it will be a long week again for fans.