The NS9 Report is the start to your week. Posted bright and early every Monday morning, I’ll break down the three things that I’m looking for each week in Pirates land.
How Long Can the Pirates Keep this Fun Going?
What an opening weekend it was at the ballpark. The Pirates own the longest current win streak in MLB with five consecutive victories. They’re 6-3 and one game behind the Brewers in the NL Central and if the playoffs started today, they’d be in the playoffs with one of the wildcard spots. Let’s all breathe though, it’s only been nine games. If the Pirates started off terrible the first week, we’d likely be saying it’s early don’t overreact so we shouldn’t do the same with a nice start. But it’s really hard not to!
This team looks different. The rotation while being very young, looks pretty good and as advertised so far. The lineup looks like we added properly added power and are going to go from one of the worst power hitting teams to one at least in the top half. The Pirates are currently 4th in MLB in home runs with 12. They’re not striking out a ton, they’re walking at a good rate, hitting for power and pretty much is in the top 10 in most major offensive categories. What a turnaround it’s been.
Even the bullpen, which had red flags coming into the season, you thought they could really struggle but they’ve been pretty damn good since Opening Day. The bullpen is middle of the road with a 3.55 ERA, but they’re 4th in WPA showing they’re doing what they need to do to win and close games out. And we haven’t even seen Dennis Santana get a save yet thanks to some blowout wins.
So how long can the Pirates keep this up for? Not necessarily the winning streak, it’s baseball you just aren’t going to win every game but just good, solid baseball that the team has been playing. Will it last? The Pirates welcome in the Padres this week to PNC and then will head to Chicago to face the Cubs at Wrigley over the weekend. Those are two pretty good teams next up, but both are struggling out of the gate with a record of 4-5. The Orioles didn’t know what they were walking into and hopefully the Bucs can keep it going through these next two series because after that the Pirates return home next week for a four-game series against the lowly Nationals and then the Rays for three games. It would be nice to at least play .500 ball this week and they take advantage of a couple projected last place teams.
Triolo to IL, Cook Called Up and Overall Team Health
On Sunday the Pirates announced that they placed Jared Triolo on the 10-day injured list and recalled Billy Cook. Triolo’s injury came about while running the bases during Friday’s game. Ben Cherington said on his radio show yesterday on The Fan that they believe Triolo will “miss weeks as opposed to days.” Losing Triolo for a couple weeks isn’t the end of the world and the offense will be fine, but Triolo has just moved to his more comfortable position at third base with Konnor Griffin being called and he is valuable bouncing around the diamond to spell players and provide great defense pretty much anywhere he goes. For now, it’ll be up to Nick Gonzales and Nick Yorke to man third base until Triolo comes back. Not the greatest options and once again, not being able to sign or acquire a solid third baseman continues to linger for this team.
All that said, this was the first in-season roster move due to an injury, and overall this team is relatively healthy especially the pitching staff. Only Triolo and Jared Jones sit on the IL and Jones is working his way back for mid-to-late May timeline. But so far so good, let’s hope the injury luck can stick with this team as well.
What a Difference One Year Can Make
Last season at the home opener, it was an ugly scene at PNC Park. Fans were fed up with Bob Nutting and Ben Cherington. There were billboards demanding Bob sell the team, someone even paid for a plane to fly around with the banner “Sell the Team, Bob” and while walking the rotunda during the home opener, fans were yelling directly at Bob to sell the team. Well, maybe it worked?
This season the vibes and atmosphere are a complete turnaround. The place was packed for the home opener and it was LOUD. The excitement for a much improved team and the arrival of Konnor Griffin had fans buzzing. The “hoist the cone” phenomenon has gripped Pirates nation. Fans are bringing cones to the game, wearing cones on their head, hoisting cones when the team does something good, wearing cone suits and even Bob Nutting was signing cones this past weekend! Just wild stuff and very different scenes from what we saw just a year ago.
Now look…this doesn’t absolve Bob for all his previous sins. This doesn’t make up for all the down years the Pirates have had where Nutting didn’t open up the wallet and they didn’t actively acquire players to try and compete. It took a lot longer than it should have and they’re still not there yet. Their payroll is still just 23rd and barely over $100M and their inability to acquire a good third baseman could still hold them back. But it’s something. We’ve said this for years on the NS9 that we aren’t asking for a $200M payroll or to go out and try to acquire All-Stars at every position and become the Dodgers. We just wanted them to do something and try to at least look like you’re trying to improve the team and spend a little bit of money on some impact players. That’s it. They finally did something this offseason, which was the best offseason in at least 10 years and look at the response. Bucco Fever is here. Fans showed up to the park this past weekend and the team is on a five-game winning streak. Ryan O’Hearn and Brandon Lowe are already paying massive dividends. And if this team continues to be interesting and compete in the division or wildcard race well into the summer, it’s just going to get better and hit a fever pitch in this city.
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