The Pittsburgh Pirates are playing good baseball. Make no mistake about it the 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates are not backing into wins this April despite playing poorly. They are playing well, getting contributions from a lot of different players and winning good old fashioned baseball games. The Pirates have been fundamentally solid to date and are not making the Piratey mistakes we are all so used to by this point. This team looks like the best Pirates team that has been assembled in quite some time. Of course this all brings about the question: Are They For Real?
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To be honest I can’t answer whether this team is for real or not. It is a talented bunch capable of putting together a lot of wins and it is also a bunch that could just as easily crumble and lose 90 games. One thing I do know for certain though is that if the Pirates are going to be successful this season it is imperative they play well against the demon that awaits us tonight. Ever since the Milwaukee Brewers snapped their own streak of year without a winning season in 2007 (their streak started in 1992 as well) the Brewers have essentially owned the Pirates.
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The Pirates overall record against the Brewers over the last 6 years is 24-69 good for a .258 win percentage or roughly 42 wins over the course of a 162 game season. For those of you wondering that would be 120 losses which is equal to the modern day record for losses in a single season set by the expansion Mets in 1962. Needless to say the Pirates have played awful baseball against the Brewers regardless of the factors at play.
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When one look starts looking at other factors we see the Pirates actually haven’t played the Brewers that poorly at home. In 2007 and 2009 the Pirates actually posted winning home records against the Brewers and their overall record of 17-25 gives them a .405 winning percentage which while it is bad doesn’t really seem out of place given the Pirates struggles over the years. Where things take a dark turn is when the Pirates play in Milwaukee. It is a true House of Horrors. The Pirates over the last 6 years own a 7-44 record at Miller Park. That is good for a .137 winning percentage or about 22 wins over a 162 game season. To put that into some perspective the 1899 Cleveland Spiders were so bad they couldn’t draw enough fans to cover the visiting team’s travel expenses so they played almost all of their games on the road and there was a fairly popular bet surrounding them about whether they would win 2 games in a row (they did but just 2 games and only once) and even they posted a .130 winning percentage. Essentially the Pirates at Miller Park over the last 6 years have been nearly as bad as the worst team ever assembled in Major League Baseball history.
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However there are signs that things might be changing. In the first three years of this six year stretch the Pirates won just one game at Miller Park (.042 W%) and over the last three years they have won six games (.222 W%). In fact last year alone they won 3 games nearly doubling the previous five seasons combined total of 4. Things are slowly improving but it can be argues that has more to do with simply the laws of probability than they do with the Pirates actually playing better at Miller Park. No matter the difference in talent level between two Major League Baseball teams sooner or later the lesser talented team is going to win some games based upon not much more than sheer luck.
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The Pirates will play the Brewers 19 times this season and the facts are simple if this Pirates hopes to be different than the years before it the team needs better results against the Brewers and specifically at Miller Park. A 4-15 or 5-14 showing against the Brewers with only one or two wins in this House of Horrors just isn’t going to cut it. The Pirates need to stand up, play solid baseball and come out of their games against Milwaukee with a respectable showing and post a record at least near .500 with a handful of wins (4 or 5 minimum) at Miller Park.
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This demon that the Pirates have faced the last six seasons must be exercised and eliminated before the Pirates or we fans can even reasonably consider putting to rest the ghosts of the last 20 years. Make no mistake about the House of Horrors the Pirates are about to enter is truly haunted and walking through it and conquering our fears is the only path towards our desired destination of a successful (winning) season.