The Pirates had the second best record in baseball for 2015. Unfortunately the best record belonged to the St. Louis Cardinals and the 4th best record belonged to the Chicago Cubs. Both are division rivals of the Pirates and both teams looked to improve their rosters heading into 2016.
The Pirates traded their long time second baseman (and Pittsburgh native) Neil Walker to the Mets for....Jon Niese? They cut ties with power slugging Pedro Alvarez. The loss of AJ Burnett was replaced with Juan Nicasio and the list goes on and on.
Still I remained optimistic about the 2016 season and during the opening weekend the Pirates fans put their doubts aside with a sweep of the defending division winners, Cardinals. However, the magic of John Jaso at 1st Base, Jon Niese being on the mound, and replacing Walker with Josh Harrison didn't last. The Pirates found themselves very quickly looking up at the Chicago Cubs who would just keep winning and winning and winning (eventually the World Series too).
On May 13, 2016 the Pirates played the Cubs and by the end of a 9-4 victory by the Cubbies they were already in double digit win totals above the Bucs.
One of the few redeeming moments of that game was Andrew McCutchen who went 3 for 5 with two RBIs and a Run Scored. One of those hits was a two run homer off Trevor Cahill in the 9th inning with two outs.
It's good to know that with the team losing 9-2 with two outs, Cutch didn't just roll over and play dead.
Cutch raised his average that game to .261, but would finish the season with a career worse average of .256.
It's crazy how quickly windows can close.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't expect anything less from Cutch or any other ball player making millions of dollars. Well... maybe Jose Reyes. I remember him taking himself out of the game to hold onto the batting crown.
ReplyDeleteI've been hoping that MLB changes their playoff format for years now. The best teams, by record, should earn the better spots in the playoffs. You can still have the Wild Card game, but a new format is necessary to be more fair to teams in tough divisions like the AL and NL East.
ReplyDeleteThe NL Central gets no love. 4 out of 5 teams have winning records, more than any other division.
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