Analysis: Pirates make small strides, with a long way to go

In a season of experimentation, the Pittsburgh Pirates have used 53 players to get through 72 games.

If that sounds like a lot of guys, it is.

The Pirates (29-44 before their game Tuesday night against the Washington Nationals) are one of only five teams since 1933 to employ 53 or more players before the All-Star break. Which, by the way, is three weeks away.

Slowly, however, it appears the Pirates are fielding players who are more than band-aids on a huge wound. It hasn’t translated into anything approaching consistent success, however.

General manager Ben Cherington, a man not given to hyperbole, said Sunday on his radio show on 93.7 FM that rookie shortstop Oneil Cruz is “super dangerous.”

“He hits the ball extremely hard, is a threat any time he’s at the plate.”

Jack Suwinski, another rookie, shared the team’s home run lead (12) with Bryan Reynolds before Tuesday. Funny how a kid who never played above Double-A before April has been nearly as productive as an All-Star player who was considered one of the game’s rising stars before the season.

Reynolds: 25 RBIs, .761 OPS.

Suwinski: 22 RBIs, .746 OPS.

On the mound, JT Brubaker, 28, Mitch Keller, 26, and Roansy Contreras, 22, have shown signs of growth over their past few starts.

Brubaker’s ERA was 6.20 at the end of April. He’ll take a 4.14 ERA into his next start.

Cherington said Brubaker is giving the team “a chance to win most nights that he’s out there, showing a mix of pitches, giving him a chance to match up against any lineup.”

Since returning to the rotation May 31, Keller has allowed a total of only nine earned runs (only one homer) in five starts, making efficient use of his changeup and sinker. Small strides when you consider he hasn’t pitched more than six innings in any of his 14 appearances, but the Pirates will take success stories anywhere they emerge.

“Exciting changes in Keller,” Cherington said.

Contreras, 22, has a 2.58 ERA in his first eight career starts.

Of course, the team is 12 games out of first place in the National League Central (11½ out of a wild-card berth) for good reason. And the schedule gets tougher over the next two weeks. After the Nationals series, nine of the next 11 games are against the New York Yankees (on pace for 117 victories) and Milwaukee Brewers (first place in the NL Central).

Those games may continue to expose some deficient areas, including:

• Pitching — Despite some recent success, the team needs even more starters and relievers. Perhaps recent draft choices will fill that void, but not immediately.

• Too many strikeouts — The Pirates strike out too much, 669 times (fourth-worst in MLB before Tuesday). The problem is likely a byproduct of starting four, five or six rookies most games.

“We want to see our strikeouts come down over time,” Cherington said. “We’ve had, frankly, way more young players getting significant playing time, more than we expected to at this point in the season.

“History tells us that there is a transition to the major leagues for young players where we will, on average, see strikeout rates increase when a player goes from Double-A or Triple-A to the big leagues.”

Close defeats are still defeats — After May 13, the Pirates played 30 of 41 games that were decided by one or two runs, losing 19.

“I’m watching from Pittsburgh on TV,” said Cherington of the two walk-off losses to the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Fla., over the weekend. “It hurts me to watch it. The closer you are to the field, which are the players and staff, it hurts them even more.”

He tries to stay positive.

“(Closes losses) mean we’re going toe-to-toe with that team until the very last pitch,” he said of the Rays, one of the American League’s better squads. “Where my mind goes after that — once I give myself a half hour after the loss to get over it — is: ‘How do we keep getting better so Shelty and our staff have a little bit more margin for error?’ ”

Right now, the Pirates have little of that.