ST. LOUIS -- The Pirates will enjoy a day off after 20 games in 20 days. Perhaps the break will allow them to reset their offense. As the first month comes to a close, let's take stock.
Here are their stats and ranks among the 15 NL teams in various categories. These numbers do not account for Sunday's game because Baseball Reference has not yet updated as of Sunday night.
Runs per game: 3.84 (10th)
Doubles: 25 (15th)
Home runs: 28 (4th)
Walks: 82 (4th)
Strikeouts: 204 (7th)
Average: 225 (13th)
OBP: .300 (11th)
SLG: .359 (11th)
OPS+: 90 (10th)
wOBA: .296 (11th)
wRC+: 88 (10th)
BABIP: .262 (15th)
Some takeaways:
1. The hot start from Neil Walker and Pedro Alvarez in terms of home runs has kept them ranked high in the power categories.
2. Except for that hot start, they would be much lower, as evidenced by their last-place rank in doubles and low ranking in slugging percentage.
3. Their plate discipline is fair. They are taking their walks and are in the middle of the pack in strikeouts.
4. The offense is going to improve. The Pirates' batting average on balls in play, currently the worst in the majors and well below the average of .290 to .300, will climb.
"It doesn’t show on stats but there’s been a lot of hard-hit balls that are just not falling," Ike Davis said after Sunday's game. "That will turn. We’ll start getting our cheap hits and our balls hit hard to fall and start putting up more runs."
They cannot rely on an improved BABIP to help their offense. They are six games under .500, 2-8 in their past 10 games and only one game ahead of the Cubs. They trail the division-leading Brewers by 81/2 games. They are getting poor production, at least lately, from Jordy Mercer, Pedro Alvarez and Starling Marte.
"You’re going to have them at some point in the year," Davis said of the Pirates' struggles. "Better now than later in the season when we’re making a run at this thing. We’ve had some really close ones, a lot of games that we could have won, but we didn’t. We’ll just have to pick it up in Baltimore."
In today's paper: Wainwright stellar as Pirates lose series.
Pirates notebook: Martin's hamstring problems began early in spring training, Sadler called up.
Coverage of the Cardinals from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
First Published: March 24, 2016, 5:09 p.m.
