After the Pirates lost the first game of the series against the Giants, it was a wake up call that these weren’t the Astros that the Pirates just swept. It kind of made everyone jump back to reality and show that this team can be beat. However taking the final two games of the series against Ryan Vogelsong and Tim Lincecum by a total of 16-3, can fans now jump the whole way on the Pirates’ bandwagon as they sit in first place with a 48-37 record at the All-Star break?
“Yeah of course,” Joel Hanrahan said about buying into this team. “We have the most exciting player in the game here and a pretty good third baseman that always has the potential to hit one in the river. We’re playing really good baseball. It’s fun for me to watch in the bullpen and if I was a fan, I’d definitely be buying in. Get your Zoltan shirts.”
It isn’t just Andrew McCutchen leading the way for the Pirates as he hit a first inning hanging slider for a home run or a seventh inning homer as a preview of his participation in the home run derby on Monday. This was the seventh multi-home run game for McCutchen in his career and his third this season.
“I’m not going up to bat trying to hit home runs,” McCutchen said. “I’m just trying to put good swings on balls. When I do that, depending on where the pitch is and how my swing is, some balls go out.”
It’s not even just Neil Walker who now has a 12-game hitting in which he’s gone 24-54 over that stretch, including five hits today.
“I’m just stepping box and having confidence, not trying to do too much,” Walker said. “When I can get back in the middle of the field and simplify things, which is easier said than done, Days like today can happen. Certainly five hits is something that comes around very rarely. I’m obviously very excited about it if you can’t already tell.”
It’s been a team effort. Is it that everyone is getting hot at once or does seeing your teammates produce give you more motivation to go out there and keep the hitting going?
“I think hitting is really contagious not to sound cliche,” Drew Sutton said. ”It’s contagious when you get in cold spells or hot spells. You see guys hit balls hard and it gives you a little bit of confidence to go up there and say I’m going to try to barrel something up too. Good teams stay in hot streaks longer than they do in cold streaks. It’ll be interesting to see what happens the rest of the way.”
Whatever it is, the Pirates have it and are playing great ball, but most importantly, are having fun all of the while.
“It’s been great,” Hanrahan said. “We’re all bonding pretty well and have good chemistry in here. We obviously put ourselves in a good spot in the first half. It’s been fun, especially these past 40-plus games where we’re crushing the ball. It’s fun to watch.”
While putting up 12 runs will shift the focus to the offense, A.J. Burnett had another great day on the mound. The veteran yielded only four hits and two runs over 6.1 innings. A nice bounce back performance from his outing against the Astros.
“A.J. was very effective and very efficient,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “He was very strong, we needed a strong outing. He wanted to bounce back from his last outing at home and he did that.”
The fans saw this last year and had their hearts broken, but something is different this year. Whether it’s the Zoltan that is seen on shirts around the stadium or it’s the veteran leadership, the Pirates are here to stay.
“We definitely are here to stay,” Jared Hughes said. “I can tell you right now, this group of guys is in shape and ready to finish.”
The Pirates will look to get their second half started against the Brewers in Milwaukee on Friday. While the players, aside from Andrew McCutchen and Joel Hanrahan who will be participating in the All-Star game festivities, are looking forward to the break, they knew they had something left to accomplish first.
“In about five hours I will be,” Hughes smiled and said when I asked if he was ready for the break before the game. “We have a series to go and win.”
A team that the city loves and is all about winning. Never was it more apparent than the standing ovation the fans gave Burnett as he left the field or the curtain call they gave McCutchen after his second dinger.
“It was nice,” McCutchen said of the curtain call. “To be able to get that, it was definitely really, really great of the fans. We aren’t just re-bonding the city with baseball, but I feel like other people are starting to notice outside of Pittsburgh of what we are capable of doing and what we are doing. That’s just something that will stick with you for a long time if we continue to do what we’ve been doing.”
It seems the Pirates are re-bonding this city with their national pastime. They’re making if feel like it’s the 1970’s all over again. Just like Hurdle wanted.
Photo Credits: Getty Images
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