Abandon ship!

Well, not so fast. You don’t want to sleep on the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It’s true, there has not been too much to smile about for Pittsburgh fans this summer. The Pirates, one of the oldest and most storied baseball franchises, are mired in another terrible season. And yes, a few days ago the team removed General Manager Dave Littlefield of his duties.

Yet, despite being just two losses away from a 15th consecutive losing season, the Pirates are in the thick of National League pennant races. Pittsburgh will remain a factor in baseball’s playoff push.

Since their bats awoke from their mid-summer slumber at the end of July, the Pirates have been playing well. They finished August with a 17-13 record, a small consolation after getting skunked coming out of the All-Star break. The Pirates won just two of 16 games to end the month of July.

But, in the middle of August the Bucs flustered the NL East leading NY Mets in a three game set winning once and then took five of seven games from the Wild Card contending Phillies and Rockies.

Over the weekend, the Pirates were at it again. With the Chicago Cubs in town, Pittsburgh won two of three, dropping the Cubs out of first place in the NL Central. Last night, the Bucs lent Chicago a hand, beating up the Milwaukee Brewers in a 9-0 rout.

Entering today’s games, the Brewers and Cubs were tied for first-place atop the NL Central. Last night’s loss for Milwaukee marked their fourth loss in fifth try in Pittsburgh.

With 15 of the Pirates remaining games coming against teams in playoff races expect this team to have a huge impact on the way the postseason looks.

Blogger’s Note: In August, the Pirates upped their offense batting .287 as a team and averaging 6.1 runs per game. Their July numbers were paltry, batting .249 as a team and averaging only 3.8 runs per game. Pittsburgh also recovered from its power outage slugging 24 more home runs in August than in July.

The breakdown of the remaining games against playoff contenders looks like this…Brewers: 2 more games; Padres: 4 games; Cubs: 3 games; Diamondbacks: 3 games; and Cardinals: 3 games. The photo is a For Pete's Sake original taken by Pete in August 2006.