All right, it's only grapefruit league. These games don't "count." Even so, there are a couple of former cellar dwellers that were touted as turnaround prospects, that don't look like such in spring training. One of them is the Washington Nationals. Another is the Pittsburgh Pirates.
As a consolation, the World Series champion Yankees are 5-7, with their formerly vaunted starters, CC Sabathia and Joba Chamberlain, struggling mightily. The Pirates are 2-2 against them.
The Nationals are 0-10 in "grapefruit." That's about as bad a streak as you can get, in either the regular or offseason. About all that can be said is that they are so far down that they will only get better from here.
Apologists for the "Nats" claim that they have identified their veterans, and are giving playing time to second and third stringers to see who makes the team. Fair enough. But there may come a day when they wish they find out more about their first-stringers in the early going.
The Pirates are more like 4-7. That's just a little below "par"—for the Pittsburghers. Two of those games were one-run losses to the Tampa Bay Rays, a normal Pirate failing. Turn those losses into wins and the Bucs would be 6-5.
So they continue their usual pattern of not being a winning team overall. But there are some bright spots, which is also "normal" for the Pirates.
Paul Maholm has been generally good during the spring, although not consistently so. The Pirates did score 15 runs against the Tampa Bay Rays (but lost 16-15). But they scored the same number of runs against the Minnesota Twins and won.
Moroever, the light-hitting Pirates, of all teams, have been "trouble" for the Yankees' CC Sabathia, who lost two games to them with the now redoubtable Charlie Morton on the other side. Said Sabathia of them, "It's a good lineup. Young team. Fast. We'll see."
With their free-swinging ways, they are either going to strike out a lot on some days, and "connect" heavily on others. On these two particular days, they connected.
In fact, the Pirates don't necessarily do poorly against strong teams. They're not contenders by any means. But on any given day, they can be spoilers.
Last summer they took two games out of three at home against the pennant-winning Philadelphia Phillies, and three out of four at home, late in the season, against the Western Division-leading Los Angeles Dodgers.
The problem is that the Pirates don't do well against weak teams that strong teams routinely "put away." That is to say that "even" (or worse) against cellar dwellers and a modestly losing record against stronger teams is their route to the cellar.
A lot of whether or not the Pirates have a winning season in this year or next really rides on how they do against teams like the Washington Nationals.
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