There are some ball teams that are genuinely strong. There are others that only look like they may be strong.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are beginning to fall into the latter category. That's already a good bit better than where they have been.
The good news is that early results suggest that they are no longer a "weak" team. On a good day, they can post a blowout 10-3 win. Even against the former American League East division-winning Tampa Bay Rays. Just as important, they crushed the Florida community college defending champions, 21-1, that is, by a wider margin than many other professional teams would.
Noted standbys from late 2009, Andrew McCutchen and Garrett Jones, led the victory against the Rays. The Pirates posted their blowout against the college team without McCutchen. On these two days, Pirate pitching was reasonably good.
These results suggest at least isolated pockets of major strength, at least among the better elements of their lineup. The problem is that the Pirates also have major weaknesses, notably on the pitching staff, and at the back of the lineup.
This is likely to make for a certain lack of consistency. The Bucs can post big wins against relatively weak teams (or strong teams on a weak day). On such occasions, the team's weaknesses "don't matter" and the team's strengths are magnified.
But the Pirates still have too many areas of weakness to consistently beat strong teams. On most days, those outfits have Cy Young winners on staff that can suppress the Pirate run tally and sluggers that can find "holes" in Pirate pitching.
As bad as they were otherwise, last year's Pirates had winning seasons against the Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies. A rejuvenated team might victimize a few more weak teams this season, say the Houston Astros and Arizona Diamondbacks and either the New York Mets or Florida Marlins. Hopefully, they'll also do better in Interleague play against some of the weaker American League teams than they have in the past.
So, what could this year's Pirates look like if I'm right about them? In the worst case, they might look like the 2006 Cleveland Indians, who had a losing record despite scoring 88 more runs than they gave up; the result of blowout victories against weak teams and narrower losses against stronger ones.
In the best case, the Pirates could look more like football's Atlanta Falcons that went 13-3 by beating (mostly) weak and intermediate teams, but lost to other contenders such as the Pittsburgh Steelers, Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints, then to the Green Bay Packers in the postseason (after having eked out a victory during the season).
Don't count on the Pirates to make it to the World Series in 2011. But another trip to the cellar doesn't seem to be in the cards, either.
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