Pittsburgh Pirates: Summer Schedule Plays into Bucs’ Hands
By Matt Shetler
The Pittsburgh Pirates have used a solid month of June, in which they’ve gone 12-6 to date, to stay within one game of the National League Central leading Cincinnati Reds.
The Bucs sit at 37-32 right now and that could only stand to get better looking at the Bucs upcoming schedule. A lot was made early in the season about how tough the schedule was for the first month and the half of the season. All the Pirates needed to do was come out of that stretch in decent shape, and that’s exactly what they did.
Now the schedule swings back to their favor as the Bucs upcoming series look like this:
vs. Detroit
at Philadelphia
at St. Louis
vs. Houston
vs. San Francisco
at Milwaukee
at Colorado
vs. Miami
vs. Cubs
at Houston
at Cubs
One good thing is that interleague play is over for the Pirates after the Tigers leave town, but even that didn’t kill them this season as the Bucs are 9-7 against the American League teams on their schedule.
The other good thing about the Pirates schedule is the fact that until they play the Reds in August, they have only two upcoming series against teams currently over the .500 mark. only the Cardinals (36-35) and Giants (39-32) fit that bill and the Giants are the only team they play who currently have a better record than the Bucs currently do.
That also means only three of the next 35 games are against teams with a current better record than the Pirates.
Here’s a case where the Bucs have an opportunity to really make something happen. Taking two out of three from almost everyone during this stretch could have the Bucs in a very nice place for the final two months of the season.