It is Friday, April 26th, and the Pirates are 13-9. They're 12-4 since their 1-5 start and that 16 game run has been mostly made up of good opponents, the Phillies notwithstanding. This is a little bit different than the way things have played out in the first two years of the Clint Hurdle era. In 2011, the Pirates' flirted with .500 for much of the early season but didn't really go beyond well beyond a game or two over .500 until July, when they peaked at 53-47. Last year they started 2-1, but lost five straight after that and didn't get back to .500 until May 30th. In 2011 and 2012, the Pirates kind of snuck up on people. In 2013, the Pirates could end April in first place with a strong series in St. Louis this weekend.

So let's talk about how the Pirates have made their way to 13-9. There are obviously some unsustainable things here. The bullpen is seriously overworked right now. Justin Wilson is on pace for more than 100 innings, Mark Melancon is on pace for ~95, Tony Watson is on pace for just shy of 90. You can't ask for that much work from that many relievers. Guys are going to wear down, become ineffective, and get hurt. The pitching on the whole has been good enough, but opponents have just a .259 BABIP against the Pirates. The Pirates' defense has been excellent, but no team had a BABIP of lower than .277 against their pitching staff last year. They can't keep turning balls into outs at this rate. The offense has been a pleasant surprise. Pedro Alvarez was a non-entity until late last week while Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker have struggled, but Starling Marte and Travis Snider and Russell Martin have picked up the slack. This will eventually balance itself out, but I'm considerably more hopeful for the seasons that Snider and Marte might have after seeing their approach at the plate in the early part of this season. I thought before the season started that everything went right, that the Pirates could have an average offense in 2013. Nearly a month into the season, that doesn't seem like a pipe dream. 

What's been most encouraging thus far is that this Pirate team is as fundamentally sound as any Pirate team I can remember. I mentioned the defense above, but I don't think I can mention it enough. FanGraphs lists the Pirates as the Major League leaders in John Dewan's Defensive Runs Saved and seventh in UZR. Simply put, they're turning balls into outs at a rate greater than anyone in baseball except for the Orioles. As I said above, they're doing so at a rate that's unsustainable, but the good news is that this is when the Pirates need their defense the most. Obviously much of the hope for the Pirates in the latter part of the season lies in someone (anyone!) getting Jonathan Sanchez and maybe Jeff Locke out of the rotation. Once the rotation is a little deeper, the defense will have room to breath. 

This extends beyond defense, though. FanGraphs rates the Pirates as the fifth best baserunning team in baseball thus far in 2013. That number doesn't include stolen bases, but the Pirates are doing much better on that front this year. They've stolen 13 bases in 18 attempts, which is a 72% success rate and much closer to the general rule of thumb break even point of 75% than they were last year. We can use TOOTBLAN (thrown out on the bases like a nincompoop, or any non-forceout out on the basepaths) to visualize the Pirates' strong fundamentals this year. They have the best TOOTBLAN differential in baseball, getting thrown out six times on the bases while cutting down 16 runners. 

The point here is that while the Pirates' good record thus far is certainly a result some unsustainable things like the bullpen's work rate and the defense's extreme efficiency and Travis Snider's and Starling Marte's ridiculously high BABIPs (.405 and .459, respectively), the Pirates are also doing a lot of little things quite well. Since the rotation should have its best days in front of it, Pedro Alvarez is heating up, and Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker are certain to come alive at some point in the near future, I'm not hugely worried about riding some of those unsustainable things to a good record in April. In general, though, I'm pretty happy with the general foundation that this record is built on. There's plenty of baseball ahead of us in 2013, but I feel a lot better about the Pirates now than I did when I left Bradenton a month ago. 

Of course a bad week against the Cardinals and Brewers will change that quickly. If the Pirates are going to have any success in 2013, they're going to need to beat NL Central teams. They've done a nice job of that so far, but a road trip through St. Louis and Milwaukee is much different than an April homestand in Pittsburgh.

For the second game in a row, the Pirates got a middling start against a pretty good one from one of Philadelphia's better pitchers. Neither Good James McDonald nor Bad James McDonald was anywhere to be seen today; instead, Middling James McDonald made an appearance with the ability to occasionally get some big strikeouts (he struck out Domonic Brown and Ezequiel Carerra with Ryan Howard on third and one out in the second), but he still walked three hitters in 5+ innings and threw a bunch of pitches and left a big mess on the table for Justin Wilson in the sixth inning without recording an out. Wilson mopped things up nicely, though, and Tony Watson followed up behind him to give the bullpen four innings of one-run relief.

That was all the Pirates needed. Facing a 3-1 deficit, they rallied for two runs against a clearly tired Cliff Lee in the seventh inning then picked up three more against the Phillies' terrible bullpen in the eighth. One day after Brandon Inge pinch hit for Garrett Jones and drove in the go-ahead run with a bases-loaded single, Garrett Jones pinch hit for Brandon Inge and delivered a go-ahead bases-loaded double.

Earlier in the game, Gaby Sanchez delivered his second homer of the series and drove in half of the Pirates' six runs. Mike McKenry had the big game-tying single in the seventh. Pedro Alvarez had two singles and two of the longest bases loaded foul balls anyone has ever seen, I think, though he ended up not driving in any runs. Starling Marte had two more hits and drew a walk and scored twice, including once on a sac fly to shallow right-center field. Andrew McCutchen broke his 0-for-17 slump with a two-out single in the seventh that lead to Sanchez and McKenry's run-scoring singles that tied the game. 

This was a good series in Philadelphia, is what I'm saying. I can't imagine that too many teams, if any, have won games started by Hamels, Lee, and Halladay on successive days. The Pirates are 13-9 and have won 12 of their last 16. Next up: St. Louis.

In the last two-odd weeks, the Pirates have: 

- Won two of three in Arizona.
- Swept a home series against the Reds.
- Split two games against the Cardinals.
- Taken three of four from a previously red-hot Braves team.

So what say we add three of four from the Phillies at Citizen's Bank Park today? A split would be a perfectly acceptable way to start this ten-game road trip, honestly, but three of four would be much better. Really, it feels like this Pirate team is capable of pretty much anything these days. 

This afternoon, James McDonald takes the mound against Cliff Lee. After homering off of lefty Antonio Bastardo last night, Pedro Alvarez is in the lineup against the lefty. Neil Walker, who struggles against lefties nearly as much as Alvarez does, has been given the day off in favor of Brandon Inge. We have no choice but to roll with this Inge thing until it runs its course, I suppose. Gaby Sanchez, Jose Tabata, and Mike McKenry all will also get starts today as the right-handed lineup and the afternoon-game-after-a-day-game lineup hit a confluence. 

Lee's first two starts were excellent and his third one was pretty good, but the Cardinals roughed him up last week. James McDonald is James McDonald and I just don't know what else to say. First pitch today is at 1:05. 

Through six innings, the only hit the Pirates had was a Pedro Alvarez RBI single. Through seven innings, the only two hits they had were a Pedro Alvarez RBI single and a Pedro Alvarez solo home run. Roy Halladay looked much more like the Roy Halladay that we're familiar with and Wandy Rodriguez had an off night that saw him serve up a long home run to Chase Utley and a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG home run to Ryan Howard (quite seriously maybe the longest home run I've ever seen anyone hit with my own two eyes). And somehow, the Pirates still won. 

They won because Alvarez kept things close tonight when things weren't going well. They won because Wandy Rodriguez still only gave up three runs in 5 2/3 innings on a night where he clearly didn't have his best stuff and because Vin Mazzaro, of all people, helped him get out of a jam in the sixth. They won because Mike Adams took the mound and didn't have his best stuff and so Jose Tabata, Starling Marte, Travis Snider, Andrew McCutchen, and pinch hitter Brandon Inge (?!?) strung together a walk-single-single-walk-single rally against Mike Adams in the eighth. And they won because Mark Melancon and Jason Grilli are pretty much unstoppable right now. 

There are four things from this game that I'd recommend you see. One of them is Howard's home run, because it was borderline unbelievable. One is Alvarez's homer, because he took a pitch on he outside part of the plate from a lefty, somehow got his bat way out in front of it, spun his back foot, and still yanked a ball over the fence in the sort of brute-strength home run that you as a Pirate fan have always hoped that Pedro Alvarez was capable of hitting. The third highlight is Starling Marte's insane pop-up triple. That's because when you watch the play live you think that the only way that Marte could've made it to third base on the play (a pop-up towards no-man's land in shallow right towards the line that Chase Utley ran down but couldn't quite reel in) was to bolt out of the box like a shot intent on ending up on third base if Utley dropped the ball, but when you watch the replay you realize that he watched the play all the way down the first base line and didn't really even kick it into fifth gear until he was halfway between first and second. And the last thing you should watch is any out that Jason Grilli recorded in the ninth inning tonight. Jason Grilli was more or less left for dead by the Phillies organization two summers ago and the Pirates wanted him when no one else did. Up until he arrived in Pittsburgh, that was kind of Jason Grilli's career in a nutshell. Grilli's been reborn as a Pirate, though, and he's absolutely reveling in the closer role this  year. He wants these saves against the Phillies badly, and he's a lot of fun to watch once he locks in. 

I think it's important that the Pirates get a split in this four-game series in Philadelphia and since James McDonald is on the mound tomorrow, tonight might represent their best chance to do it. Wandy Rodriguez takes the mound for the Pirates and he's been excellent in the two full starts that he's made this year, throwing 13 total shutout innings at the Cubs and Braves, striking out 11, walking one, and giving up just three hits. He'll face Roy Halladay, who's had two awful starts and two good starts in 2013. With Halladay back on the mound, Pedro Alvarez is starting again.

First pitch tonight is at 7:05.

Of course Brandon Inge would be the player to get the key RBI double in this game. Of course he'd be the one to turn in two stellar plays at third base to keep the Phillies off of the board with the Pirates clinging to a 1-0 lead and the Phillies threatening. Of course that's how it was going to happen after me and most Pirate fans and bloggers spent a good part of the afternoon complaining about Inge being put on the team  and right into the starting lineup despite not really doing anything to earn or deserve the spot. How else was this game going to turn out? 

I will continue to stand by my criticism of the Pirates for keeping Inge, McDonald, and Barmes all on the team together. It's not a Brandon Inge thing (by almost all accounts, Brandon Inge is a good guy and a great teammate), it's just that I think that it's crazy that the Pirates are devoting so much of their roster to no-hit, defense-first, old guys. If you want to keep John McDonald on the roster so that you can pinch hit for Clint Barmes in big situations and give him a day off here and there, that's fine. But you can't do that if one of your bench options to pinch-hit for Barmes is Inge. That's not how you build a roster, in my opinion. 

In any case, the longer that I waste on Brandon Inge, the less time that gets spent talking about Jeff Locke. Locke made what had to be the best start of his short career on Tuesday night. He threw six shutout innings, striking out six, walking two, and only giving up two hits (though both went for extra bases). I saw almost none of the game, but the few parts that I did see, Locke was using a 90-92 mph fastball like a scalpel to keep the Phillie hitters off balance. Locke is not an untalented guy and his minor league numbers suggest that he should be capable of nights like this, but it's happened pretty rarely thus far in his big league career. It's nice to know that he's capable of giving the Pirates six strong innings and turning the game over to the bullpen. Tony Watson, Mark Melancon, and Jason Grilli were typically excellent tonight, shutting the Phillies out for three innings and only allowing the two singles that Melancon gave up in the eighth. 

On Monday, the Pirates lost to Jonathan Pettibone with AJ Burnett on the mound. On Tuesday, the beat Cole Hamels with Jeff Locke on the mound. More often than not the large data tends in baseball bear themselves out in terms of wins and losses in a way that you'd expect them to, but sometimes the individual data points themselves are awfully surprising.

The second game of this Pirates/Phillies series comes with an unwanted surprise: Brandon Inge's rehab assignment is over and he'll be joining the Pirates in Philadelphia tonight. And also starting at third base against Cole Hamels. Inge went 9-for-60 on his rehab stint and he hasn't had a season with an OPS+ of over 100 since 2005. His glove is good, but there's just no reason at all to think that he'll hit even a little bit. In a vacuum that's fine. On a team with John McDonald and Clint Barmes already on the roster (Alex Presley was demoted to make room for Inge) it's insane and unforgiveable. There's just no reason to waste this much roster space when the Pirates have two guys that can hit a little and do a third baseman impression (Martin and Sanchez) if they want a platoon option for Pedro Alvarez, and they're leaving Jordy Mercer in Triple-A for no discernible reason at this point. 

Anyway, Cole Hamels and Jeff Locke are on the mound tonight. The first pitch is at 7:05.

This game was about as tough to watch as baseball games come. Undistinguished rookie Jonathan Pettibone shut the Pirates down over his 5 1/3 innings, striking out six Bucs and walking none. The only runs the Pirates managed against him (or anyone on the Phillies' staff) were two solo homers by Pedro Alvarez and Russell Martin. They went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position, including leaving the tying run at second base with one out in the ninth. In fact, three doubles 

AJ Burnett, meanwhile, labored mightily through his five innings. His fourth inning was particularly excruciating to watch. He loaded the bases up after the first three hitters in the inning, then took ten pitches to strike Erik Kratz out, then struck Pettibone out on four pitches, then hit Jimmy Rollins in the foot to bring a run in anyway. I didn't have a stopwatch out or anything, but I think the inning took about 10 hours in total. Burnett ended up needing 35 pitches and he technically struck out the side, which made it all but certain that the bullpen was going to have another long night. 

Martin's homer tied the game up after that, but then Jared Hughes came into the tie game in the sixth and gave up a run to put the Phillies back ahead. That lead to a mystifying sequence of decisions made by Clint Hurdle in the seventh and eighth that lead to Clint Barmes making the final out of the seventh, then being double-switched out for John McDonald who promptly lead off the eighth. Both guys struck out, while Gaby Sanchez never made it off the bench and Alex Presley was used as a pinch runner. How can that be allowed to happen? Antonio Bastardo was on the mound to face Barmes; why not use Sanchez right there? 

This game contained exactly one highlight beyond the two homers. With Chase Utley on first base, the Pirates elected to still put a heavy infield shift on for Ryan Howard. Howard hit a sharp grounder between first and second that John McDonald expertly picked out of the dirt. Of course, when your shortstop is playing between first and second with a runner on third base, that means that the double play is going to have to be turned by the third baseman. The third baseman who, in this case, was Pedro Alvarez. McDonald made a nice toss to Alvarez, who nabbed the throw, nimbly floated over the base, and threw a rocket of a strike to first base as if it was the most natural thing in the world. That's probably going to be the only part of this game that I remember for more than 48 hours, and I'm OK with that.

The Pirates are 10-8. They're hitting the ball well and besides uneven starting pitching, playing a brand of baseball that I think we can fairly call "very good" over the last two weeks. They're coming off of a 7-2 homestand against the Reds, Cardinals, and Braves. Still, it feels like they're stuck in a sort of no man's land right now. Francisco Liriano is about 10 days away from re-joining the rotation, Charlie Morton is probably somewhere between two and three weeks off, and Gerrit Cole's ETA of early June has been put into question by his wild start with Indianapolis. Those three represent the Pirates' best chance to add arms to the rotation; until they're ready, Jonathan Sanchez, James McDonald, and Jeff Locke will continue to take 60% of the Pirates' starts. The team has managed to weather that to this point, but how long can a team win a majority of its games when its bullpen is called into serious action every night?

That's why this road trip feels so important, I think. On the other end of it, Liriano will be ready to rejoin the rotation and Morton, should he be needed, won't be far behind. The Pirates are playing good baseball and they're fun to watch, but after the last two seasons we Pirate fans know what's sustainable and what's not and what happened on this homestand doesn't feel sustainable because of the volatile nature of the starting pitching. If the Pirates can keep it going for ten more days on the road, until they can get to a more stable rotation, though? Well, then we'll see. 

Luckily for the Pirates, this road trip starts out with a bit of a breather in Philadelphia. On pre-season paper, the Phillies projected out to be the same as or a little worse than the Pirates this year. In actual results, they're 8-11. Not only are they 8-11, but with John Lannan hurt they've had to call up Jonathan Pettibone to make a start tonight. Pettibone's 22 years old and was a third round pick in 2008. He's not a top prospect. His minor league league strikeout rate is very unimpressive (6.4/9 innings). His two starts with Triple-A this year have gone poorly and even in his seven decent Triple-A starts last year, he walked 4.7 hitters per nine innings. He's not very good, is what I'm saying, and the sort of team that can beat Tim Hudson, Paul Maholm, and Kris Medlen in successive games should also be able to beat Jonathan Pettibone. AJ Burnett, who currently leads the Majors with 35 strikeouts and with his ridiculous 13.3 K/9 rate goes for the Pirates. 

First pitch tonight is at 7:05. Because the Penguins are on ROOT, the Pirates will be on MLB Network if you live in the Pittsburgh area.