Pittsburgh Pirates: Not Doing Badly in Interleague Play

Interleague play used to the be a "bugaboo" for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Last year, for instance, they went a horrendous 2-13 against American League teams in June. This year, they have a "mixed" record.

That's quite good—for them.

It's true that they went down in ignominious fashion against the Cleveland Indians, because they did not score more than two runs in any one game against them. That was typical of the Bucs of last year (or the year before).

On the other hand, they went 2-1 against the Detroit Tigers, 2-1 against the Baltimore Orioles and 2-1 against the Boston Red Sox.

The series against the Tigers was against their own former manager, Jim Leyland. This man managed the last winning team the Pirates fielded (1992) with the likes of Doug Drabek, John Smiley and Barry Bonds.

But this time around, Pirate pitching limited the Tigers to no more than two runs per game. Even so, the Bucs lost one where they were shut out.

Pittsburgh "traded shots" in a wild series against the Baltimore Orioles, losing 8-3, then winning 9-3 before pulling out the "rubber" game of the match, 5-4.

Pirate pitching was on display again, against the redoubtable Boston Red Sox, limiting this team to no more than two EARNED runs per game.  But errors leading to three unearned runs prevented Pittsburgh from sweeping at home.

The series against Toronto started favorably, putting the Bucs at 7-6 in interleague play and marking their first road win in two years against an American League team. Jose Bautista did make a difference in the game, driving in three runs for Toronto.

But it did not make THE difference against the visiting team, which managed to score seven runs, three of them driven in by Alex Presley, making one of his first major league appearances. Switch Bautista and his three RBI to his former team, and the score might have been 10-3.