A lot has happened since my last update and I've been too busy watching baseball to post about it. The Pirates had a nine game winning streak in late June that finally moved them ahead of St. Louis and Cincinnati. They were two games up in the division, but slipped a bit and went into the All-Star break one game back with a 56-37 record. Late July had a much awaited five game series against the Cardinals, including a double header. The Bucs started the series back by 1.5 games to the Cards. The Pirates took the first four out five games in the series, but got shellacked in the final game 13-0. Still this moved the Pirates back into first for the third time this season. Last time, they held first place for twelve days. And their current streak is at eight days, with a current 2.5 game lead over the Cards, pending the outcome of the StL-LAD game tonight.
The 2013 club is ahead of the 2012 team by 4 games, and ahead of the 1992 team by 6. Last year's effort fell short by three wins, so we would need a meltdown even more dramatic than last year's to finish below 0.500. Here's hoping we can break the streak and maybe even get a playoff berth. Just three years ago, Pittsburgh had 38 wins. This year's team had that by Jun 11.
Standings for Aug 6
2013 68 44 .607 --
2012 62 46 .574 4.0
1992 60 48 .556 6.0
1999 54 54 .500 12.0
1997 56 58 .491 13.0
2011 54 58 .482 14.0
2003 52 59 .468 15.5
1994 51 58 .468 15.5
1993 51 59 .464 16.0
2004 49 58 .458 16.5
2008 52 62 .456 17.0
2002 51 61 .455 17.0
1998 51 64 .443 18.5
1996 50 63 .442 18.5
2000 47 63 .427 20.0
1995 39 53 .424 19.0
2005 47 64 .423 20.5
2009 45 63 .417 21.0
2007 45 64 .413 21.5
2001 43 67 .391 24.0
2006 42 70 .375 26.0
2010 38 71 .349 28.5
