The Pirates haven’t made the playoffs in a decade, the longest active drought in the National League. Pittsburgh made a few additions to the lineup over the winter and have swung one of the biggest in-season trades so far to continue building out the back of the roster.
A few hits to the lineup threatened to drop them back in the Wild Card mix, but Pittsburgh closed the first half with an impressive three-game sweep of the Brewers. They’re still 9.5 games behind Milwaukee in a division that seems all but gone. The sweep, coupled with the Marlins being swept by Cleveland, has pulled Pittsburgh back to within two games in the Wild Card picture.
The front office is surely approaching deadline season hoping to buy. They’ll have a tough slate coming out of the All-Star Break. It starts with a six-game road trip to Cleveland and the Bronx before crucial home series against a pair of Wild Card competitors: the Cubs and Diamondbacks. They’ll play a four-game series in Cincinnati to lead into the August 3 deadline.
If they only win four or five of those 16 games, they’d probably pivot to selling. Otherwise, they should follow up last week’s trade with the White Sox with some bigger moves on the pitching side. They’re only playing at an 83-win pace but have the NL’s fifth-best run differential and a top half of the rotation that’d be a threat in a short series if they can snap the postseason drought.
Record: 50-47 (41.5% playoff odds, per FanGraphs)
Buy Mode
Potential needs: At least one high-leverage reliever (ideally two), back-end starter, right-handed bench bat
Lineup
For years, the Pirates have struggled to find enough offense to complement an excellent pitching staff. They’ve had the opposite problem in 2026. Pittsburgh has had one of the three best offenses in MLB. They’re tied with the Nationals for the major league lead in runs. Only the Dodgers have a higher on-base percentage and OPS. The Bucs are sixth in home runs despite playing in a pitcher-friendly park.
When they’re at full strength, there aren’t many obvious weaknesses in the order. That’s an unfortunately significant caveat given the series of injuries they’ve endured over the past six weeks. Oneil Cruz, Konnor Griffin, Spencer Horwitz and Endy Rodríguez have all gone down since the beginning of June. Griffin won’t be back until September. The others have a chance to be back by the deadline but are significant losses for the pivotal stretch of upcoming games (making their sweep of Milwaukee all the more impressive).
General manager Ben Cherington acknowledged after the Griffin injury that the Bucs could trade for a stopgap at shortstop. They did that just before the draft, dealing the #34 overall selection and a minor league pitcher to the White Sox for Jacob Gonzalez and lefty reliever Brandon Eisert.
Gonzalez was pushed out of the everyday infield in Chicago with Munetaka Murakami coming back from injury. He doesn’t have any big league shortstop experience but has played there in the minors and has had a breakout season in Triple-A, where he’s hitting .320/.422/.675 with 19 homers in 54 games. That’s miles better than anything Gonzalez had done before in his three-year minor league career, so it’s a bet on a relatively small sample. He’ll supplant Jared Triolo as the fill-in shortstop and could stick around as a left-handed hitting bench piece once Griffin returns.
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