The Pirates are 47-47 at the All-Star break. Right down the middle. Not bad enough to be hopeless, not good enough to scare anybody. It's the most Pirates record imaginable.
And I genuinely don't know how to feel about it.
On one hand, this is a franchise that lost 100 games in 2022 and 100 more in 2023. Six straight losing seasons before Don Kelly took over. Being .500 in mid-July is actual, measurable progress. The Pythagorean record says they should be 50-44 — three wins better than what's on the board, which means they've been losing games they should win. Blown leads. Bullpen meltdowns. The stuff that makes you scream at the TV.
On the other hand, they're 12.5 games out of first and the only path to October is a Wild Card spot where they're currently 2.5 games back with four teams ahead of them. Not impossible. But not something you bet the mortgage on.
Braxton Ashcraft just became the most important Pirate
I did not see this coming. Nobody did.
Braxton Ashcraft was not in anyone's Opening Day rotation projection. He was a former second-round pick with elbow trouble in his history and an innings limit in his future. Depth. Insurance. A guy you hope gives you five decent innings in a doubleheader.
Instead: 9-3, 3.24 ERA, 122 strikeouts against 25 walks in 108.1 innings. A 1.098 WHIP. All-Star selection. And here's the part that gets me — he was named to the All-Star team as a replacement for Paul Skenes.
Think about that. Skenes was the guy. The generational arm. The face of the franchise. And Ashcraft was so good that when Skenes couldn't go, the league looked at the Pirates rotation and said, "Yeah, the other guy belongs too."
Skenes himself hasn't been bad. 7-8 with a 3.58 ERA and 10.7 strikeouts per nine is a season most pitchers would take. But it's not 2024 Skenes. The fastball still plays, the whiffs are still there, but something's slightly off. He's been more hittable in big moments. The starts that used to feel like events now feel like... starts.
Behind those two, it gets ugly fast. Bubba Chandler has the stuff but can't find the zone (5.2 walks per nine, 3-8 record, 4.82 ERA). Mitch Keller is having his worst season since 2022 — 6-7, 5.14 ERA, and honestly the numbers might be kind. He looks lost out there some nights.
And the bullpen. Man, the bullpen.
Gregory Soto has 11 saves but a 4.15 ERA and every ninth inning feels like a hostage situation. Dennis Santana (5.95 ERA). Justin Lawrence (5.32). Brandan Bidois (6.32). These aren't bad relievers having a rough month. These are guys actively hurting the team every time they touch the ball. Carmen Mlodzinski (3.24 ERA in 77.2 innings as a swingman) and Yohan Ramirez (3.38) have been the only reliable arms, and Evan Sisk was throwing zeroes before he hit the IL.
The front office has said they're buying at the deadline and targeting bullpen arms with swing-and-miss stuff. They'd better be. You can't make a Wild Card push when your middle relievers have ERAs that look like area codes.
The offense is good when it's on the field
Team slash line: .262/.340/.423. That's a 108 OPS+, which means the Pirates' offense is 8% better than league average. Not dominant, but real. The problem is that too many of the guys who built those numbers are currently in street clothes.
Bryan Reynolds is Bryan Reynolds: .281/.395/.477, 14 homers, 3.4 WAR. He's the best free-agent signing in franchise history and somehow still underrated. The guy just hits. Every year. No drama, no slumps that last two months, just a metronome in left field. He should be an All-Star every season and I will die on this hill.
Brandon Lowe has 21 homers and 64 RBI, both team highs, and a .490 slugging percentage that makes him a genuine middle-of-the-order threat. He's also hitting .243 with a 31% strikeout rate and there are persistent trade rumors because he's 31 and a free agent after 2027. If someone offers a real prospect, Cherington listens. That's not a knock on Lowe. That's just business.
Nick Gonzales is hitting .310. I'm going to say that again because I don't think people have processed it: Nick Gonzales is hitting .310. The former first-rounder who couldn't stay above .200 in 2024 has turned into a legitimate contact bat with a .372 OBP. The power hasn't shown up yet — four homers — but a third baseman who gets on base 37% of the time plays anywhere.
Now the injury report, and this is where I get frustrated.
Oneil Cruz: .264/.350/.472, 14 homers, 21 steals. IL. Konnor Griffin, the rookie shortstop who was supposed to be the future: .276/.332/.404, 20 steals. IL. Spencer Horwitz: .280/.386/.455 with an .842 OPS. IL. Endy Rodriguez: .260/.388/.470. Also IL.
That's four above-average hitters sitting on the injured list simultaneously. Cruz and Griffin alone represent 41 stolen bases and a combined 2.7 WAR just... not playing. Getting those guys back is probably more impactful than anything Cherington can do at the trade deadline, and it doesn't cost a prospect.
Henry Davis is hitting .153. I don't know what else to say about it. He frames well behind the plate, +5 defensive runs saved, but you can't carry a catcher who hits like a pitcher and expect to compete. Rodriguez was slashing .260/.388/.470 before his IL stint. The answer at catcher might already be on the roster, just not available right now.
Don Kelly is doing something that matters
I want to be careful here because I've watched Pirates fans get burned by "trust the process" narratives for years. Derek Shelton talked a good game for half a decade and never delivered a winning season.
But Kelly has made this team watchable. The offense runs aggressively (88 steals, 85% success rate). Ashcraft and Skenes work deep enough to protect the bullpen most nights. The locker room doesn't feel like it's waiting for the other shoe to drop the way it did under Shelton.
He hasn't been perfect. The bullpen management has been questionable, the team is 4-10 in one-run games which suggests some tactical decisions aren't breaking right, and Oneil Cruz was a -10 DRS disaster in center field before the injury — a defensive alignment that probably shouldn't have lasted as long as it did. But for a first-year manager walking into a franchise with this much scar tissue, .500 at the break is a win. Full stop.
So now what
The draft just happened. The Pirates took Eduardo Ruiz, a defensive shortstop, at 44th overall, and Auburn infielder Chris Rembert at 51. Neither one helps this year. Both are bets on 2028 and beyond. That's fine. That's what the draft is for.
The trade deadline is 40 days out. Cherington says they're buying, specifically bullpen arms. They've got about $30 million in payroll flexibility and a farm system in the top half of the league. They can make moves.
The second half opens with Milwaukee, Cleveland, and the Yankees. That's the kind of stretch that defines seasons. If they come out of July at .500 or better, the Wild Card is real. If they don't, the conversation pivots from "buy" to "what can we get for Brandon Lowe" and "is anyone taking Mitch Keller's contract" and all the other familiar refrains of Pittsburgh summers.
I'm not making any predictions. I've watched this team too long for that.
But this is the most interesting Pirates team since 2015. They've got an ace who came out of nowhere, a superstar-in-waiting who's merely good instead of transcendent, a lineup that can hurt you when it's intact, and a bullpen that can hurt its own team just as easily.
Forty-seven and forty-seven. Sixty-eight to play.
That's not a promise. But it's not a punchline either.
