The Pittsburgh Pirates outscored their opponents by 14 runs over the week of June 22–28. That ranked fifth in Major League Baseball. Their record for the week was 3-3.
When a team outscores its opponents by that margin and comes out even, there is usually a structural reason. For Pittsburgh, the answer shows up across forty4 Baseball's three daily trackers simultaneously — and it points directly at the rotation.
What the Trackers Are Saying
The Hot & Cold report lists both Mitch Keller and Braxton Ashcraft among the league's coldest arms, each with multiple consecutive appearances where they surrendered runs. Ashcraft has been one of the better stories in Pittsburgh's rotation this season — 3.07 ERA, seven wins — but has hit a rough stretch where runs have come in bunches across recent starts.
Keller's situation is more layered. The Double Take flags him for one of the more unusual stat combinations in the league: a 4.87 ERA paired with a 54.6% win rate, a figure that places him among the biggest Win%/ERA mismatches this season. Pitchers with an ERA approaching five usually don't win more than half their starts. Pittsburgh's offense has been picking him up when he allows early runs — bailing him out, essentially — which inflates his record while the underlying performance erodes confidence.
The Behind the Box Score data for the week makes the team-level picture clear. Pittsburgh's +14 run differential would normally produce something closer to four or five wins in six games. Against their expected output, they underperformed by 1.3 wins. That is not noise. It is a consistent pattern of scoring in the right games but dropping close ones.
Where the Runs Are Coming From
Two bright spots from the Double Take data deserve mention because they show what Pittsburgh's offense is capable of when it clicks.
On June 28, with the Pirates facing a Cincinnati sweep, Ryan O'Hearn hit two home runs — including a three-run shot in the eighth inning after a 65-minute rain delay — to deliver a 9-4 win. His two-homer game stood out against his season production: 13 home runs across more than three months, with two of them arriving in a single afternoon. Esmerlyn Valdez added a three-hit performance in the same game, going .750 in that contest against his .262 season average.
The offense can do this. The run total confirms it. Pittsburgh scored in double digits twice last week, including an 11-1 win over Seattle that made their run differential look elite. The problem is that the two Reds losses were close — 4-6 and 7-9 — and the 3-2 loss to Seattle in the week opener was decided by a single run.
In each of those three losses, a run or two from the rotation would have changed the outcome.
The Trade Deadline Is 31 Days Away
Pittsburgh sits at 42-42 on the season. Pythagorean analysis suggests their underlying performance is marginally better than that, which means the second half could look different if the rotation stabilizes. Ashcraft's overall season numbers — 3.07 ERA, 107 strikeouts, 10 quality starts — suggest his current rough stretch is more likely a blip than a collapse. The bigger uncertainty is Keller, whose control issues in June (11 walks in his first three starts of the month) reflect a deeper mechanical problem that occasional good starts have not fully resolved.
Thirty-one days to the trade deadline is enough time to watch both pitchers closely. If Keller's command returns and Ashcraft rights himself, Pittsburgh does not need to move aggressively at the deadline — the run differential is already there. If the rotation keeps leaking, that +14 for one week will keep producing 3-3 records instead of 4-2 ones.
The numbers say the Pirates are outperforming their reputation. The standings say they are .500. The rotation is the distance between those two facts.
