Why 4-12?

Not too many teams play .450 baseball at home. Last year only the Mets, Reds, Brewers, and Padres managed to do this in the NL. The Bucs were 39-42. 4-12 is .250 baseball. Even last year's 119-loss Tigers went 23-58 at home. That's .284 baseball.

The prevailing theory about why the Bucs are 4-12 at this point seems to be this: the Bucs have played good teams. Quid 05 runs it down here. "Playing good teams" is no excuse for going 4-12 at home. Yeah, so what, they played Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Diego. These Pirates are capable of .450-.500 ball against the better teams in the league, especially at home.

The important thing is that the Bucs don't need an excuse to explain the record. All they need to do is admit they played some crappy ball. A lot of the mental and coordination errors will go away as the Bucs settle into a more regular lineup. That's a large part of the experience advantage teams like the Astros have on the Pirates: they have been playing the same people in the same positions for game after game, month after month, and year after year. We still don't know who is the starter at what, two-to-four of the eight defensive positions?

I expect the 4-12 record is just the result of the usual ups and downs being coincidentally timed with coming and going from PNC. At some point they'll rip off a string of home victories, maybe even against better teams, and the home record will better reflect the team's ability to compete. In the meantime let's not indulge in defeatist talk about it being silly to expect the Pirates to play .500 ball against teams like the Padres.