![Now, I’m no fan of baseball, but that does not prevent me from rooting for the Pittsburgh Pirates. ‘Rooting’ might be too strong a word to characterize my support, which consists of checking to see if they won each night and reading a Post-Gazette article or two each week. But I’d like very much for the Pirates—who have been historically awful for a very very long time—to not be historically awful anymore. So, I am, like the rest of my hometown, pretty jazzed that their win last night over the Red Sox put the Pirates two games over .500, 76 games into the season.
The above chart, although it’s not the easiest to read, documents just why Bucco fans might seem a little too exuberant for having more wins than losses before the all-star break. Since being eliminated from the 1992 Playoffs, the Pirates have been over .500 for 257 games, which means over 90% of the last 18 years, they haven’t been. As you can see in the chart, the Pirates haven’t been above .500 this late since before 2000 (graphing back to 1993 was a mess, but the latest they have had a winning record since making the playoffs was 133 games into the 1997 season).
So really, this is lightly trodden territory for the Pirates, and any fan is damn well justified in them being slightly above average. It might be time for me to learn the names of a few players.
[Data comes from baseball-reference.com and does not include last night’s victory. If someone knows a better way to graph this, or wants a .csv of the Pirates record each of the last 18 years, just let me know.]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lne7ivx71k1qzj18yo1_500.png)
Now, I’m no fan of baseball, but that does not prevent me from rooting for the Pittsburgh Pirates. ‘Rooting’ might be too strong a word to characterize my support, which consists of checking to see if they won each night and reading a Post-Gazette article or two each week. But I’d like very much for the Pirates—who have been historically awful for a very very long time—to not be historically awful anymore. So, I am, like the rest of my hometown, pretty jazzed that their win last night over the Red Sox put the Pirates two games over .500, 76 games into the season.
The above chart, although it’s not the easiest to read, documents just why Bucco fans might seem a little too exuberant for having more wins than losses before the all-star break. Since being eliminated from the 1992 Playoffs, the Pirates have been over .500 for 257 games, which means over 90% of the last 18 years, they haven’t been. As you can see in the chart, the Pirates haven’t been above .500 this late since before 2000 (graphing back to 1993 was a mess, but the latest they have had a winning record since making the playoffs was 133 games into the 1997 season).
So really, this is lightly trodden territory for the Pirates, and any fan is damn well justified in them being slightly above average. It might be time for me to learn the names of a few players.
[Data comes from baseball-reference.com and does not include last night’s victory. If someone knows a better way to graph this, or wants a .csv of the Pirates record each of the last 18 years, just let me know.]
