This season will be remembered for the unprecedented 11-game winning streak in July and missed opportunities, such as the night Clay Holmes took the mound at AT&T Park in San Francisco with the Pirates in the thick of the Wild Card race.
At times, they proved to have the talent to compete with the league's best, only to show there's still a divide between them and the three teams who finished above them in the Central Division race. Middle relief and infield defense were problems. Again, Clint Hurdle's roster didn't hit for power and both of his hitting coaches were dismissed Monday.
Still, the Pirates achieved only their fourth winning season in 26 years, finishing with an 82-79 record and 13 games back of the division-winning Brewers. The starting rotation and bullpen blossomed. Even Gregory Polanco had a career year prior to his season-ending injury. Hurdle and Neal Huntington enter this offseason with far more certainty than a year ago; however, all involved expressed disappointment over the missteps along the way.
"I’m pleased, not satisfied, because there were some tipping points where I think we really needed to show up and we didn’t," Hurdle said. "There were points in the season we really needed to show up. Opportunities for growth and for cohesion. If you don’t do it together you have a tendency to go the other way, and it seemed like every time we ran into one of those points, even though we had some losing periods, that the focus and the preparation was there."
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