Bucs will better prepare pitching staff for 2011

One of the biggest problems the Pirates have had this season has been the inconsistency of starting pitching. The pitching staff ranks last in the majors with a 5.08 ERA.

The starters combined have only 28 wins. To put this into perspective, CC Sabathia of the Yankees has 20 wins alone. The nationals — who have the National League’s second lowest — has 12 more wins then the Bucs.

If that isn’t enough, opponents are batting a shocking .301 against the staff.

Manager John Russell believes the problem is not a result from lack of talent. He said he and management will examine how the off-season, as well as Spring Training regimens could be changed to have the pitchers better prepared for the 2011 season.

“If you look at our record, probably not,” Russell said, when asked if the pitchers were prepared going into and coming out of Spring Training. “I can’t really say for sure that everybody seemed to be on the same track ready to go through the season. We didn’t pitch well.

“There’s probably a number of things. Is it Spring Training? Is it last off-season? Was it just bad performance? We’ll have to take all that into account. I don’t know if you can put your finger on one specific thing. It wasn’t good.”

Russell also said that off-season conditioning needs to be better addressed for 2011. They will also make changes as to when the Pitchers start throwing their side sessions before camp.

“We’ll make sure they’re ready,” he said. “The off-season is going to be a big time for all of our pitchers. They need to come into Spring Training kind of on a mission. What we went through this year, we’re not going to go through next year. Guys need to be ready. They need to be ready to compete. They need to be physically ready to take the next step.”

He also went on to say that no starting job was guaranteed for next season.