Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> return to their venerable spring training home in Bradenton, Fla., each February, believing it is the year the franchise will turn things around. That feeling will permeate the Pirate City training complex on Wednesday when Pittsburgh begins workouts.<\/p>\nReality almost always catches up with the Pirates, though, once they head north to play games that count. They have had 29 losing seasons in the last 33 years.<\/p>\n
Yet Pittsburgh’s optimism this year doesn\u2019t feel hollow. They seem poised to improve on last year\u2019s 71-91 record and last-place finish in the National League Central following a busy offseason by general manager Ben Cherington that finally saw him permitted by ownership to make significant roster additions.<\/p>\n
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All-Stars Brandon Lowe, Ryan O\u2019Hearn, and Marcell Ozuna have been added to a lineup that was last in the major leagues in runs scored last year. Two hard-throwing left-handers, Gregory Soto and Mason Montgomery, join the bullpen mix. Outfielders Jake Mangum and Jhonstynxon Garcia are expected to strengthen the Pirates\u2019 depth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think all of us are really excited. I know I am,\u201d Pirates right-hander Braxton Ashcraft said. \u201cWe have a really good opportunity this year to be ultra-competitive. I think that we\u2019ve solidified ourselves across the board in the game, as one of the best rotations from top-to-bottom in the game and to be able to add some bats and to be able to add some power, I think it\u2019s going to bode really well for us, like last year, there were a lot of one run games that we fell a little bit short on and I think with the additions we\u2019ve made this year, we\u2019re going to be poised to be able to come on top of those one-run games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh was 25-35 last season in one-run games. History says that those results tend to even out over time.<\/p>\n
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However, the Pirates haven\u2019t just left everything to history. They have been proactive in building their roster and are still open to adding a left-handed starting pitcher and a third baseman.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just excited to get the season going,\u201d first baseman Spencer Horwitz said.<\/p>\n
Pirates Roundtable also offers a fan community and message board. We\u2019d love to have you join us to talk all things Pirates. Click the \u201cJoin\u201d button at the top of the page to join our community for free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even the worst teams are optimistic on the first day of spring training. It is the beginning of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[146,5,1751,15154,6663,407,78,1097,4,10,66006,776,64,4297,626,950,151],"class_list":["post-564590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-arizona","tag-baseball","tag-brandon-lowe","tag-braxton-ashcraft","tag-gregory-soto","tag-jake-mangum","tag-marcell-ozuna","tag-mason-montgomery","tag-mlb","tag-pirates","tag-pitchers-and-catchers-report","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-pittsburghpirates","tag-ryan-ohearn","tag-spencer-horwitz","tag-spring-training"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116047801704072559","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}