With disappointing May behind them, Pirates look to improve on mediocre home record to begin June

The month of May couldn’t have gone much worse for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They were 8-18 and didn’t win a single series until the last one of the month when they took two of three from the San Francisco Giants.

Now they are back at PNC Park for a nine-game homestand, and if the franchise wants to regenerate any of the goodwill it built up during a 20-9 April, the time to do so is immediately over these next three series.

Starting Friday, the Pirates (28-27) will play host to the St. Louis Cardinals for three games over the weekend. The dreadful Oakland A’s — provided they are not folded or disbanded by Major League Baseball before then — come into town Monday through Wednesday. Following an off day Thursday, the New York Mets visit June 9-11.

If this Pirates team wants to maintain the narrative that April was something more than a fluke, it better rack up six or seven wins over the next 10 days.

The Cardinals — who split a four game set with Pirates in St. Louis in mid-April — have slowed their early season tumble but are far from playing great baseball. At one point, St. Louis was 10-24, losers of eight in a row, and in last place of the National League Central.

Since then, though, manager Oliver Marmol’s team has bounced back a bit, including winning nine of 11 games between May 7 and 18.

Yet they’ve dropped three of five over their two most recent series in Cleveland and at home against the Kansas City Royals. The Cards are currently in fourth place of the National League Central Division at 25-32, just percentage points in front of the last-place Chicago Cubs. That’s 4½ games back of the division-leading Milwaukee Brewers and four back of the second-place Pirates.

The Cardinals can still score. They have 273 runs, the most in the division and tied for ninth in baseball. Their 76 homers are tied for sixth most in MLB, and their team OPS of .753 is ninth.

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Meanwhile, the A’s are an absolute disaster. Amid plans to move to Las Vegas, the club appears to be in full-fledged tank mode.

At 12-46, Oakland is on pace to have one of the worst seasons in Major League Baseball history. The A’s are an ugly 5-22 away from home. Furthermore, promising right-hander Mason Miller won’t be able to pitch in his hometown of Pittsburgh. The former Bethel Park High School and Waynesburg hurler is dealing with a UCL sprain and has been shut down indefinitely. He was 0-2 with a 3.38 ERA and 22 strikeouts over four starts before the injury.

As for the Mets, they have been hovering around .500 for most of the year. Thanks to a three-game sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies, New York is at 30-27 and within three and a half games of the first-place Atlanta Braves atop the National League East.

The Mets have struggled playing away from home quite often, though. Their 18 road losses are third most in the NL, behind only the Colorado Rockies (20) and the Phillies (21).

That said, the Pirates have to be better at home. They are just 12-13 at PNC Park. The lowly Washington Nationals, at 11-17, are the only NL club with fewer home wins than the Pirates. That pace has to pick up over this homestand.

Because after that, the Pirates shift to divisional play with nine consecutive NL Central games against the Brewers and Cubs. Good play in that poor division could be enough to keep the Pirates floating above .500 and near the top of the standings for a while longer.

And that could keep fans interested until at least the start of July. Which is certainly more than what was expected at the start of April.

But nowhere near the level of optimism most of us had at the beginning of May. And that is quickly beginning to feel like a long time ago.