Pirates make improbable Pittsburgh baseball history not done since 1943 originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The Pittsburgh Pirates believed heading into this season that they’d have a quality starting pitching rotation.

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So far, so good.

In fact, historic.

The Pirates’ starting pitchers haven’t allowed a home run in the first nine games of the campaign. In this modern, homer-happy baseball world, that’s almost impossible.

The last time a streak lasted this long to begin a season was the 2018 San Francisco Giants, according to MLB Network’s Sarah Langs.

For the Pirates, it’s been much longer.

They haven’t had a streak of homers not giving up homers to start the season since 1943 — when they went the first 17 games without allowing a four-bagger.

MORE: Jo Adell robbed 3 home runs in the same game

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Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller, Braxton Ashcraft and Carmen Mlodzinski have each made two starts this season. Bubba Chandler has made one.

Chandler has a 0.00 ERA. Keller’s is 1.50, Ashcraft at 2.25, Mlodzinski at 4.00 and Skenes at 9.53 after that nightmare (but not hard-hit) first start.

Giving up homers is believed to be more of a skill for pitchers than simply giving up hits, which has a lot more luck involved.

So far, the Pirates have that skill working nicely. If they keep it up, this could be a great season in Pittsburgh.

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