{"id":173862,"date":"2026-04-23T14:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/173862\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:05:08","slug":"pittsburghs-new-pirates-are-off-to-a-hot-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/173862\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh\u2019s new Pirates are off to a hot start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Through the early part of the season the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> have been enjoying a lot of success, with a lot of credit going to their transformed lineup. At 14-10 the Buccos offseason moves are already paying off as they are in the top ten of the latest MLB Power Rankings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brandon Lowe<\/a> was the headliner in the Pirates\u2019 trade with the Tampa Bay Rays in December, and that move was an immediate upgrade for Pittsburgh\u2019s revolving door of temporary second basemen. With Lowe the Pirates got a top ten second baseman in baseball who is a huge power threat. The 31-year-old has consistently been one of the best hitters in baseball since his first major league season in 2018. Aside from his rookie season and his injury shortened 2022 season, Lowe has never hit less than 10 homers in a year. In 2021 Lowe had a career high 39 homers.<\/p>\n

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Lowe\u2019s start to 2026 has been very productive. He\u2019s currently slashing .267\/.375\/.600 and already has seven homers. Lowe has been a bright spot in Pittsburgh\u2019s lineup, and \u201cBam Bam\u201d looks to keep on knocking in runs.<\/p>\n

Jake Mangum<\/a> was another part of the Tampa Bay<\/a> trade, and while his Major League career is largely just getting started, he has already proven to be a spark plug when he\u2019s on the field. With the Pirates, the 30-year-old outfielder has played primarily in a platoon role, appearing in 18 games so far. 2025 was his first season in the Majors and he showed to be a player with a knack for contact hitting and speed on the base pads, totaling 27 stolen bases and a .296 batting average with the Rays.<\/p>\n

This year with the Pirates, Mangum has appeared primarily in left field and has a perfect fielding percentage. In his 18 games Mangum has performed consistently with a .300 batting average, 15 hits and three steals.<\/p>\n

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For the first time in a decade, the Pirates signed a free-agent to a multi-year contract when they signed Ryan O\u2019Hearn to a two-year $29 million contract. Coming off of his first All-Star season, O\u2019Hearn provides another veteran bat to a lineup that was in desperate need of a makeover. The Sam Houston State product is off to arguably his best start to a season in his career. He is currently ranked in the top ten in the National League for batting average, on base percentage and on base plus slugging percentage.<\/p>\n

In the bigger picture of Pittsburgh baseball, O\u2019Hearn represents the fact that the Pirates are making a conscious effort to build a winning team. O\u2019Hearn had multiple suitors in free-agency, but him choosing Pittsburgh signifies the belief he has in the team and the culture that the organization is trying to now build. It\u2019s very possible that this signing proves to be very impactful for the future of the franchise.<\/p>\n

The last big signing that the Pirates made in the winter was the addition of Marcell Ozuna<\/a> to serve as the team\u2019s primary designated hitter. The 35-year-old DH is a three-time All-Star, a one-time Gold Glove defender and a two-time Silver Slugger. Despite his age Ozuna brought a pedigree to the Pirates that was more impressive than most of their signings in recent history. With that being said, Ozuna has largely looked past his prime. To start the season, he has mostly looked lost at the plate, and has been more of a liability than a point of strength for the team.<\/p>\n

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Despite the slow start that Ozuna has had, he is starting to turn things around. Ozuna\u2019s first homer with the Pirates was a three-run blast that tied the contest against the Nationals on April 16. Against the Rays on April 18, \u201cThe Big Bear\u201d looked like he had come out of hibernation by hammering a two run dinger to extend the Pirates\u2019 lead. Is Ozuna the player that he used to be? Likely no. Father Time makes no exceptions. Is he heating up? He has certainly looked better at the plate, where even his shortcomings are looking productive. Though he\u2019s not the player he used to be, Ozuna can still provide meaningful offense for this Pirates squad.<\/p>\n

The Pirates still have a long season ahead of them, but to this point their offseason spending has really worked out as we are seeing the most exciting version of the Buccos in quite some time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Through the early part of the season the Pittsburgh Pirates have been enjoying a lot of success, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[34879,34929,52376,77990,73,75,74,10997,41208,39837,27091],"class_list":{"0":"post-173862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-brandon-lowe","9":"tag-jake-mangum","10":"tag-marcell-ozuna","11":"tag-philip-g-pavely-imagn","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","14":"tag-pittsburgh-news","15":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","16":"tag-ryan-ohearn","17":"tag-tampa-bay","18":"tag-tampa-bay-rays"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}