Following a historic loss against the Brewers yesterday, the Pirates are still not looking to trade for starting rotation help, according to Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Although the team acknowledged that the rotation needs to be upgraded, they have no plans to look outside the organization to do so.
The Pirates' 7.23 ERA ranks last in all of baseball, and the starting rotation has played a significant part in the club's struggles. Daniel McCutchen and Charlie Morton have been extremely ineffective in three starts each, combining to allow 37 earned runs in just 21.1 innings.
Nonetheless, GM Neal Huntington says a trade is unlikely, despite the team being a prime candidate to make a move. For now, the Pirates will recall Kevin Hart, wait for Ross Ohlendorf to get healthy, and hope Morton can straighten things out. The club also has top prospect Brad Lincoln waiting in the wings in Triple-A Indianapolis, but is unconvinced that he's quite ready to be promoted to the majors.
Earlier in the week, we outlined some potentially available starting pitchers, which the Pirates could look into if they changed their stance on a trade. Of course, given the team's usual place in the NL Central standings, they're probably more likely to be sellers than buyers.
