Time for 'Bucco fever'

An e-mail came from a friend today asking, "Anyone else have Bucco fever?"

That's what an 11-7 start will do for a victory-starved fandom.

The second-place Pirates will return to Pittsburgh Friday with an above-.500 record, even if they fail to win any of three games in Milwaukee. And the Brewers aren't exactly lighting it up so far, starting the season 8-10.

The Pirates' hot start is attributable mainly to a starting rotation that's been stellar so far. Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Ross Ohlendorf, Ian Snell and Jeff Karstens have combined for a 10-5 record and a stingy 3.02 earned-run average. Duke, Maholm and Ohlendorf have particularly helped the cause by walking a cumulative 2.18 batters per nine innings.

Can the pitchers possibly sustain the good work?

Sabermetricians, as baseball-statistic geeks like to be known, come up with all kinds of numbers to explain the nuances of the game. One of the newer stats to catch on is BABIP, which stands for batting average for balls in play. It's meant to measure a "luck" factor for pitchers; in other words, whether batters who hit fair balls end up on base. A low BABIP usually means you've been getting a lot of breaks, and sooner or later those balls are going to start skirting between infielders or dropping in front of outfielders.

The way to avoid BABIP being a huge factor is to strike batters out, something the Pirate pitchers don't do as often as they should. Snell, at 6.1 strikeouts per nine innings, leads the starting staff by a wide margin; Maholm, Ohlendorf and Karstens all are under 4.

By comparison, the Cubs' Rich Harden has struck out 35 batters in just 21 innings, a National League-leading average of 15 per nine. The Pirates' starting five hurlers have fanned 55 in 113 1/3 innings, fewer than one for every two innings.

Read into those numbers what you'd like, but don't be surprised if the runs allowed start piling up as the season progresses.

But perhaps the Pittsburgh hitters will step it up, too, and "Bucco fever" will persist well into the summer.

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Trivia #12: Name the player who, in his only season as a Pirate, hit 31 home runs and stole 15 bases. For the answer, scroll down and look to the right.