Jul 13, 2013 5 min read

Patience is indeed a virtue, and after 20 consecutive years of losing, Pirates fans have been more patient than most.

But this is looking like the season when all the losing will come to an end. And the funny thing is that one of the big reasons for Pittsburgh’s outstanding record at this point has been a player many fans wanted run out of town as recently as the beginning of this season.

It’s a good thing the front office wasn’t listening to the fans regarding Pedro Alvarez.

Here is the stat line for two players in their second full major league seasons.

Player A appeared in 132 games and hit .196 in 443 at-bats with 18 homers and 52 RBI, striking out 136 times.

Player B appeared in 149 games, hitting .244 with 30 homers and 85 RBI with 180 strikeouts in 586 at-bats.

If you guessed that player B is Alvarez, you’re right. Player A? None other than Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt.

Here’s another one.

Player A in this case saw action in all 162 games in his third full season, hitting .227 with 17 homers and 83 RBI, striking out 92 times in 679 at-bats.

Player B, Alvarez, is batting .253 in 83 games with 24 homers and 62 RBI in 326 at-bats this season, his third full year in the majors. He’s struck out 108 times.

Player A in this case is Ron Santo.

In both cases, other than strikeouts, Alvarez has better stats than two players considered among the best third basemen to play the game.

And yet it wasn’t all that long ago that many in Pittsburgh wanted to run him out of town on a rail.

This is not to suggest that Alvarez is going to become the players that Schmidt or Santo were. But power hitters take time to develop.

Yes, they are going to strike out. In fact, hitters today strike out at a far greater rate than they did 30 or 40 years ago when Schmidt and Santo were in their prime.

But you have to have patience with them.

Need proof? Look at the Texas Rangers.

In 2009, the Rangers had a young slugger come through their system who, in his second season, hit 21 homers in 391 at-bats. But he also struck out an amazing 150 times.

Two years later, this young slugger was dealt by the Rangers along with Tommy Hunter to Baltimore for Koji Uehara and cash.

All Chris Davis has done since then is hit 33 homers last season and add 35 more already this year. Uehara, a 38-year-old relief pitcher, is now with Boston.

Think about how good Texas would be right now if it still had the 27-year-old Davis in the middle of its lineup.

That’s why the Pirates were right not to give up on Alvarez as they had previously done with Jose Bautista.

In Pittsburgh’s defense, nobody ever imagined that Bautista would turn into the power hitter than he has since going from Pittsburgh to Toronto in 2008. But he had shown some flashes of power.

You cannot, however, give up on a player with that kind of power potential when he’s still in his early 20s. Like left-handed pitchers, sometimes they just take a little longer to develop.

• Hard as it is to believe, the Steelers open training camp at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe in less than two weeks.

It’s been a quiet offseason for the Steelers, and with all of the team’s draft picks signed, it promises to be a relatively smooth transition into training camp mode for the team.

That does not mean, however, that there won’t be some key things to keep an eye on.

There will be battles at running back and outside linebacker that will be crucial to the team’s success.

But the most important thing for the Steelers will be getting their offensive line configured and finding some competent backups.

The interior is set with Maurkice Pouncey at center and Ramon Foster and David DeCastro at guard.

Mike Adams and Marcus Gilbert are expected to be the right and left tackles, though figuring out which one will play – or if either can play – on the left side is critical.

Remember, too, that Adams is coming off being stabbed in a robbery attempt a couple of months ago. He is expected to be completely healed by training camp, but if he is at all slowed, the Steelers have a major issue there.

• Metta World Peace – the athlete formerly known as Ron Artest – was waived last week by the Los Angeles Lakers and now says he’s no longer interested in playing in the NBA.

He’d like to go play professionally in China or try his hand at football in the Arena Football League.

That begs that question, will anyone give Peace a chance?

• Much of the talk surrounding the Pirates recently has centered on who the team should acquire at the trade deadline.

Giancarlo Stanton, Alex Rios, Alfonso Soriano and others have been mentioned as possibilities.

But if the Pirates give up any of their top prospects to acquire a rental player, they’re crazy.

This current lineup, warts and all, has played its way to a 55-36 record heading into Saturday night’s game against the Mets.

There’s no reason to mortgage the future to rent a player for the next couple of months or, at least in the case of acqwuiring a player such as Stanton, give up three or four top prospects for one bat.

If anything, the Pirates should look to shore up their bench or possibly acquire another pitcher to come out of the bullpen.

Outside of that, there’s no reason to do anything wacky.

F. Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com