At 47-43, the Pittsburgh Pirates sit just one game back in the NL Central standings. The club has a winning record after the All-Star break for the first time since Sid Bream slid and Barry Bonds bolted. And for the first time since the 1997 “Freak Show” edition of the club, whose entire payroll was less than what Albert Belle made that year, the Bucs will play pennant-altering games in the second half. The fans are taking notice: attendance is up by 3,000-4,000 per game at PNC Park, and local TV ratings have increased by a third.

But there’s one major weakness that could turn the Pirates’ resurgent season sour: the offense. Pittsburgh ranks 11th in the NL in on-base percentage, 14th in slugging and 12th in runs scored. Outside of MVP candidate Andrew McCutchen, no current starter has been comfortably above-average in the batter’s box. It’s going to be hard to keep up with the Cardinals and Brewers with such a tepid lineup.

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The end appears close for Mike Cameron. The 38-year-old, hobbled by injuries over the past two seasons, was designated for assignment by the Red Sox on Thursday. Cameron could well end up on another club’s bench if he is released and only costs the pro-rated portion of the major league minimum, but his immediate future isn’t the purpose of this post. Rather, I want to celebrate the career of one of the least-appreciated stars of the late 1990s and the new millennium.

Take a look at the Wins Above Replacement Leaderboard for position players since 1997, the year when Cameron became an everyday player for the White Sox:
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Everyone knows that Clayton Kershaw is awesome. He’s 23 years old, throws in the mid-nineties and has a slider so breath-taking that even the McCourts can’t put a price on it. But did you know that he’s actually outhitting the competition this season?

Kershaw has a .627 OPS as a hitter, while holding opponents to a .569 OPS. He’s one of three starting pitchers with at least 30 plate appearances who have fared better in the batter’s box than the opposition. Kershaw has done it by dominating on the mound and sprinkling in some singles as a hitter. Rotation mate Chad Billingsley (.855 OPS as a hitter, .749 as a pitcher) and Chicago’s Carlos Zambrano (.822 as a hitter, .725 as a pitcher), on the other hand, are swinging big bats but giving up plenty of hits as well.

The hitting exploits of Kershaw, Billingsley and Big Z made me wonder: which pitchers, either by virtue of superb pitching and singles-hitting or so-so mound work and slugging, outhit the competition by the widest margin in a single season?

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Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.

— Pedro Cerrano in Major League

Every baseball fan is familiar with the Pedro Cerrano archetype: the hard-hitting batter who blasts fastballs into the next county but whose knees turn to jelly when the pitcher snaps off a breaking ball. I caught part of Major League while flipping through the channels the other day and I began to wonder, who in the majors today most resembles the Cleveland Indians’ Jobu-worshipping, cigar-smoking slugger?

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At 32-31, the Seattle Mariners are surprisingly in the thick of the AL West race. Whether the club is capable of keeping pace with the Rangers is another matter: Baseball Prospectus’ Playoff Odds Report gives Seattle a 3.5 percent chance of claiming the division. Still, by most measures, the Mariners have played markedly better baseball in 2011. That is, except for one glaring example. And his name is Ichiro.

Known for his Jedi-like bat control, scorching speed and deadly arm, the 37-year-old has racked up the fifth-most Wins Above Replacement among position players since he left Japan and arrived in Seattle in 2001. He averaged 4.8 WAR from 2008 to 2010. Yet, this season, Ichiro has been a sub-replacement-level player (-0.6 WAR).

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For a season and a half, Kansas City Royals fans were subjected to the fall-down range and errant arm of Yuniesky Betancourt at shortstop. Hoppers hit to his left were all but guaranteed base hits, and booted would-be double play balls gave opponents extra chances to pummel the pitching staff. Those defensive woes were supposed to end in 2011 with Alcides Escobar, picked up from the Brewers as part of the Zack Greinke mega-deal, taking over at short for the Royals.

Escobar, a former top 20 prospect who Baseball America said “was born to play shortstop,” has been as good as advertised with the glove. Unfortunately, his bat has been so bad that it has wiped out the value provided by his exquisite range, body control and cannon arm.

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In spite of a lineup featuring Suzuki, Smoak, Death To Flying Things and scrubs, the Seattle Mariners sit just one game under .500 at 24-25 and trail the first-place Rangers by a game-and-a-half.

The offense is still wheezing along, besting only the Twins in park-and-league-adjusted batting, and the M’s have been the worst defensive club in the AL thus far, according to Ultimate Zone Rating. The starting pitching, on the other hand, has been superb and has kept the Mariners in AL West contention to this point. With a collective 3.40 xFIP from its starters, Seattle is neck-and-neck with Oakland for the top honors in the league.

Felix Hernandez, as always, is dominating. Jason Vargas and Doug Fister are pitching fairly well, and Zombie Bedard has been fantastic this May. King Felix isn’t the only royalty in Seattle’s rotation, though — Prince Michael Pineda is making major league hitters look like mere paupers during his rookie season.

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When the Chicago White Sox selected Gordon Beckham with the eighth-overall pick in the 2008 draft, the club thought it had nabbed a premium prospect whose polished game was nearly ready for the big leagues. The Georgia product tied for the Division I lead in home runs during his junior season, setting a new school record for career round-trippers while leading the Bulldogs to a runner-up finish in the ’08 College World Series. Beckham then blistered minor-league pitching to the tune of a .322/.375/.519 line, rising from Low-A ball to the South Side by June of 2009 after a little more than 250 plate appearances in the minors.

Beckham gave every indication that he was ready for prime time. He hit the ground running with the White Sox in ’09, putting up a .351 Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) in 430 PA while earning the Sporting News’ AL Rookie of the Year Award. Just 22 years old at the time, Beckham looked like a franchise cornerstone and a needed first-round success story for an organization that had recently been criticized for taking low-upside players like Lance Broadway and Kyle McCulloch.

Since then, however, Beckham has been sliding backwards. His wOBA dipped to .305 in 2010, and he’s the owner of a sordid .262 wOBA so far this season for a Chicago team whose park-and-league adjusted offense is 12 percent below average. In late April, White Sox hitting coach Greg Walker told the Chicago Sun-Times, “[Beckham]’s swinging at a lot of pitches out of the zone. He’s frustrated. He’s getting himself out a lot.”

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In the second inning of the Rays’ Thursday afternoon’s game against the Indians, Reid Brignac stepped to the plate at Progressive Field to face Justin Masterson with the bases loaded. Brignac took an inside sinker from Masterson for ball one. On the next pitch, Masterson left a sinker over the fat part of the plate, and Brignac sliced it down the left field line. Tampa’s shortstop froze for a moment, and then darted out of the box, eventually pulling into second base with an opposite-field double that scored two.

He stood there for a moment,” said Rays broadcaster Dewayne Staats, “as if number one, he couldn’t believe it would be fair, and number two, that he was actually looking at a potential extra base hit!”

Brignac looked into the Rays’ dugout and pointed toward his eyes, as if indicating that he momentarily lost track of the ball. But you’d have to forgive him if he just didn’t believe his eyes — it was Brignac’s first extra-base hits in 104 at-bats dating back to last year, the longest stretch of punchless hitting in team history.

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With Opening Day nearing, Chris Davis is staring at the prospect of a fourth stint in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. Mitch Moreland is the favorite to win the Rangers’ first base job. Mike Napoli will get some DH starts along with Michael Young, who was booted off third base when Adrian Beltre signed. It’s possible that Young is shipped elsewhere, but the three years and $48 remaining on his contract make that unlikely unless Texas includes lots of cash or Nolan Ryan treats a rival GM like Robin Ventura, applying a vice-like headlock and shouting, “eat the contract!”

If he’s destined for Round Rock, Davis told Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com that he’d prefer the Rangers to let him get a fresh start in a new organization:

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