Remember when the Pittsburgh Pirates were really struggling and their season appeared to be on the verge of disaster? Well, the funny thing about the baseball season is that it is extremely long -- so long that even a poor month or two doesn't completely guarantee a sub-.500 season. The Pirates are quickly learning this.

Before the season, Pirates fans could only dream of the possibilities of an outfield made up of Starling Marte in left, reigning MVP Andrew McCutchen in center and Gregory Polanco in right. The problem with the Polanco situation, however, was that he wasn't going to be promoted to the big leagues until the mid-June "Super Two" date seemed to be safely in the rearview mirror.

This caused impatience, and even anger, among the fan base. Cries of "Bob Nutting is cheap" and "Neal Huntington doesn't care about winning" were heard from the ballpark, on sports-talk radio, on Twitter -- everywhere, and the claim had some ground to stand on since the Pirates have had one winning season since 1992. Keeping one of the game's top five prospects in Triple-A to save $10-15 million dollars over the next six years collectively didn't seem worth it. They needed to have their best 25 guys on the roster from the start of the season, but they didn't. For this reason, and because of terrible pitching to start the year, the Bucs find themselves with some significant ground to make up over the next few months if they want to make the postseason for a second consecutive year.

While everybody was clamoring for the Polanco call-up, some fans neglected to notice the fact that some really cool things were happening on the field for the Pirates -- even without their prized prospect. McCutchen was having his usual McCutchen season, hitting around .300 with an on-base percentage above .400 while leading the National League in walks. Second baseman Neil Walker was having a breakout campaign, hitting double-digit home runs before he had to hit the disabled-list due to an emergency apendectomy.

Now that Polanco is in the bigs, how much of an impact has he -- and the rest of the outfield -- had?

In his first five MLB games, Polanco is hitting a mere .385/.407/.500 with a wRC+ of 160. He hit the first home run of his career on Friday night against the Miami Marlins, giving the Pirates a lead in extra innings. He picked up five hits that night.

In June, Marte has gotten extremely hot. He is hitting .324/.375/.486 with a 145 wRC+. Hopefully the arrival of Polanco, one of Marte's best friends, has finally awakened him. His mental blunders this year had gotten to a point beyond frustration.

McCutchen, like we already said, is McCutchen-ing like always. In June, McCutchen is hitting -- and we're completely serious -- .408/.473/.959 with a 1.432 OPS. Again, he's slugging .959.

The Pirates won't go very far if their pitching doesn't continue to progress, and they clearly need to get healthy -- and stay healthy. However, having the MVP-caliber production from all three of their stud outfielders certainly will go a long way.

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About the author
Zach Morrison
I'm Zach! I am a fan of sports, Twitter, Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon. I like to write words about sports and I hope to make a living off of doing so.