Most Surprising Things

Great segment right now on 93.7 the Fan -- What are the most surprising or unexpected things about the Pirates in mid August (besides their record and place in the standings)?  Here's a collection of my responses and some that callers are giving.  I'll try to find a relevant link for each one to give you some bonus reading material... in reverse order of most surprising.

Click to enlarge ESPN's useless Cy Young Predictor

• One of, if not the, top bullpens in the league -- Here's an article from a couple weeks ago about the differences between this year's team and last year's team, highlighting the bullpen.
• A lot of sell outs -- Check out ESPN's MLB attendance stats.  The Pirates have averaged 26,769 at home this year, over 6,000 more per game than in 2010.
• Pedro top 10 NL in homeruns -- I'm not usually such a big ESPN guy, but here are NL batting leaders sorted by HR -- Pedro is tied for 9th.  He is really just in his first full season, and I think he will only get better.  
• McCutchen hitting .360 and leading MVP candidate -- Of course everyone expected him to be an all-star again and improve on his season from last year, but not lead the NL in wins above replacement (again, ESPN stats).
• Burnett a Cy Young candidate -- Check this out.  Here's another ESPN stat, probably completely useless, but who cares.  Cy Young Predictor.  Burnett makes the top ten, but Joel Hanrahan actually makes their top 3 in Cy Young rating, behind Johnny Cueto and R.A. Dickey. 
• Wandy Rodriguez a Pirate -- Whether positive, negative, or neutral, it's just not something I expected to have happened.  Here's a little blurb from the Chicago Tribune from yesterday talking a bout Wandy's impact so far.
• Pirates a homerun team in general -- It's been much better than trying to scrape runs together.  Overall the offense is just raking more and more.  That is definitely kind of crazy.
• Zoltan -- I doubt that anyone predicted a fictional bubble-wrapped cult leader flashing his hands in a Z symbol would be the "face" of the Pirates in 2012.  Here's the Post-Gazette's explanation.  The overall interest level around town is incredible.  To me that's just about the biggest surprise.  See video below.
• And the Number One most surprising thing ... Me having season tickets!