Can you can throw a pitch better than 50 Cent?

Are you left-handed? Right-handed? Heck, do you have an arm at all?

Want to work for the Major League Baseball minimum?

Well, the Pittsburgh Pirates just may have a job for you.

When the season began, the Bucs appeared to have one of the best starting rotations in baseball. For the first 18 games, the staff more than lived up to the hype, going 12-6 with an ERA somewhere between Bob Gibson and Pedro Martinez. The baseball world had taken notice. The Pirates could be contenders for a wild card spot based on the strength of their pitching alone.

But then Chris Archer began to pitch like, well, the Chris Archer of his last two seasons in Tampa Bay — not good. The guys who got off to surprising and torrid starts like Jordan Lyles and Joe Musgrove began to slip back toward the mean.

Then the injuries happened.

Now the Pirates' starting rotation looks like one of the many chewed-up roads in western Pennsylvania.

Lots of holes. Lots of craters. Jarringly bad.

Further hurting the club is the fact that front office's purse strings are drawn so tight not even light can escape.

The Pirates are a black hole when it comes to spending.

Instead, the Bucs have had a parade of arms march through the major league level from the minors.

Guys like Rookie Davis, who sounds like a name of a generated player on MLB: The Show.

Guys like Montana DuRapau, who I was certain wasn't a real player. Couldn't be. It had to be a made-up name like in the movies – Steve Nebraska's long-lost cousin. But, no. He's real.

Guys like Geoff Hartlieb, who sounds like he could be a college quarterback wearing a one-bar facemask instead of a MLB pitcher.

There are bigger names still out there. Pitchers looking for jobs.

Dallas Keuchel jumps into the mind. The former Houston Astros' left-hander is only a few years removed from a Cy Young.

Problem is, the Pirates could never afford him. Correction: They can afford him, they just don't want to pay him what he wants. And what does Keuchel want? A multi-year deal in the range of $15 million a year. He is “open” to a one-year, $18 million pact. That's caviar for the Pirates on a peanut butter budget.

The Pirates did unleash one of the best prospects in their system, Mitch Keller, but he had a very schizophrenic start. The right-hander coughed up six runs in the first inning, but struck out seven in his four innings of work.

He's not quite ready yet.

That could be the Pirates' motto: Not Quite Ready Yet.

Somehow, though, the Pirates are still hanging around.

A Special Counsel should be appointed to investigate how the Pirates are only a game under .500 with a roster that they have and the injuries they've had to endure.

When it comes down to it, though, the Pirates won't make the moves they'll need to make to have a chance at the postseason. It just isn't going to happen. Nor should it.

Do you want to see another Glasnow and Meadows for Archer deal? Didn't think so.

Instead, the Bucs will have to make due.

What's 50 Cent up to these days?

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle