Like most baseball traditionalists, I’ve long had a problem with the concept of a “quality start.” Since that is defined as having a pitcher go six innings while allowing three earned runs, ideally a starter could have nothing but quality starts and finish the season with an ERA of 4.50 — hardly a “quality” performance.

Lately, a new term has been introduced: Ultra-quality start, which is a seven-inning outing on a yield of two earned runs. While that is more appropriate, it’s still only an extension of the whole quality concept.

For fun, let’s award medals, Olympics style, and rank starting pitchers accordingly.

• Bronze: Six innings, three earned runs.
• Silver: Seven innings, two earned runs.
• Gold: Eight-plus innings, no more than one earned run.

Here are the current standings of the Pirates rotation, ranked according to Golds. Maybe we’ll update this on a weekly basis.

Pitcher / Gold-Silver-Bronze-Total

Edinson Volquez 2-5-6-13

Charlie Morton 1-7-4-12

Gerrit Cole 1-3-5-9

Jeff Locke 1-3-5-9

Vance Worley 1-3-4-8

Francisco Liriano 0-3-5-8