Ben Cherington believes his team is ready to play 15 games in the next 13 days. But the Pittsburgh Pirates’ general manager knows it’s a grueling stretch, especially for a team that loses another player to injury nearly every day.

One day, it’s Phillip Evans’ broken jaw. Then, Joe Musgrove with an inflamed triceps. Colin Moran’s possible concussion. And don’t forget covid-19 somewhere in the air.

All of those things, plus many more, have happened to the Pirates this season.

“We’re as prepared as we can be today,” Cherington said Sunday on his 93.7 FM radio show before the Pirates defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-4, to run their season-high winning streak to three.

Although the law of averages says the worst should be over, Cherington knows other problems could surface during the three-city road trip to Chicago to face the White Sox (17-12), St. Louis for a doubleheader Thursday and Milwaukee.

“The preparation never stops,” he said.

After Monday’s day off — there are only two through the end of the season Sept. 27 — Steven Brault will be the starting pitcher Tuesday against the White Sox. Then, it’s Trevor Williams on Wednesday.

The starting pitching was good against the Brewers with Chad Kuhl and Derrick Holland getting their first victories and rookie JT Brubaker pitching into the fifth inning for the first time.

“It was just something to build off of,” Brubaker said, “just something to watch each starter have success, and then it drives the next starter to have more success.”

Another mystery is what the day off will mean to the Pirates’ hot bats. In three victories against the Brewers, the Pirates scored 24 runs with 37 hits. Suddenly, Gregory Polanco was making solid contact, hitting home runs in consecutive games and barreling up baseballs with exit velocities in triple digits.

The Pirates (7-17) still have the worst record in the major leagues, but management puts on a happy face.

“We know we have position players who are capable of hitting,” Cherington said.

Said manager Derek Shelton: “They stay attentive even when we haven’t won games.”

Shelton said he has no choice but to remain positive.

“A lot of these guys are going through things for the first time,” he said. “There were some struggles for the first time. For me to be there and have their back is extremely important.”

Another optimist, Cherington said it may be too early to truly evaluate the team.

“We have to be careful about evaluating any kind of 23-game sample,” he said Sunday. “Some of the guys haven’t played 23 games. In a normal year, you wouldn’t even think about doing that.”

Every other 23-game stretch in any other season has 139 more to play. This one leaves only 37. As a result, the problems get magnified.

“In terms of learning about players, what we’re doing is we’re focused on two things,” Cherington said.

He said one of those is “trusting history.”

“The guys who have performed at a certain level and are still young in their careers, there’s a very good chance they are going to go back and perform at that level again or even exceed it,” he said.

“(The other is) trust what we’re seeing as far as the skills, the work ethic, the desire to improve. That’s going to add up to good outcomes eventually.”

A good example may be Bryan Reynolds, who hit .314 as a rookie last year. His batting average fell as low as .129 on Aug. 3 after only 10 games. But he left PNC Park on Sunday hitting .220 after getting six hits in 13 at-bats against the Brewers.

That said, Cherington said he doesn’t ignore the obvious problems that a .292 winning percentage reveals.

“We have to be honest about where we are,” he said. “The 23-game sample tells us something, certainly, about our team, tells us we have a lot to do to get better, for sure.”

Trades present one way to improve, and Cherington plans to spend considerable time on the phone before next Monday’s deadline.

He said it’s possible to serve two masters by winning now and building for the future.

“We can do that (expect to win),” he said. “At the same time, we can then also do what puts the Pirates in the best possible position moving forward. How do we build a sustainable winning team over time?

“We can do both. We have to be tough enough and disciplined to do both.”