If You Want a Happy Ending, that Depends, of Course, on Where You Stop Your Story

8-7-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

One of my favorite quotes from Orson Welles and one I find incredibly appropriate for this point in a baseball season. I probably could have gone with Mike Tomlin’s now famous “Only one team will finish with a Win”.

What we have on the scene right now is seemingly everyone stopping everything after each win or loss and deciding the story is of course, happy, or not.

That’s no way to take in baseball. I mean, you’re welcome to it of course and I’m not immune to feeling like a big loss to a direct competitor for a ticket to the dance feels finite. I’m not blind to watching the overall trend of my favorite team’s play, even if they’re winning games, you can tell when they aren’t winning them the right way, or should I say, in a sustainable way.

Listen, the best thing I can say is the 2024 season is part of the story.

If they make the Wild Card and lose to whomever they face in the first round, well, you can choose to end the story right there. They were a success if you didn’t think they’d make the dance at all. They were a failure if you thought they should have gone farther.

Even then, did they get swept out of it and just about shove in your face they never belonged like the Twins do every year? Did they fight like hell and simply fall to a foe that had more of just about everything important?

I don’t blame any fans for whatever they choose. Just maybe don’t tell me which one I have to make in the process of making yours.

This team is at .500, exactly, and just like PNC Park, they look like they’re taking on water.

The pitching is still strong and poised to get stronger with Jared Jones heading out on a rehab start. The bullpen still has a core of solid contributors, even as some of them have struggled, the point is, the pitching isn’t the problem.

It might feel that way some nights, because frankly, some nights everything is a problem, that’s baseball. The offense is not good enough and it hasn’t been all year. They’ve also gotten less out of Ke’Bryan Hayes than any other position player in the sport who has played enough to qualify for the batting title. Jack Suwinski went from a promising kid who popped 25 dingers to a guy who couldn’t hit a beach ball with a boat oar.

It happens.

You wind up being right on a guy like Bailey Falter and you get nothing from your Gold Glove winning Third Baseman offensively. You’re patient with your First Baseman free agent signing and he ultimately rewards that patience with becoming one of your stronger hitters, and at the same time your patience handed to Jack Suwinski or Jared Triolo is met with ineptitude.

50 games left. 20 of which are against teams ahead of them in the standings. 24 if you want to count the Cardinals who I simply don’t believe will be by the time we get there.

The story ends when you want it to, but I’d suggest 2024 is more of a chapter than an entire work. More of a series than an all encompassing story.

To me, it’s not as bleak as it looks, but there are some things that simply have to change or this chapter will end like so many others have, to be continued…

1. Run Differential – This is a junk stat to many fans, but to me it’s an indicator of playoff eligibility. Next to nobody makes it into the dance without having a positive mark. The Pirates are -11. As we sit here, the lowest mark on either side of the league that’s “in” is the Seattle Mariners at +22, and the only reason that’s in right now is because they’re leading the incredibly weak American League West. If the Pirates want to make a go of it this year, something tells me that -11 is going to have to invert.
2. Pitching Superiority – If the Pirates are to do damage to that Run Differential, there’s more opportunity, and talent for that matter, to effect the run prevention side of the equation. For that, they’re going to need to either get their important pieces to start pitching like they are one or they’re going to have to start asking others to assume the roles that are flailing.
3. Hit a Little More – Just a little. Go from bottom five to top 20 through the course of the remainder of this season and I truly believe it’ll be enough. I don’t care who it comes from, I don’t care who has to sit, I don’t care who has to be demoted, nor should they.
4. As a Unit, Now is All That Matters – Nobody should be looking to next year. There should be no worry about players getting too few at bats, no worrying about who’s feelings get hurt, no concerns about who is making what, just who is best for the challenge at hand. I hate to keep calling out Ke’Bryan Hayes, but at some point, when you watch Jared Triolo and feel it’s at least an even swap, solid chance a returning from injury Gonzales should take second back and Kiner-Falefa should slide to Third. That would take guts, but he’s earned the seat and I’m sure he knows it.

Baseball is a story.

My wife calls it my “Young and the Restless”. The characters change, the story doesn’t make sense half the time especially if you don’t know the characters and every once in a while they hit you with something sexy that makes you come back for more tomorrow.

Again, you’re welcome to look at the landscape and feel it’s all over. I’ll lean toward the side that still thinks fighting through this stretch with the Padres, and Dodgers they’re going to be playing a lot of teams they should take with more consistency.

I’m weird, I’ll ride this thing out til the end and the next day start talking about how they make it better next year. That’s what I do. If you want to bail and just show up next year when the new chapter starts, have at it, but I that ain’t me.

This has been and will continue to be in my eyes a very positive season. One where the pitching showed up earlier than I ever expected possible, and the hitting took a step back like I didn’t imagine they would.

It hasn’t gone exactly as I expected. It’s also not about me being right. They are exactly where I expected them to be record wise, they just didn’t get there the way I saw it happening.

I can’t wait to see how they close this chapter out, and I hope you’re there with me.