8-13-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
Hopelessness is setting in for the Pirates. This team is desperately in search of a win as they struggle to find consistency out west. They’ll enter today with a rematch against Michael King, whom they faced at home last week and managed 4 runs (3 earned) off 6 hits, 2 walks and 7 strikeouts through 5 innings.
King has been a workhorse for the Padres, posting the 11th highest fWAR in the National League and the 7th best ERA among qualified NL starting pitchers.
Last time around, King leaned heavily on his sinker and changeup, generating whiffs and weak contact on both offerings. He’ll likely try to replicate that part of the outing while avoiding the resulting damage.
Most of that damage came against the sinker as Ke’Bryan Hayes had an RBI single off the pitch in the 1st inning and Andrew McCutchen’s 4th inning home run also came off the sinker with a 109.8 MPH exit velocity.
This team is better than the results have shown lately but it’s hard to ignore all these losses piling up. Find a way to punch back against King today by targeting that sinker and getting an early lead for Luis Ortiz.
Let’s Go Bucs!
Steel City Pirates 
Since the playoff picture is out, why focus on team wins? If you focus on player development and losses, the franchise will more likely be able to replace the GM, manager, and coaching staff. This would help the franchise (addition by subtraction). Additionally, they would be more likely to selecting a draft choice from a higher draft position.
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I am going to tell you right off the bat that Cherington and Shelton are both fairly safe in their jobs and unless they both go and take a dump on Nutting’s desk, they’ll continue on those roles for 2025.
They are looking at development right now but they haven’t yet completely discounted the possibility of playing in the postseason, as remote the chances of that may be. If this slide continues, they may shift gears but they aren’t going into a rebuild. They’ve done the losing. They’ve done the drafting and building up the farm system, which still has some great pieces who can help next year and beyond. They don’t care about winning the lottery and aren’t managing day-to-day operations with any thoughts on draft positioning.
The main problem has been winning the close games. They’re 19-24 in 1-run games and 7-8 in extra innings, with many of these coming during this current cold stretch. If they punch through in a handful of those games, they’re comfortably in the wild card or even divisional race instead of languishing at the bottom of the NL Central. And you can point fingers at whoever you want for it but they don’t feel that they are bad enough to give up yet
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……. and many people are not giving up on the Messiah either, yet it has been thousands of years, and (s)he has yet to arrive. If you think the franchise would have a choice between #1 draft selection and #9 selection in the draft, I can assure you they would take the #1 selection despite being forced to pay a much larger signing bonus. The franchise would take that as a HUGE win. Just because the key figures you reference still have a safety lock on their positions within the organization does not mean it is the correct step moving forward. If the team went 10-34 the rest of the way, I do think Nutting would have to question if the 2 you reference are the right leaders of the franchise moving forward.
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“……you want for it but they don’t feel that they are bad enough to give up yet”
Do you now feel this team is bad enough to give up? Do you now believe any further dialogue about this team making the playoffs, loses credibility by the speaker? Are you ready to call out Pirate Management for the lies they have been telling their fanbase? This team has never been in a legitimate position to make the playoffs. That will continue next season and beyond with the current roster and manager as/is heading into Spring Training 2025.
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I’m a fan and I’ve dealt with a LOT of losing with this franchise. I honestly felt that they were the most prepared to win that they’ve been in years. When they said that they were looking to contend for the playoffs at PiratesFest, I think they meant it. The results just haven’t matched expectations.
The offense was excellent in the spring and has mostly been terrible this year. And they have struggled to drive in runs when they have men on base, unable to get the big hit or “lucky drop.” Does that mean Haines is on the hot seat? Maybe? We’ve thought that should be the case for a while and been disappointed a lot.
They have also had pitching fall off a cliff. Bullpen has 27 losses, tied for the 4th most in MLB, and have a combined ERA of 4.31 (7th worst). The bullpen was supposed to be a strength for this team. Bednar had early struggles and saw that return again recently. Moreta had TJS. Mlod has had several IL stints and Holderman was dominant until he absolutely wasn’t.
And the starting pitching was the one thing holding it together with Keller-Skenes-Jones-Falter-Ortiz looking like one of the best rotations in MLB. Jones is injured, Skenes is wearing down and the other three have combined for 30 earned runs allowed through their last 35.1 innings (a 7.69 ERA).
A crazy amount of things have gone wrong over that time and the team lost a number of close games. I don’t think Shelton’s comments about this skid are helpful or even accurate. Call a duck a duck. This team has not played good ball the past two weeks. Accountability matters (check Gary’s article from yesterday on that topic) and expectations were elevated this year. Even if they didn’t have all the pieces they needed to contend, they had enough pieces to be in the mix for it – and they are now looking at finishing 5th in this division for the 4th time under BC.
Will change happen this offseason or even sooner? Maybe. I would hope so if just to show that this isn’t acceptable and that accountability matters to someone higher up
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All true, and I LOLed twice at the part about taking a dump on Nutting’s desk.😂
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“Call a duck a duck……. Accountability matters….” I support those comments. Give one reason why Derek Shelton, Ben Cherington should survive Pirates’ collapse (dkpittsburghsports.com)
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