ST. LOUIS -- In failing to score more than one run for the 33rd time this season and in being handed a 3-1 loss -- their fourth in their last five games -- against the Cardinals Tuesday night at Busch Stadium, the Pirates suffered an inevitable fate in officially being eliminated from playoff contention.
"It's tough. You never want to be in a position where you're out of it," Nick Gonzales told me after the Pirates outhit the Cardinals by an 8-5 margin only to come away with another divisional defeat. "For me, I just take that as I needed to be better and I need to do things better."
The Pirates have now suffered through a nine-year postseason drought. That's five straight years without a playoff berth under the direction of Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton, who has compiled a 289-408 record in nearly 700 games as manager. The Pirates have failed to reach the playoffs in 29 of the past 32 seasons.
It didn't always appear to be heading in this direction, though. At least not this season. The Pirates looked like they might be on the verge of legitimately competing for a wild card spot after going into the All-Star break at the .500 mark, staying within reach of the other National League contenders and establishing themselves as buyers at the trade deadline, acquiring the likes of Bryan De La Cruz, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Jalen Beeks. Those moves were made in hopes of improving the team's chances of ending their lengthy playoff drought. There was once again excitement surrounding the possibility of meaningful baseball being played in Pittsburgh. For the first time in a long time, there was hope.
Then, with one miserable month, all hope was dashed. August featured late-game collapses by the bullpen, a massive 10-game losing streak and an infamous series sweep at the hands of the Cubs, one in which the Pirates allowed 41 runs over three games and squandered a seven-run lead in perhaps the most disheartening loss of the entire season. They ended up going 8-19 during that brutal month and have gone 16-28 since July 30 when they were three games over .500 entering the deadline.
The Pirates won seven of their first 11 games to open the month of September, but five of those wins came against the Nationals and Marlins, two teams with even worse records. During this latest five-game stretch, familiar deficiencies have once again plagued this team. The pitching staff has done its part to help win games, but the offensive output hasn't nearly been enough, as they've scored one run or fewer three times -- once in their series loss against Kansas City and now twice during these last two games here in St. Louis.
"We're a hit away at times or a pitch away at times and we have to make that," Derek Shelton said. "Tonight, we had a couple of opportunities late. We need to capitalize on it. We need to figure out a way to get that hit or make that pitch."
When looking at the larger picture, it's easy to pinpoint areas in which the Pirates have excelled and areas in which their struggles have stemmed from.
The starting rotation falls in the former category, as a group led by the promising trio of Paul Skenes, Jared Jones and Mitch Keller has done its part in an effort to consistently win ball games. The unit boasts the seventh-best ERA (3.82) in Major League Baseball and ranks third in the National League in that category behind the Phillies and Braves. They're also tied for fifth among MLB teams with 65 quality starts.
The bullpen, a group once believed to be a strength heading into spring training, has largely been associated with squandered leads and inefficient performances. The unit's 4.61 ERA is the fourth-worst in baseball and its 1.40 WHIP is among the bottom three. They've allowed the sixth-most walks (234) and boast the seventh-worst batting average against (.251). Guys like David Bednar and Colin Holderman have had their struggles, Carmen Mlodzinski and now Kyle Nicolas have battled injuries and countless minor-league or waiver-claim additions have played a part in what has gone wrong for the relief group. Dennis Santana, who had his scoreless streak of 19 1/3 innings snapped in Tuesday's loss, has been a rare bright spot when it comes to waiver-claim success stories.
"If we wrote down a small list of things that needed to happen during spring training that we needed to do to make a playoff push, bullpen performance would have been on that list," Cherington said during his weekly radio show Sunday. "We just haven’t gotten the level of performance we needed consistently. We had a level of talent where we thought it could be that way. It’s just been one of those years. Reliever performance tends to be volatile compared to other positions."
While the overall body of work the bullpen has delivered has been lousy more often than not, the Pirates' struggles at the plate have been even more evident. Offensively, they rank among the bottom 10 teams in batting average (.235), slugging percentage (.370), OPS (.672), runs scored (628), runs scored per game (4.16), hits (1202) and home runs (145). Not to mention they've posted the fifth-most strikeouts (1399) in all of baseball. Not at all a recipe for success.
The Pirates have 11 games remaining on their schedule -- eight against divisional opponents -- and only two losses separate them from unfortunately clinching a sixth straight losing season. The last time they finished over the .500 mark was in 2018 when they won 82 games. This last stretch of the regular season will give this group a chance to potentially finish the year on a high note before going into a crucial offseason in which they'll prepare for what they can only hope will be a year of improved performance in 2025.
"Losing is never fun. I personally don't enjoy losing and I know everyone on this team doesn't enjoy losing," Gonzales said. "I think going into these last 11 games, we kind of want to solidify what we need to do, what we need to work on, take that into the offseason and prepare."
