It's hard to be around. Not going to lie.

Don't ask me, though. Go right ahead, instead, and ask the 34,000-plus empty seats defining the bleak-in-boundless-ways atmosphere tonight here at PNC Park, even amid the Pirates finally busting out their bats to beat up the Cardinals, 8-4:

DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS

Pirates vs. Cardinals, second inning, Monday night, PNC Park.

Official attendance, always based on tickets in circulation: 8,250.

Actual human ... maybe a quarter of that?

Relevance to either count on a cold, semi-snowy Monday night in April ... yeah, not much.

But there's still plenty to be spoken for the setting as a whole, the feel, the ... morbidity, I guess. In this, my 25th year on the beat within a half-century of following the franchise regardless, I'm not sure I've sensed anything like it, coming off a home opener unlike any other in our city's history, a follow-up flop the very next day, private planes dragging banners dragging the ownership in the pregame, boos for Derek Shelton in the introductions, derisive chants throughout ... never mind the football scores that'd follow.

Oh, it'll be a bit better when Paul Skenes takes the mound Tuesday and starts mowing down these same Cardinals. There'll be a buzz, a cause, a celebrity ... for a couple hours. But if the big boy's the answer to this broader badness, then it's all far worse than anyone would want to acknowledge if only because this ain't basketball. He participates once every half-dozen days. If those are the only games in which the Pirates come across as a contender, that'll add up to about a .200 winning percentage and yet another No. 1 overall pick.

Sorry to be that guy. That's not just 4-7 talking. That's all that's gone into this start, as well as all that it's seemingly sucked out of everyone already.

They're feeling it here. They are.

I've been around Derek Shelton for five-plus years. He's a naturally loose spirit. Just wired that way. He'll find a smile in any circumstance.

When I asked after this how it finally felt to have all that offense -- 10 hits, including a home run and triple by Joey Bart and a double by Endy Rodriguez, this after not topping four runs in the first nine innings of any of the first 10 games -- he replied, expressionless, "Good at-bats. We were very aggressive early. We had a really good approach and were able to not only start it, but continue to extend it."

When I followed up if that collective approach had been different in any way: "Not different. I think it's pitcher-dependent."

He's entitled to respond and react however he'd like. And if anything, I respect that he'd be taking all of this hard, presuming that's the case. My point: That's not the norm for him.

I can't know where that'll go, that entire situation. But I do know this: There are 151 games left on the schedule, and that's an awful lot of baseball in which an awful lot can occur, on and off the field. And whether there's change in the dugout and/or front office, the players at hand will still have more to say about this particular season than anyone else. Which means, in turn, that someone's got to raise the spirits in that clubhouse sooner rather than later.

I went to Adam Frazier and Tommy Pham after this game, their stalls conveniently side-by-side, to talk about this. Because it's my belief -- again, regardless of any management change -- that 2025 matters. There has to be progress. There has to be a better framework for anyone, new or existing, to be able to find success while Skenes is still here.

Frazier, per his self-accountable personality I've long admired, began by picking apart his own 0-for-4 out there that'd dropped his early average to .200, his OPS to .495.

"I've got to hit," he told me with a shake of the head. "That's the first thing. Gotta hit."

Yep, but both he and Pham, who's at .121 after going 1 for 3 with a walk here and after beating the Yankees with a walkoff liner in the 11th inning the previous day, are amply aware they were brought here for leadership, too. 

"I thought yesterday was big for us, closing out the Yankees like that, giving us a little momentum going into tonight," Frazier would say. "Yeah, you get a win or two, and get more of that momentum, you change the energy in the clubhouse, you change the energy in the stadium. I mean, you're still in Week 2 of a six-month ride. We can't get caught up in anything. It's one day at a time."

That's the message he stressed most.

"A lot of these guys are young, so you can get up in outside noise, but you've just to preach to everybody that it's one day at a time. The good, the bad, it's all one day at a time. If we stay that way, we'll be fine. We need to bring everybody together."

They also need to hit. Like, a hell of a lot better than they have. The back-end bullpen's been abysmal, the fundamentals have been lacking, but nothing rivals the hitting.

I brought that up with Pham and how he might help in that facet.

"That's a tough question, you know?" he'd reply with a pause that I've come to expect from him. He's legitimately looking for what he feels is the right answer. "Because everybody handles adversity differently. You look at guys' track records. You look how guys work. You look at in-game progress that you're seeing. Baseball hitting's so complicated. You could hit the ball on the screws every at-bat and not get a hit, or you could hit off the end of the bat and get a hit every time."

Another pause.

"I generally look at the battle within the battle, the quality of the at-bat, swinging at good pitches, getting the A-swing off, stuff like that. If you put in that work, that usually translates to the game. ... Man, I can talk for days about this."

Ideally, he'd have an audience for that long, as well.

So, so, so much has to improve around here, and that goes so far beyond any intangibles that, to be honest, I'm a little red-faced to even be bringing this up. But if I'm to dabble in this "momentum" Frazier described, I've got to first bring up that there are several hitters well below career norms who'll level out at some stage: Bryan Reynolds won't stay stuck at .182. Nor will Oneil Cruz at .222, Rodriguez at .185 and maybe not even Bart at .250. I'd then bring up that it's bona fide encouraging that Andrew McCutchen's at .348, Isiah Kiner-Falefa at .343, even that Ke'Bryan Hayes, who assured me after this game he'll beat his wonky back, has a home run and three extra-base hits at .263. And finally, I'd bring up that Matt Hague isn't Andy Haines, and he's owed more than a month to demonstrate that a hitting can make a real difference.

Let's see a lot more of this ...

... and we can talk again later.