PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Wasted opportunity.
The best two words to describe the Pirates 2024 season as the home portion closed with a 5-2 loss to Milwaukee on Thursday.
Let's not rewrite history, there were few to pick the Pirates to have a winning record and none in the playoffs in 2024. Most predictions were for a slight to moderate improvement from the 76 wins last year. What made this season so painful were the wasted opportunities.
The fans were first teased at the very start of the season. Not only did the Pirates win the first five and six of the first seven, they did so on the road and averaging seven runs a game. Now it was against the Marlins and Washington, but Miami made the playoffs in 2023.
It would continue as the season started at home, a pair of walk-off wins against the Orioles, another 2023 playoff team and then splitting with the playoff Phillies on the road, and one of the losses was a walk-off. You are 10-4 and in first place after 14 games.
Then the first disaster stretch. Swept by the Mets and Red Sox (Boston at home) scoring nine total runs in six games. It's part of a 3-15 record to end April. Good will earned by the start, thrown away.
You are limping through early May until the call-up of Paul Skenes on May 11. Even with a shaky bullpen performance, Skenes comes out to a monster crowd on a crappy day and dazzles. Pirates win that game and get another jolt.
While hovering at .500 they continue to waste good pitching performances, but hang around. They would have a winning month in June and now fans are starting to feel like if this team can hit, they've got a shot. While the Brewers are the best team in the division, the Pirates are right there with every other team. Through the first three weeks in June the Bucs only lost one series and would get to July in third place.
Even with a couple of blown games in early July, they were only four below .500. Then came the pre-All-Star Game run. They would get wins not only from Skenes and Mitch Keller, but Marco Gonzales, Kyle Nicolas, Carmen Mlodzinski, Luis Ortiz back in the rotation and a pair from Quinn Priester.
The Pirates would hit the All-Star Break at .500 and then build on it. Right away, two of three against the Phillies, then two of three from the Cardinals. After losing a series to the Diamondbacks, won a series against Houston.
Here were the Pirates as the Steelers starting training camp still in the headlines. They even made a couple of trades for major league players. Optimism was high, Jared Jones would be coming back. The door was open.
Then it shut, hard.
Through the first 19 days of August, three wins. Included in that was a 10-game losing streak featuring blown leads, blown saves, six one-run losses. Even though they would bounce back a little, a four-game losing streak, in which the Pirates gave up 51 runs in late August ended the season.
By September 9, the talk of baseball, Paul Skenes, drew 10,311 fans at home.
Where did it go wrong? Several reasons beyond just the managerial mistakes fans will immediately point to over the season, not to say Derek Shelton is blameless, hardly.
They never were good enough
· It was a flawed team from the outset when they settled for Rowdy Tellez (granted he became a sympathetic figure, twice) at first base. He was never going to be good enough. They didn't build a playoff team and it caught up to them.
The bullpen stunk
· Injuries, key players going through periods of ineffectiveness. Name the best manager in the game, they would have made the same moves, but the relievers' ERA was second-worst in the NL, as was the WHIP.
Only the Reds had more bullpen losses in the National League. No NL teams blew more saves than the Pirates.
Trade deadline misses
· Credit to the Pirates for at least making a couple of moves, but the players they chose did not produce.
o In 47 games Isiah Kiner-Falefa drove in as many runs as Shohei Ohtani did in one game, 10. He hit .255 with a .277 on-base percentage and .611 OPS
o In 43 games Bryan De La Cruz hit has many home runs, 3, as Ohtani hit in one game (.203, 3HR, 17 RBI, .219 on-base, .500 OPS with the Bucs)
o Even reliever Jalen Beeks had a 1.65 WHIP in the Pirates bullpen
The bad 3
· Henry Davis-the Opening Day catcher-hit .144 this year, 10 out of the 15 hits were singles for a slugging of .212. Pirates even traded for a catcher who impressed in Joey Bart. Davis went from being a key piece to a 40-man question mark.
· Jack Suwinski-26 home runs in 2023 to 9 in 2024. He would hit .182 with a .324 slugging percentage and .588 OPS. He would be sent down, get another chance and then returned to AAA for the season.
· Ke'Bryan Hayes, a player the Pirates invested heavily to being a big part of its future, and was coming off a solid end to the 2023 season, disappointed. Dealing with back problems, the second-highest paid position player had a .573 OPS with four home runs in 96 games.
· Jack Suwinski-26 home runs in 2023 to 9 in 2024. He would hit .182 with a .324 slugging percentage and .588 OPS. He would be sent down, get another chance and then returned to AAA for the season.
· Ke'Bryan Hayes, a player the Pirates invested heavily to being a big part of its future, and was coming off a solid end to the 2023 season, disappointed. Dealing with back problems, the second-highest paid position player had a .573 OPS with four home runs in 96 games.
It's a fork in the road offseason, either the Pirates will spend money on impactful free agents and/or make impactful trades, or continue to be a team with a few good players that watches playoff baseball.
