Pirates Dismal July Evokes Free Fall of Buccos Past (+)
After Tuesday night’s 10-1 loss to Cleveland, the Pirates sit solely in the cellar of the National League Central, a season-worst 13 games below .500, with five straight losses out of the All-Star Break and a 2-12 record since July began.
The losing streak evokes the 2019 season, when the Pirates languished through a 1-6 rut in their first home stand out of the break and never recovered. The 2019 Buccos sat 2.5 games out of first place at the break: the 2023 team hung in there at 4.5 games back to open July.
Both teams saw promising starts to their respective seasons—Josh Bell’s first-half MVP race, this year’s 20-8 start—fall apart as injuries piled up, youth struggled and the dog days of summer set in. From there, free fall.
This year’s Pirates sit just one win above last year’s team through 95 games (41-54, compared to 40-55). The potential for a third straight 100-loss season, unthinkable at the end of April, now sinks in as a legitimate possibility.
That’s not to say that these Pirates rest in the dire straits the 2019 club did, though.
The Jury’s Still Out
This year, the future seems brighter. Rather than having a farm system utterly devoid of talent, top prospects like Henry Davis, Endy Rodríguez, Quinn Priester, Nick Gonzales, Liover Peguero and Jared Triolo are in Pittsburgh, finding their feet—painful though it may be—in the big leagues.
Reinforcements like Termarr Johnson, Anthony Solometo and Paul Skenes will arrive in the next couple years, and they still don’t have unicorn shortstop Oneil Cruz back from his broken ankle.
Even more important, the top-to-bottom organizational malaise that gloomed over the 2019 team like a millstone around the neck (and triggered the ongoing rebuild) is nowhere to be found. Hope springs eternal among the young guns, overjoyed to arrive in the big leagues, see their dreams reach fruition.
The young Bucs aren’t ready yet, though, with growing pains galore. The en masse call ups in spite of that mean the Pirates mailed it in.
The rookie struggles will work their way out in time for some, but not every top prospect becomes a successful big leaguer. The potential for a brighter future gleams on the horizon, sure. But it still isn’t close enough to help this year’s team.
As any Pirates fan knows, there’s always next year.