Pirates Homestand Takeaways: Fans Make Frustrations Known, Need More Offense, But… (+)
One homestand is in the books for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2025.
The Pirates dropped two out of three games to the New York Yankees before winning their first series of the season against the St. Louis Cardinals.
After going 3-3 on the homestand, the Pirates have an overall record of 5-8 and are tied for last in the National League Central.
There are a few takeaways from the Pirates’ first set of games at PNC Park, though a lot of those have nothing to do with what happened on the field.
Fans Voice Displeasure
Entering the season, it felt like fan frustration was at an all-time high and that indeed turned out to be the case.
The first signs of a disgruntled fanbase came hours before first pitch on the home opener. A plane with a “sell the team Bob” banner was seen flying overhead the North Shore of Pittsburgh after the Pirates returned home from a 2-5 start to the year.
During pregame introductions, manager Derek Shelton was booed during his pregame introduction by the 36,000+ fans in attendance. Reliever Colin Holderman also received some boos, as did Tommy Pham.
Then there were numerous occasions where “sell the team” chants rang out, both against the Yankees and the Cardinals.
To make matters worse, the organization couldn’t get out of its own way off the field.
There was the Clemente Wall fiasco. The Pirates created a stir on social media when it was realized the Roberto Clemente logo on the right field wall was replaced by an advertisement for Surfside alcoholic beverages.
The Pirates have since corrected their mistake and Clemente’s logo is back where it belongs.
Then there was the mishandling of Bucco Bricks, once laid out outside the gates of the stadium but now gone after renovations to the sidewalks outside of PNC Park.
Bricks with names of loved ones and messages from lifelong fans were found discarded in a recycling plant. After more outrage, the Pirates say they are looking for a better solution instead of bricks, which need to be replaced every few years.
But a little proactiveness would be nice. As would honesty and transparency.
It’s hard to fault the fans for being so fed up. Both with what’s happened on the field and off of it.
Lackluster Offense
OK, back to the on-field product.
The Pirates’ pitching in the series was decent, especially in the series against the Cardinals. Mitch Keller and Carmen Mlodzinski had great starts against St. Louis. Andrew Heaney was brilliant against the Yankees. The bullpen was solid, especially in Wednesday’s win.
But the offense… woof.
The Pirates scored a season-high eight runs against the Cardinals on Monday’s win against St. Louis. But other than that, they’ve only scored more than four runs this season one other time, when they beat the Yankees 5-4 in 11 innings on Sunday.
Through 13 games, the Pirates have the worst batting average of any team in baseball (.198). Only six teams have a worse on-base percentage than the Pirates (.289) and their .301 slug is ahead of only the Houston Astros (.301). And yes, I had to do a double-take to make sure that last stat was correct.
Though he went 0 for 6 on Wednesday, Andrew McCutchen has been the team’s best hitter. This is no disrespect to McCutchen, who looks good so far this year, but a 38-year-old should not have the best bat in your lineup in year six of a rebuild.
Still Grinded to .500 Homestand
Despite the boos, despite not getting much from the offense, despite Paul Skenes having the worst start of his career, the Pirates still grinded their way to a 3-3 showing in their first set of games in their home stadium.
The Pirates easily could have gone 1-5 on the homestand had a few things gone the other way, but some timely hitting and heads-up defensive plays went a long way.
It wasn’t anything close to a perfect homestand. It was pretty ugly in fact. But 5-8 looks pretty good after starting the year 2-7.
More about:Pirates