Pirates Homestand Takeaways: Frustration Builds Everywhere, Daunting Stretch Looms

The Pittsburgh Pirates finally started to show some promise to begin their week-long homestand, but the end result was still the same.

The Pirates won their second series of the season, taking three of four from the Washington Nationals, But the Bucs were then swept by the Cleveland Guardians over the weekend.

In their series against the Nationals, the Pirates scored a season-high 10 runs in the first game and scored six runs two days later. They also scored seven runs in a loss to the Guardians on Saturday.

Despite some high run totals in the series, the Pirates’ offense is still in a bad spot. They were shutout twice over the seven-game stretch at PNC Park, scored one run in a win on Thursday and four runs in 10 innings on Easter Sunday.

When the Pirates have shown some life at the plate, it seems to either come later in games or when they’ve dug themselves into a deficit too deep to overcome.

“We have to have better at-bats earlier in the game.” manager Derek Shelton candidly stated following Sunday’s loss. “Don’t have any answer for why that’s not the case right now.”

The Pirates have received enough good pitching to have a better record than 8-15.

Pittsburgh received a quality start from Mitch Keller on Tuesday in a 3-0 loss. Keller was on the mound again on Easter and allowed two runs in 5.0 innings. In fact, the Pirates have scored one run for Keller in his last five starts while he’s been in the game — TOTAL — not per game.

Paul Skenes took the loss on Saturday. He threw 7.0 innings and allowed a pair of runs.

“We’re just not executing at a high enough level and as consistently as we need to, to win these games,” he said following his most recent outing. “I don’t think it’s a clubhouse thing. Everybody likes each other. But positive feelings, friendships and all that don’t win championships. We gotta figure it out.”

At 8-15 through 23 games to start the season, the Pirates are last in the National League Central and are ahead of only the 4-17 Colorado Rockies in the wild card standings.

“I mean our goal is to win games. Losing sucks,” Ke’Bryan Hayes said outside his locker following Saturday’s frustrating loss. “So just wanting to win games, win series. That’s what it’s going to take to get where we need to be at. It sucks whenever you lose.”

But the players aren’t alone in feeling frustrated. Fans have hit their breaking point. Prior to fireworks on Friday and a Skenes bobblehead day on Saturday, the Pirates had the lowest attendance in the National League. They are 13th out of 15 teams now.

When fans did fill up PNC Park on Saturday — the second sellout in Pittsburgh of the year — they made it clear they were ticked off.

Boos were heard and “sell the team” chants continues, even after owner Bob Nutting’s nice gesture to ensure everyone in attendance would get a Skenes bobblehead instead of the first 20,000 as originally promised.

But that just goes to show you, winning trumps all. Putting a good product on the field is all that will change the minds of the exasperated fanbase.

“Yeah, I mean, they care,” Skenes said on the boos. We’ve gotta play better.”

Brutal Schedule Looming for Pirates

The Pirates are going to get tested coming up. It’s either sink or swim against some of the league’s best.

Pittsburgh heads out west to play the Los Angeles Angels and then the Dodgers. They then come back home for three-game series against the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres.

The records of each opponent?

Angels: 11-10 (3rd place in AL West)
Dodgers: 16-7 (2nd place in NL West)
Cubs: 14-10 (1st place in NL Central)
Padres: 16-6 (1st place in NL West)

It’s a daunting stretch, but the Pirates will take it one day at a time.

“I think the message is just consistency and day-to-day,” said Shelton. “Because I think when you get to the point where you start thinking about urgency, then you start thinking about a whole series instead of just today and we need to focus on today, or tomorrow or whatever day we play next.”