Perrotto: Pirates Take No Joy in Ending This Streak

PITTSBURGH — On the brink of making baseball history, the Pittsburgh Pirates did something they hadn’t done in nearly a month.

They scored some runs.

The Pirates ended their streak of 26 games scoring four runs or fewer on Thursday night, though they lost to the Milwaukee Brewers 8-5 at PNC Park. The streak began on April 23 and almost covered a month.

Instead of setting the major-league record, they settled for tying the longest streak, joining the 1906 Boston Nationals, 1918 Boston Braves, 1931 Boston Braves, and 1969 California Angels.

It wasn’t the same euphoric feeling as when the Pirates broke their streak of 20 consecutive losing seasons in 2013, a record for all major North American professional leagues.

However, the Pirates were happy to score a few runs even though it took them until the ninth inning to surpass four. With the Pirates down 8-3, Bryan Reynolds hit an RBI double before Spencer Horwitz’s run-scoring groundout snapped the streak. Horwitz also hit his first home run with the Pirates in the fourth inning.

“You know what, guys are probably aware of it, but as we go through the season, you’re just trying to grind together, string those hits together, like we talked about, and score runs,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said about ending the streak.

“Honestly, five’s not the goal. We want to keep on going and score more than that. I’m sure there was some awareness of it, but it wasn’t talked about. We weren’t going in there trying to score five. I guess in a sense, glad it’s over.”

The Pirates had an 8-18 record during the four-or-less streak and scored just 59 runs for an average of 2.27 a game.

They also had a .217/.295/.308 slash line in those 26 games. Over the same span, the league slashed .249/.317/.402.

Pirates catcher Joey Bart said he and his teammates were not fretting about the long stretch of offensive futility or thinking about being only one game from breaking the record. Though the Pirates are just 17-34 this season, they have 111 games left.

“You’ve just got to play the long game,” Bart said. “It’s really easy to look at a week or a good game and get real high or real low, but it’s a long season. Everybody picking it up and trying to do it together. Obviously, hitting is contagious. We’ve just got to keep working, and things will get better if we go about the process.”

Kelly has been saying since being promoted from bench coach to manager to replace Derek Shelton on May 8 that he feels the Pirates hitters have been putting too much pressure on themselves.

Bart doesn’t dispute that notion. However, he also knows that trying too hard can be counterproductive, especially when it comes to hitting.

“Usually, when you’re thoughtful of what’s going on, like, ‘Hey man, however many runs I left on the field today.’ Obviously, you know that, but that’s baseball,” Bart said. “You’ve got to be ready to fight and come back and get the job done the next time and the next time. At least for me, it’s playing the long game and being prepared every day.

“You can catch fire at any time. If you’re overthoughtful about failing in a particular game or a particular series, that’s the quickest way to spin out.”

The Pirates’ offense has been spun out all season, averaging an MLB-low 2.96 runs a game. Maybe Thursday’s eruption – relatively speaking – will help end the funk.

After all, it can’t get much worse.