Perrotto: When Do Pirates Start Showing Urgency?

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ season is threatening to end, at least from a competitive standpoint, before it ever really began.

The Pirates are 8-15 and have yet to win more than two games in a row. They were swept in a three-game series by the Cleveland Guardians over the weekend, had Monday off, and embark on a six-game trip to Los Angeles that begins tonight with a three-game series with the Angels and concludes with a three-game weekend set against the Dodgers.

It is not an exaggeration to say the season is at a crossroads. The Pirates are already 5.5 games behind the first-place Chicago Cubs in the National League Central standings.

It seems time for general manager Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton to hit the panic button. Or at least show urgency in trying to get things turned around.

Yet Shelton wasn’t talking urgency on Sunday after the Pirates lost to the Guardians 5-4 in 10 innings. He still believes patience is a virtue with 139 games left in the season.

“I think the message is just consistency and day-to-day,” Shelton said. “Every day, 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.

“We’ve got to get something going and be consistent with it. Right now, we’re not doing that. We just need to be more consistent.”

One aspect of the Pirates’ game that has been consistent through 23 games is their lack of offense. The Pirates’ average of 3.39 runs is 26th among the 30 MLB teams, and their .608 OPS is 28th.

Cherington realizes there is not a lot he can do at this stage of the season. Few trades are made in April as teams are still trying to figure out what they have on their rosters before making changes.

“We will keep an eye on things,” Cherington said of potential deals. “We keep having conversations, but trades don’t usually happen this soon. We’ve got to rely on the guys that are here. We believe in the guys that are here. Some guys have stepped up. We are going to get healthier. And then over the course of the season, if we do what I believe we will do, then they’ll be opportunities to add to it at some point.”

Getting catcher/first baseman Endy Rodriguez, first baseman Spencer Horwitz and second baseman Nick Gonzales activated from the injured list should help.

Nevertheless, the Pirates must find a way to score more runs until then. They have been shut out four times and held to three runs or fewer on 11 occasions.

The Pirates need a spark badly, but insist patience is required because they can only do so much.

“I feel like it just takes time,” said third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, hitting .211/.277/.289 with one home run in 21 games. “I mean, we’re doing everything we can. We’re playing as hard as we can on both sides of the ball, and sometimes it’s a few balls that get through. Sometimes it’s a few plays you’ve made. All that kind of stuff.

“I think just no matter if we’re winning, we’re losing, we’ve just got to come in with the same intensity to win every single day. We’ve got to win the days practicing everything we’re doing and ultimately at the end of the day, if we feel like we’ve done everything we can to try and get the win and come up short, that’s fine, we have the next day to come back out and it’s still early. It’s April.”

It is indeed early, but it’s also starting to feel like it’s nearly too late for the Pirates to salvage the season.