Perrotto: Pirates Right Back Where They Started From After Loseapalooza
PITTSBURGH – It was Yinzerpalooza at PNC Park over the weekend.
Just making that clear after the Pittsburgh Pirates beat their fans over the head with advertisements promoting the event for more than a month.
The grand finale was Sunday when hometown rapper/singer/songwriter/actor Wiz Khalifa threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the game against the Chicago White Sox.
Too bad Wiz couldn’t have pitched or hit. The Pirates could have used the help as they lost 7-2 to complete an embarrassing three-game sweep at the hands of the Chicago White Sox.
The Pirates could have even used Sammy Khalifa, even though the Pirates’ first-round selection in the 1982 amateur draft is 61 years old and hasn’t played in the big leagues since 1987.
Wiz and Sammy would be more motivated than most of those in uniform for the Pirates, who came out of the All-Star break looking like they had packed it in for the season. The White Sox, who have the worst record in the American League at 35-65, outscored the Pirates 27-7 and became the last major-league team to sweep a series this season.
The Pirates marketing gurus would have been wise to have had Maxine Nightingale make an appearance at Yinzerpalooza.
A 72-year-old singer from England doesn’t fit the profile. However, she had a catchy disco hit in 1975, whose title, 50 years later, sums up the current state of the Pirates.
Right Back Where We Started From.
The Pirates are indeed right back where they started from at the beginning of the season. They sleepwalked through a 12-26 start that cost manager Derek Shelton his job on May 9.
Promoting bench coach Don Kelly gave the Pirates a spark. They played a much better brand of baseball, cutting down on the mental and physical mistakes.
And the Pirates’ record was 26-24 under Kelly after they swept the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals in a six-game homestand from June 27 to July 2.
The Pirates outscored their opponents 43-4 during that homestand. No major-league team since at least 1900 had scored as many as 43 runs and allowed four runs or fewer in a six-game span.
The Pirates weren’t going to keep playing like that the rest of the season. Yet, there was a sense that they had at least reached a certain level of respectability.
Since then, they have gone 1-11, losing eight of nine games on a road trip leading into the All-Star break, then laying the Yinzerpalooza egg coming out of it.
More distressing is that the Pirates are right back where they started from when Ben Cherington replaced Neal Huntington as general manager in November 2019.
The Pirates were a mess when Cherington took over, coming off a turmoil-filled 69-93 season that also cost manager Clint Hurdle and team president Frank Coonelly their jobs.
The Pirates aren’t any better six years into the Cherington regime. Their 39-61 record is the third-worst in MLB behind the White Sox and Colorado Rockies (24-75).
The Pirates have two very talented players, right-hander Paul Skenes and center fielder Oneil Cruz. The rest of their roster is one of the weakest in the major leagues, and the Pirates aren’t any closer to contending than the day Cherington was hired.
That was never more evident than over the weekend. Not even a Wiz Khalifa appearance and Mac Miller bobbleheads could salvage Yinzerpalooza.
Instead, it was Loseapalooza, a long-running show at PNC Park.