Pirates Left Thinking What Could Have Been After Disastrous Homestand

PITTSBURGH — After winning a three-game series against the Astros in Houston, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a golden opportunity to make up some ground in the National League Wild Card race.

The Pirates returned home 2.5 games out of a wild card spot and had back-to-back series against teams who were holding onto two of the three positions. In third place, the Arizona Diamondbacks started a three-game series against the Pirates before Pittsburgh had three more games with the second-place San Diego Padres.

Instead of gaining on either team, the Pirates fell further back in the race after wrapping up a crucial homestand with one win and five losses. The thing is, it very easily could have been a completely different story.

In four out of the five losses, the Pirates held a lead at varying points through out the game, but each lead was carried into the late innings. The Pirates had a lead through six innings or later four out of five times they came out on the losing end.

In all four of those games, the Pirates lost by a single run.

“The fact that we’ve had leads in four of those games on this homestand in the seventh or later, yeah it’s extremely frustrating,” Shelton said following Thursday’s loss to the Padres. “Not to beat a dead horse, but we’ve got to figure out a way to finish them because we have the lead and we have to be able to execute to finish games out. We’re playing good teams that are executing right now.”

On Friday night, the Pirates erased a five-run first-inning deficit and took a 7-6 lead in the bottom of the sixth. Aroldis Chapman, Colin Holderman and Dennis Santana each allowed a run in the final three innings of the game and the Pirates fell 9-8 to Arizona.

On Saturday, the Pirates earned a 4-2 win over the Diamondbacks, the lone victory of the homestand.

In Sunday’s game, Holderman surrendered a three-run home run to Joc Pederson in the seventh, which turned the Pirates’ two-run lead into a one-run deficit. Arizona and Pittsburgh both traded runs in the ninth with the Pirates losing 6-5.

After an off day on Monday, Tuesday’s game was interrupted by a 2 hour and 40 minute rain delay and the Pirates never scored in San Diego’s 6-0 win.

The Pirates and Padres played a back-and-forth affair on Wednesday night with the Pirates taking a 6-5 lead on an Andrew McCutchen two-run single in the sixth. But David Bednar blew the save in the ninth and the Padres scored three runs in the 10th against the Pirates’ two runs for a 9-8 San Diego win.

Bednar blew his second-straight save on Thursday afternoon. Joey Bart put the Pirates up 5-4 with a two-run shot in the seventh, but San Diego scored three runs in the top of the ninth and held on for a 7-6 win.

“That’s just unacceptable,” Bednar said on his back-to-back blown saves. “The guys battle back both games, and it’s just a big-time letdown on my end. (Thursday) was incredibly frustrating, just a lot of free stuff, and that just can’t happen.”

Although the Pirates are only four games back of a wild card spot with six teams ahead of them in the standings, they could have been in prime position had they held on to each lead, which would have given them a 5-1 homestand. Because of their four-game losing streak, the Pirates dipped below .500 with a now 56-58 record.

But instead, the Pirates’ uphill climb has become even steeper and things aren’t going to get any easier.

The Pirates will take the long flight to Los Angeles for the start of a weekend series against the National League West leading Dodgers on Friday night. Then it’s three more with the Padres in San Diego before returning home for a three-game home series against the Seattle Mariners.

There’s no underselling how important this stretch will be in determining the team’s direction the rest of the season.

“There’s a lot of one-run games won every year by good clubs. We’ve won one-run games but lately we haven’t. So, we’ll be better,” said Bart. “We’ll find ways to win. We’ll get something going at some point and we just gotta have faith we’ll find a way through it.”