100 losses.
Two years ago, the Pirates had two seasons of 100 losses or more in my lifetime: 2001 and 2010. Now they’ve done it in back-to-back years for the first time since those dreadful Bucco clubs of the early 1950s. If they lose on Thursday, it will be back-to-back seasons of 101 losses. I hate to think how many games the Bucs would have lost in a full 2020 season.
The culprit for Thursday’s loss was a familiar one: the bullpen. JT Brubaker was called off the injured list to throw 47 pitches and allow 3 runs in 2.2 innings; his 4.69 ERA suggests that he might be a better fit as a swingman/bullpen arm next year, but on the Pirates he’s almost certainly a lock to make the 2023 rotation. Granted, I’d rather have him pitch than the man who followed him on Thursday. Bryse Wilson pitched for hopefully the last time in a Pirates uniform, giving up 3 runs of his own (2 earned) in 3.1 innings and running up his season ERA to a garish 5.52. That performance squandered a large lead the Bucs had constructed on the back of a rare offensive breakout; every starter except Jason Delay (of course) had a hit, and the 6-run bottom of the 3rd was the most runs the Pirates have scored an inning this year. It wasn’t enough to beat a Cardinals team that had nothing to play for and is predominantly made up of guys from the Memphis Redbirds; Albert Pujols was pulled after 2 at-bats, but not after dropping in a 2-run single and being honored in a pathetic pre-game ceremony that I’m sure the majority-Cardinals crowd enjoyed.
I was really hoping this would be a better summer than last year; that we’d all finally get to gather at PNC Park with no Covid restrictions and watch the Pirates take their first real step toward contention. Instead they’ll end up finishing where they did in 2021, with all the wheel-spinning that implies. Last November, I wrote an post wondering whether the Bucs had reached the bottom of the valley — whether 2021 was the lowest point of the rebuild and if the team would start building up from there:
“I want the 2021 season to be the worst one the Pirates have for a long time. I want the Bucs to really start building at the major-league level toward that brighter future that management has promised since Cherington was hired two years ago. But if the Pirates are going to field another roster of flotsam in next summer and hope that midseason promotions from Indianapolis bail them out, I’m not so sure 2022 will be all that much better than 2021.”
That was almost exactly how the 2022 season played out, and here we are in early October once again looking back on another season of triple digit losses. It’s depressing, but what’s even more depressing is that nothing the front office has said or done leads me to believe it will take a different approach this offseason. The Pirates almost have to be better in 2023 — although, in fairness, I thought the same thing about 2022 last October — but such improvement, should it occur, will be modest. The Pirates of the 1950s lost 100 or more games in three straight seasons, and it would take 6 more years for the Bucs to go to from the basement to the penthouse with their 1960 championship season. Looking back on a season like this one, it’s hard to wonder if this rebuild still has 6 years to go, or if it’s even longer.
Bucco Ball 