A day after matching the franchise single-game record for homers at 7 and winning easily because of it, the Pirates were held to a mere two runs Saturday in succumbing to the New York Mets.
But cheer up Pirates fans, because in the new, not-so-improved National League, the Pirates are playoff contenders.
Yes, the Pirates’ record was a modest 42-46 and at game’s end Saturday they were mired in third place in the NL Central Division, 9.5 games behind division-leading Milwaukee and four games back of runnerup St. Louis.
On the face of it, this is not exactly inspiring stuff a few weeks ahead of what has come to be referred to as the unofficial end of Pirates season, that being the opening of Steelers preseason camp.
More often that not in recent decades, the Pirates have been all but assured of missing the playoffs yet again by this time of the summer, probably destined again to finish below .500 and the attention of Pittsburgh sports fans rightly turned toward the Steelers and their prospects for the coming season.
But in 2024, a combination of Major League Baseball’s expansion to three wild-card teams for each league in 2022, and a particularly mediocre crop of NL teams this year, the Pirates can be mentioned in playoff conversations without provoking outright laughter.
Those NL wild-card standings as of 7:50-ish p.m. Saturday showed the Pirates sitting fourth in a pack of seven teams within 6 games of the final wild-card spot, currently being held by the Cardinals.
For many, more successful franchises, this would be damning with faint praise akin to the line from the movie Dumb And Dumber where one in a million odds prompted a character to say, “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
But for the Pirates it’s enough that yes, there’s a chance, and it’s better than one in a million.
Five of those seven teams, including the Pirates, lost their most recent contests. Only one of them, the San Francisco Giants, are above .500 in their past 10 games, having gone a modest 6-4.
The Pirates aren’t exactly chasing the 1927 Yankees for that final wild-card spot.
But they are chasing a lot of teams and therein lies the most daunting challenge. It’s better to be nine games behind one team, than five or six games behind five or six teams. It’s hard to count on all the teams ahead of the Pirates to go on massive losing streaks, just as it stretches the bounds of reason to expect the Pirates to run off, say, 10 consecutive wins.
The Pirates’ best run of success this season was five straight wins to open the campaign. They have won as many as three in a row only twice since.
The Pirates need to get uncharacteristically hot and the competition has to go stone cold.
I don’t expect the Pirates to make the postseason. I’m just saying there’s a chance.
Sam Ross Jr's site 