Look, baseball is a long season.
If there is any sport that you can’t overreact to, it’s the one that insists on playing 162 games in the span of about six months. Things could completely change between now and May, let alone now and the end of September.
But even with such a long season, it’s still crucial to get off to a hot start. The standings can pass you by faster than you realize, and when you are a team like the Pirates, catching lightning in a bottle is the only real way you can find success.
The 2025 Pirates are not a team with a ton of talent. They have arguably the best pitcher in baseball in Paul Skenes and a solid number two guy in Mitch Keller — but no one else in the true upper echelon of talent.
They have Bryan Reynolds, a very reliable hitter who is calm and collected no matter the in-game situation. But every serious contender has at least two players of Reynolds’ stature, if not more.
Oneil Cruz and Nick Gonzales — who is already on the 10-day IL — have their moments, but have yet to truly break out.
Their relatively cheaply constructed bullpen is full of question marks, full of players the Pirates hope can have bounce-back years. This includes returning players like David Bednar and Ryan Borucki, as well as external additions like Justin Lawrence and Tim Mayza.
Simply put, this is not a team that can win on talent alone. They have to find more crafty ways to win ball games, meaning they have to win in the margins and win by playing sound, smart, fundamental baseball.
That goes for both the players and for manager Derek Shelton, and both were not good at it last year. The 2024 Pirates cratered in early August, tanking their playoff hopes and killing the enthusiasm they had created in this town.
But while it’s impossible to write off an entire season in four games, the Pirates sure seemed to want to test that theory with how they played down in Miami. The Pirates opened the season in historic fashion, losing three of their first four games to the Marlins. The Pirates are the first team in MLB history since the 1924 Pirates to have their first three losses come in walk-off fashion.
The Pirates led in all three of those losses, and their starting pitching was let down by a bullpen that was incapable of keeping the lead.
It was a carbon copy of last year’s Bucs from down the stretch.
That included blowing Paul Skenes’ season debut, where the reigning NL Rookie of the Year tossed 5.1 innings and held the Marlins to two runs, leaving with a multi-run lead. Colin Holderman surrendered two runs in the eighth, and Bednar could not get an out in the ninth, giving Miami an Opening Day win.
Pittsburgh evened the series the next day, largely behind a Cruz homer and a solid day on the mound from Keller, who pitched six innings with one run against.
But their same mistakes crept back into the third and fourth games, which included an extra innings defeat on Saturday and an unconventional walk-off defeat on Sunday.
One thing you could appreciate about the Pirates’ first four games was their willingness to get aggressive on the bases. Pittsburgh stole 15 bases in Miami, nearly double the second-placed Boston Red Sox.
But Bae and Endy Rodriguez were also called out in critical times of Sunday’s loss. In addition to that, Miami was a perfect 5-0 on attempts against Rodriguez and starting Pirates catcher Joey Bart.
But despite that success, the Pirates got in their own way.
Three times, Shelton has sent Bednar out for the ninth inning, where the embattled righty has surrendered three runs and been walked off twice, including Sunday’s loss that ended with a Bednar wild pitch. He has only recorded three total outs in as many appearances.
Twice, Shelton sent Holderman out in a high-stakes situation, where he surrendered runs and the lead.
Twice, Cruz slingshotted the ball towards home plate in a failed attempt to gun down a runner, which allowed a runner from first to get to second. He also dropped a catch in the bottom of the 12th inning, shortly before the Pirates lost.
Twice, third base coach Mike Rabelo sent home a runner who was easily called out at home.
Twice on Sunday, Ji Hwan Bae — whose main appeal is his speed and base-stealing ability — started to steal in the eighth inning before shutting it down, only to try a riskier play and go for third, for which he was called out.
This series wasn’t about money. Pittsburgh was playing one of the very few MLB teams who are spending less than the Pirates this year. Believe it or not, the Pirates actually double Miami’s active roster spending.
It was just a comedy of errors for the Pirates. It was an aggravating, frustrating, bad brand of baseball, one that would make a Little Leaguecoach pull their hair out.
But worse than that, it was indistinguishable from last year. This team was just a continuation of the 2024 Pirates during this series, and that is simply unacceptable.
I said baseball is a long season, and that is true. But the standings can pass you by faster than you realize. We saw last year how a few bad weeks can tank your entire season, and if the Pirates dig themselves too big a hole, they’ll spend all year long trying to dig themselves out of it and never end up doing it.
The optimistic Pirates fan — if you are one, God bless your heart — could hope that the team uses this series as a wake-up call for when they head nearly 300 miles north to take on the Tampa Bay Rays.
But what has this series shown us to convince anyone that this team is different than last year? Some of the names and numbers are different, but the mistakes are the same, both on the field and from the dugout.
A 1-3 start is manageable, but the turnaround has to start right now. That might sound like hyperbole, but it’s not. The Pirates can’t fall behind in the standings, or their Buctober hopes will drown by the summer.
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