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Joe Musgrove slides around a tag-attempt by Seattle Mariners catcher Omar Narvaez to score on a single by Kevin Newman off Mariners starting pitcher Yusei Kikuchi during the second inning Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019.
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The ugly numbers that 90 (or more) Pirates losses can produce

Gene J. Puskar

The ugly numbers that 90 (or more) Pirates losses can produce

Back in spring training, a 90-loss season wasn’t something many expected out of the Pirates.

Eighty losses, maybe. Perhaps 82-80. Or, for the most optimistic crowd, a loss total somewhere in the mid-to-high 70s, the Pirates saved by their solid starting pitching.

It’s been a long six months, hasn’t it?

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None of that stuff turned out to be accurate, especially not the pitching part, and as a result the Pirates have lost at least 90 games for the first time since dropping 105 in 2010.

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The pitching staff has an ERA of 5.26, the highest for the franchise since well before Prohibition, while off-the-field issues and a second-half collapse have come to define this group more than anything.

What goes into a 90-loss season?

We broke it down for you, although fair warning, it’s not pretty. A by-the-numbers look at how the Pirates — now with 91 losses — got here and what it means:

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24: The number of 90-loss seasons in franchise history.

11: Ninety-loss seasons for the Pirates since 1998, which means they’ve had a 90-loss season in half of those 22 years.

31: Times the Pirates have allowed 10 or more runs in a game in 2019, with 30 of those coming in losses. Put another way: Nearly a third of the time they’ve lost, they’ve been pummeled. It’s the most times giving up 10 or more runs since the 1999 Colorado Rockies, a team so bad its pitchers had a 7.14 ERA at home.

15: Losses for the Pirates on both Saturdays and Sundays, tied for their worst two days of the week. Friday has been the best, with only 11 of the losses coming then. They’re lost 12 times on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and 14 times on Wednesday.

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.232: The Pirates’ batting average in their losses. It looks low, but it’s still second-best in Major League Baseball. They’re actually hitting an MLB-best .309 in their wins, although batting average obviously isn’t everything — hence the Pirates losing 90-plus games with the sixth-best batting average in all of baseball (.265). The Pirates have a .644 OPS (tied-11th) when they lose compared to .878 (15th) when they win.

Minus-398: That’s the Pirates’ run differential in their losses, an astounding number. They’ve also given up 685 runs in their 91 losses, an average of 7.5 per game. They’ve scored an average of just 3.2.

26,304: That’s the average number of fans who’ve watched the Pirates lose a baseball game this season. At PNC Park, the average attendance in losses has been 17,702 with six games to go. The Pirates are actually averaging 258 more fans per game, an average of 18,628.

9: The Pirates’ longest losing streak, achieved July 21-29 and during this current run that dates back to Friday, Sept. 13.

67: Home runs hit by the Pirates in their losses. They’ve hit 93 in their 65 wins.

14: Times the Pirates have been swept in a series this season, which works out to a total of 44 games. The Pirates will start their 22nd series since the All-Star break on Tuesday against the Cubs. They’ve been swept nine times in the first 21 of those.

45: Number of losses in 70 games this season against National League Central teams.

46: Losses in 67 games since the All-Star break. The Pirates were 44-45 entering the break but have gone just 21-46 coming out.

58: Losses the Pirates have incurred when the other teams scored first. They have won just 21 of those. Meanwhile, the Pirates are 44-33 when they score first.

27: Losses in 41 games against left-handed starting pitchers. Hitting lefties has been a issue for the Pirates this season. They’re hitting .247 against southpaws, which ranks 22nd. The two more confounding parties have been Josh Bell and Bryan Reynolds. Bell has a .224 average against lefties, while Reynolds is at .270 — respectable but a far cry from the .337 he’s hitting against right-handed pitchers.

.676: The Pirates’ OPS against left-hander pitchers, which ranks last in MLB.

71: Losses against teams with a .500 or better record, second-most in baseball. Beating good teams has been a prolonged problem for the Pirates this season, especially lately. Give them credit, at least they beat up the other bad team teams. They’re 38-19 against sub-.500 teams in 2019. But this might be the ugliest number of them all: Since the All-Star break, the Pirates have played 44 games against teams with a record of .500 or better. They’ve lost 37 of them, for a record of 7-37.

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Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.

First Published: September 23, 2019, 4:16 p.m.

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Joe Musgrove slides around a tag-attempt by Seattle Mariners catcher Omar Narvaez to score on a single by Kevin Newman off Mariners starting pitcher Yusei Kikuchi during the second inning Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019.  (Gene J. Puskar)
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