The last time the Pirates were here, they employed four players named Dick, Elvis Presley released his first single shortly after the All-Star break, and kidney transplants were still a novel concept in the medical world.
After losing 100 or more games in back-to-back seasons for the first time in franchise history in 1952-53, the 1954 team — Pittsburgh’s worst of the modern era with 112 losses — said goodbye to pitcher Murry Dickson, who somehow managed to cram 60 losses into three years, that last one with the Phillies.
A pitcher who was nicknamed “Thomas Edison” for his inventiveness on the mound, Dickson served in the U.S. Army during World War II and once literally shared a foxhole with Gen. George Patton.
Yeah, just in case you thought this current group of Bucs came under fire.
Jokes aside, these Pirates — against paper-thin odds — have now reached 100 losses in back-to-back seasons for the first time since doing it three consecutive times from 1952-54, finishing 62-100 after Wednesday’s 5-3 victory over the Cardinals.
To describe what it feels like to land here, a triple-digit place of purgatory in baseball circles, many players needed just five letters, up from the typical four that have been strewn about often at PNC Park this season.
“It sucks,” David Bednar said.
“Going through one sucks, let alone two,” Mitch Keller said.
“In plain terms,” former Pirate Neil Walker said, “it sucks.”
OK, everybody clear?
Deeper than the dissatisfaction with what has transpired this season is the context contained therein. There are also plenty of pressing questions that dogged the Pirates during this ongoing rebuild.
Is there any hope for the future?
Will owner Bob Nutting spend any money?
Why should anyone watch this team?
It’s certainly a tough sell right now — but not impossible. Oneil Cruz, all 6-foot-7 of him, remains a tantalizing talent ... and also plenty polarizing when you consider the ongoing debate of exit velocity, batting average and the relative validity of each.
After previously crafting a launching pad for opposing hitters, the Pirates have also discovered the makings of a halfway decent starting rotation, one with a 3.61 ERA over the past five weeks, a credit to the work done by Mitch Keller, Roansy Contreras, Johan Oviedo, Luis Ortiz and JT Brubaker.
Alongside Cruz have been encouraging performances from young position players such as Jack Suwinski and Rodolfo Castro, though nobody gets to 100 losses in back-to-back seasons by accident.
There have been lost cellphones, ill-timed snacks and criticisms lobbed by former MLB players — frustrating stuff that has become national fodder for all the wrong reasons.
But strip it down to the most fundamental part of roster construction, and the Pirates simply need more to put around Ke’Bryan Hayes, Bryan Reynolds, the homegrown Bednar and others — and the clock seems to be ticking on that sort of thing happening. If 2019 was enough to trigger substantive changes, why isn’t that true this time around?
Attendance has dropped from an average of 18,412 in 2019 to 15,524 this season. The Pirates also have the second-worst batting average (.222) in MLB, have 17 more errors than anyone else (121) and have struck out a franchise-record 1,497 times.
Might be the lightest crowd I’ve seen during my time on the beat (since May 2019): pic.twitter.com/eD5SFz9kvm
— Jason Mackey (@JMackeyPG) September 26, 2022
Without getting too terribly analytical here, yeah, it sucks.
“There’s nothing enjoyable about losing 100 games,” Walker said. “When you break it down, it’s essentially losing two out of three or almost three out of four every time you walk into a series. You can kind of get stuck in that mode. I think the big thing, especially as the year ends, you kind of look around, and you say, ‘This is not gonna continue.’”
Nobody knows what that message sounds like better than Walker, the Pine-Richland product and an integral part of the Pirates’ last playoff teams. He remembers all too well what it felt like to lose 105 games in 2010. The 12-game losing streak. The minus-279 run differential. The endless frustration and revolving door of players.
Growing up in Mt. Lebanon and (later) Mars, Bednar remembers that team well. The darkness before dawn, really. As a young Pirate fan, he also enjoys thinking back to what that particular 100-loss season ultimately brought to the North Shore.
“I think every Pirates fan remembers that,” Bednar said. “It’ll just make it that much sweeter when we do it. The record stuff sucks. We want to win. But the future is bright. You see a lot of young talent in this room, and hopefully everybody continues to build on that.”
Walker and others knew at the time that it was necessary for those young players to take their lumps, that greater days were ahead. These Pirates like to sing a similar tune, pointing to the talent at Double-A, a deeper farm system and improved development.
Will it work? Hard to say.
To this point, it certainly has not brought meaningful changes to the major league team. Shelton’s crew has gone just 23-46 (.333) since the All-Star break. The Pirates, who have endured 15 shutouts, have used a franchise-record 67 players (the most in MLB and the second-highest total all-time), with an expanded roster’s worth — 28 — being designated for assignment.
The roster churn and dumpster dives have been nonstop, while the notable improvements have been mostly individual: Reynolds performing like a legitimate All-Star, Hayes playing Gold Glove-caliber defense, Bednar blossoming into a bullpen anchor, Cruz showing an ability to hit the ball really, really hard.
“I think a lot of pieces are coming together,” Keller insisted. “It’s all about being a little bit more consistent. Young guys getting more playing time and experience is gonna help us win some of those close games.”
As Walker slogged through those seasons, focusing down the stretch on being a professional, finishing strong and remembering that guys are still playing for jobs and professional pride, he remembers watching certain things take shape.
Small stuff like where someone might hit, the type of plays they’re capable of making or roles defined inside a clubhouse. No, none of them will assuage the frustration that exists within the fan base. That would be impossible to do at this juncture.
But even without George Patton or Murry Dickson, the Pirates must begin to figure out how to climb out of the foxhole and rediscover what it takes to win.
“I’m a firm believer that you learn more from losing than you do winning,” Walker said. “You hope going into 2023 that there’s a little more continuity and not as many moving pieces, guys kinda buying into their roles and having a little more stability as far as what they’re asked to do on a daily basis.”
In other words, don’t suck.
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: October 5, 2022, 12:27 p.m.
Updated: October 5, 2022, 12:28 p.m.
