Opinion: Most disappointing Pittsburgh Pirates series losses this season

It has been less than a month since baseball made its regular season return and the Pittsburgh Pirates have already lost four out of their six series played. The only series they have won came against the St. Louis Cardinals.

However, that’s not really a surprise when you look at the Buccos performance over the last several years, finishing below .500 ever since 2018.

Let’s break down each series and how disappointing the respective losses were:

4: Pirates vs New York Yankees (1-2 series)

This series loss didn’t come to a surprise given the Pirates track record.

The Yankees are coming off a World Series appearance, ultimately losing to the LA Dodgers in five games.

They also retained much of their talent from last season with some additions which helps this team have good odds for another good season. That fared over well as they traveled to Pittsburgh.

The Buccos allowed New York to trounce them, scoring 19 runs over their two losses, which just goes to show that the defense isn’t performing well.

They are tied for the second worst fielding percentage (.975) and have recorded the second most number of errors (17) in the league.

At the same time, you can’t win games when you don't have any offense either. The Pirates only managed to score four runs in each of their pair of losses.

Pittsburgh ranks dead last with a whopping .195 team batting average, which translates to their 6-12 record. If you can hit the ball, you can't win games and it shows.

3: Pirates at Tampa Bay Rays (1-2 series)

Again, this isn’t the most disappointing loss because the Rays are statistically better than the Bucs (and somewhat expected).

The Rays have Jonathan Aranda, who is currently the No. 1 hitter in all of baseball, making contact roughly 40% of the time. The rest of the team isn’t far behind, ranking inside the top-3 in the league.

That is part of the reason they were able to route dominant 6-1 and 7-0 victories over the black and gold. Pair that with a dominant series for the pitching staff and it’s a deadly combo.

The Rays rank towards the middle in the pack in terms of pitching, but they managed to limit the number of Pirates hits and struck out 25 batters between their two victories.

Like mentioned earlier, Pittsburgh has the worst team batting average in the league which ultimately cost them the series. The team will occasionally show signs of promise to find ways to score, but it’s far and few between given their -24 scoring differential.

2: Pirates at Cincinnati Reds (0-3 series)

Getting swept by a division rival isn’t something fans like to see.

What makes it worse is the fact that they only had 10 hits throughout the entire series and only scored half of those base runners.

Not much different can be said about the Reds, having had only 14 hits in the series. However, they were able to plate 14 runners, including the players who reached base from walks.

Part of the battle is getting players on base, but that is all for not when the next batters can’t follow it up with something that can lead to a run.

Cincinnati is a team that the Pirates should be able to capture a winning series from, so it’s disappointing to see them get swept. The Bucs have won five of the past eight series against the Reds, so it’s not unlikely that they will continuously get swept by them.

1: Pirates at Miami Marlins (1-3 series)

All that needs to be said is relief. The Pirates relief pitchers were the main reason that they lost three games in walk-off fashion, preventing what could've been a perfect 4-0 start.

Paul Skenes, Bailey Falter and Andrew Heaney all had quality starts, but the pitchers that followed them struggled to hold onto the lead to get the win.

Specifically, David Bednar entered two of the games in the bottom of the ninth with hopes to take it to extra innings.

In those innings, however, he gave up a triple, intentional walk and walk-off single one game alongside a wild pitch which scored the runner on third in the next. He was optioned to Triple-A two days later.

Although, all the blame can’t be placed on the pitchers because the offense weren’t able to plate any runners when needed.

This opening series made history, but not the way Pirates fans would’ve hoped. The Marlins became the first team since 1901 to capture three walk-off wins during the first series of the season.

That seems to be a telling sign for how the rest of the season will play out and it will likely be a long regular season for Bucco fans.

Carlin Whalen is a fourth-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email cjw6426@psu.edu.