Talking Baseball: Vol. 8
The Pittsburgh Pirates had a make-or-break home stand, and things broke.
We saw the potential for what Pittsburgh can be as a baseball town on Friday night against the New York Mets.
We saw the excitement that can happen when you give people a reason to care about this team.
It was a fairly meaningful early July game against a New York Mets team they were competing with for a Wild Card spot, even if the race has been watered down. The young phenom starting pitcher, Paul Skenes, was on the mound. And there was a sell out crowd in attendance that absolutely brought the energy.
And for one night? The Pirates dazzled.
Skenes, while not completely dominant, was still mostly brilliant and gave them seven strong innings to continue his All-Star rookie season.
The offense showed up for one night and tied a franchise record with seven home runs, including two grand slams, and literally had the stadium shaking with noise. It was such an incredible night at the stadium that the sell out crowd mostly stayed the entire way through a 14-2 win when there was no post-game fireworks display to keep them around. People were just … enjoying the moment. It was honestly one of the best nights I ever had at PNC Park.
A couple of nights earlier they provided another moment with a walk-off, come-from-behind extra innings win against the St. Louis Cardinals in another huge game against a team they were chasing.
The problem is they were just that. Moments. Brief glimpses of hope that almost immediately get erased because they are unable to build on them.
Not to overstate the significance of this seven-game home stand, but it was probably a make-or-break stretch for how the rest of this season was going to go. Given the way the Wild Card race is starting to sort itself out, as well as the proximity to the trade deadline, and the fact they were getting seven games against teams they were chasing they probably had to go at least 5-2 in these games to realistically stay in it and give the front office a reason to try and add. At worst they could probably go 4-3. They just simply had to “win” the home stand to keep treading water in the race.
No matter what they do on Monday afternoon against the Mets, they are not going to win it. The best they can hope for is 3-4. That is just not good enough.
What makes it even worse is that it isn’t just a missed opportunity in a season of missed opportunities.
It is the way they missed the opportunity. It is everything that makes this franchise just completely unserious as a potential contender.
Just about everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong, including injuries to starting pitchers Jared Jones and Bailey Falter.
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