When the Pittsburgh Pirates return to PNC Park, the NFL Draft will be over so the Steelers no longer will be at center stage on the North Shore and the Penguins could be eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Pirates have a chance to capture the city’s attention in a way they haven’t since 2023, when they finished April with the best record (20-9) in the National League and were the talk of the baseball world.
Where those Pirates were swinging swords, celebrating home runs by wearing a custom jacket and placing a Pikachu doll in pitchers’ lockers, these Pirates have their own goofy gimmicks: hoisting traffic cones, wearing a welder’s mask and giving out hard hats to the pitcher and hitter of the game.
These Pirates entered Friday with a 14-11 record going into the weekend series against the Milwaukee Brewers, two games back in an NL Central where first and last place are separated by only 2 ½ games. That’s slightly behind the pace of the 2023 team, which was 16-7 and held a half-game lead in the division on April 24. They outscored opponents, 156-108, in the first 29 games, going 9-4 at home and 11-5 on the road.
But those Pirates started May by losing six consecutive games in getting swept by the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays on their way to losing 10 of 11. They endured a 10-game losing streak in mid-June and finished the season with a minus-98 run differential, 37 blown leads and twice as many walk-off losses (six) as wins.
The Bucs believe this team won’t go into a tailspin.
“We’re just better, in general, all around,” said Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds, one of four players remaining from April 2023. “We’re never out of a game. We have a deep lineup with a lot of talented hitters who can hit home runs or get on base and run. I feel like that was just a hot spell that teams get on. This team, we just play to our abilities and we’re going to win.”
Reynolds, starting pitcher Mitch Keller, reliever Yohan Ramirez and shortstop-turned-center fielder Oneil Cruz are the only holdovers from April 2023. Cruz fractured his left ankle in the ninth game and missed the remainder of the season, and Carmen Mlodzinski, Henry Davis, Nick Gonzales and Jared Triolo didn’t make their MLB debuts until that June.
Thanks to the additions of All-Stars Brandon Lowe, Ryan O’Hearn and Marcell Ozuna to a lineup that featured Cruz and Reynolds, the Pirates are averaging 4.9 runs per game this season. They have scored seven or more runs eight times this season but topped 10 only once, in a 16-5 win over the Washington Nationals on April 13.
“This is a good offense,” Reynolds said, “and we’re going to score runs.”
The 2023 Pirates averaged 5.4 runs through the first 29 games but that number was inflated by double-digit run totals in blowouts of the Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies (twice) and Nationals. The Pirates scored two or fewer runs in nine games during that stretch and have four comeback wins.
“It’s awesome,” Keller said. “There’s never a doubt with this offense. We’ve proven that we are always in it and we are always going to fight and claw back.”
Perhaps the most positive sign is those 2023 Pirates only played three games against teams with a record better than .500 (going 2-1 against the Los Angeles Dodgers), where these Pirates are more battle-tested. They are 5-4 against teams .500 or better, taking two of three from both the Cincinnati Reds and the Rays and one against the San Diego Padres.
An MLB talent evaluator told TribLive that the Pirates have the starting pitching to contend and an improved offense — even if it’s at the expense of their defense, which improved with the promotion of baseball’s No. 1 prospect in shortstop Konnor Griffin.
The key will be how these Pirates fare against their division foes. They start a stretch of nine consecutive games against NL Central opponents with a three-game series at Milwaukee this weekend, followed by three each against the St. Louis Cardinals and Reds at home next week.
Pirates manager Don Kelly, who was the bench coach on the 2023 team, isn’t as concerned about the NL Central standings in April but instead remains focused on how to keep the team at an even keel so that their success can become sustainable and avoid the long losing streaks.
“For us, we can sit here and look at standings and everything. What I’ve challenged our guys on is to focus on us and make sure that we’re doing what we need to do every single day to go out and dominate our job and how we prepare and how we compete,” Kelly said. “I think the thing that’s been impressive is the way that we’ve been able to do that. Good game, bad game, whatever happened the day before, to put it behind us and come out the next day and continue to do what we do.
“Internally, if we start to look at that stuff, we’re losing focus of what we need to do every day. I see it, it’s impressive the success of the Central, and we’ve got to continue to focus on our stuff every single day to be able to take care of business for the Pirates.”