As bad as it has been for the Pirates, the Chicago White Sox are forsaken
It’s bad being the Pittsburgh Pirates.
It’s worse being the Chicago White Sox.
Yes, Yinzers, there are baseball fan bases that are dealing with tougher times than you.
Well, a few anyway. The Colorado Rockies are 22-74. By comparison, the Pirates (39-58) have 17 more wins than the Rockies.
Did you catch that? Colorado has 17 fewer wins than the Pirates. How is it possible — at the All-Star break — to have 17 fewer wins than another last-place team?
Also, consider the Bucs only have nine wins in 20 starts with Paul Skenes on the mound. But that’s a story for another column.
Then there’s Chicago. The White Sox come to PNC Park this weekend at 32-65. That’s the worst record in the American League. They are 27 games behind the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers.
This team has won consecutive games just once this month. By the time April 23 hit, the club was already 5-19, and the season was over.
Not only that, but the White Sox are particularly dreadful on the road. They are 11-36. Meanwhile, the Bucs have actually been good at PNC Park, winning 26 of 47 games.
With 332 runs scored, Kansas City (328) is the only AL offense that has fewer than Chicago. Also, at minus-98, only the Athletics (minus-134) have a worse run differential.
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Bailey Falter (6-4, 3.79), Mike Burrows (1-3, 4.83) and Andrew Heaney (4-8, 4.59) are slated to start for the Pirates. They’ll be opposed by Jonathan Cannon (3-7, 4.44), Adrian Houser (5-2, 1.56) and Aaron Civale (1-6, 5.30).
Even more disheartening for the franchise is that newly installed Pope Leo XIV is a White Sox fan. Yet his team is still this bad.
In Pittsburgh, we’ve been waiting for divine intervention since Sid Bream started to round third base in October of 1992. Now that the White Sox get to cut in line, what does that mean for how long we have to wait?
I mean, there’s turning water into wine and then there’s asking for Oneil Cruz to remember how many outs there are.
Who are we to expect miracles from above at this point?
At any rate, this is the perfect chance for the Pirates to generate some momentum coming out of the All-Star Break.
They stopped the bleeding of an eight-game losing streak on Sunday in Minnesota. Now, how about starting off with a sweep of the White Sox at home this weekend?
It’s Yinzerpalooza weekend after all. Mac Miller Bobblehead Doll Night is Saturday. The doll itself plays “Knock-Knock.”
Leave it to the Pirates, though, to not answer the door and have Chicago walk outta here with a series win.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
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