'That's where we want to be': After watching opponents clinch, Pirates eye playoff run in '24

Watching two teams celebrate clinching NL wild-card playoff berths against them in the final week of the season — the Phillies last Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia and the Miami Marlins on Saturday night at PNC Park — left a lasting impression on the Pittsburgh Pirates.

On the day of the season finale, Pirates players talked about how they envisioned it could be them next year doing the exchanging of hugs, popping bottles of champagne and preparing for a postseason run.

“For sure, I think especially the one on your home field,” Pirates All-Star closer David Bednar said. “It’s something that that’s where we want to be and the position that we want to be in.”

The Pirates (76-86) completed a 14-win jump over their 2022 record, when they lost 100 games for the second consecutive season for the first time since the mid-1950s. As much as the Pirates took pride in that improvement, they were far from satisfied.

“The message is, we need to continue to get better,” manager Derek Shelton said. “We got significantly better by winning more games. We’re still not where we want to be. A lot of the messaging for this was, every single time you work out this winter, every single time you take ground balls or you hit or you lift or when you’re getting up to do something, think about the fact that we watched two teams celebrate and that’s where we want to be.”

Instead, after taking two of three games against the NL Central champion Milwaukee Brewers and at the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds to help knock both teams out of contention, Pirates players have raised the level of expectations to where making the playoffs has gone from a wish to a plan.

“It shows every single person who’s in this room that we’re there. We can do it,” Pirates All-Star right-hander Mitch Keller said. “There have been conversations in the dugout like, ‘Dang, this is a playoff team that we’re playing against, and we’re right there with them, if not better than them.’ We’re playing better baseball, pitching, hitting, we’re putting it all together. So, absolutely, I think it gives everybody in here the idea that we’re going to make it but the expectation that we’re going to make it next year. That’s kind of what’s changed. We’re fully expecting to be there next year.”

Before Sunday’s finale, a 3-0 win over the Marlins on the 10th anniversary of their NL wild-card win over the Cincinnati Reds, Shelton showed highlights from that game and reminded players that they were much closer to clinching than they realized. The Pirates had the best record in the National League (20-9) before going 8-19 in May, and remained in first place in the NL Central through mid-June before their season started to spiral.

“If you flip some of those games we lost in May, we could’ve had easily another five to 10 wins and you’re right there in the playoffs,” third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes said. “For me, I didn’t really even think of it that way until Shelty said it before the game. We were six or seven wins away from these last three games actually playing to get in. When you look at it like that, that’s like a week of baseball. It’s very eye-opening and very motivating for us when we go into the offseason.”

The Pirates finished strong, going 15-13 in September and winning 29 of their final 67 games. That they did so with a lineup littered with rookies and players under club control for at least two more years showed promise that the Pirates are closer to contention than their record indicates.

Hayes and outfielder Bryan Reynolds are signed to long-term contracts, the rest of the team remains under club control for at least two more seasons and they played the majority of the season without shortstop Oneil Cruz, so the Pirates can concentrate on adding pitchers to the starting rotation and at positions like first base this offseason to fill the gaps.

“There is a lot of opportunity for us to … really, we would love to win our division,” Hayes said. “I feel like that is our goal and I feel that is in the atmosphere for us especially with how we finished. For the most part, everyone is going to be back next year. Looking forward to it.”

After a season of peaks and valleys that saw them go from first place to last only to finish fourth in the NL Central for the second consecutive season, the Pirates know there is promise for a playoff run. Next comes the greater challenge: Living up to that potential.

“The next step will be harder,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said Sunday on his weekly radio show on 93.7 The Fan. “It won’t be easier. It will be harder to get to where we want to be, so 100% of our focus is to be one of those teams next year.”