Tim Benz: Pirates doing a lot to prove skeptics right; they better stop the trend this week

A week ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates looked like a team that could do no wrong. Now, for the Bucs, it’s a case of anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

For as good as April was for the Pirates (ending the month 20-9), May has been every bit as bad. Manager Derek Shelton’s club has now lost seven in a row and is 0-6 in the month of May.

The hitters are slumping badly at the plate. The pitching staff is starting to crack. And — with five errors in their past five games, along with some other defensive miscues — the defense has begun to wobble.

During the seven-game losing streak, the Pirates have totaled just nine runs and have failed to score more than two runs in any of those defeats. Via AT&T SportsNet’s postgame show, going seven straight games with two runs or less is the second-longest streak for the franchise since 1969. That’s when Major League Baseball lowered the pitching mound. The team record is nine games.

“We’re just not getting that big hit. The hits that we were getting earlier in the season, we were able to add on, and right now, we’re just lacking that hit to relieve a little bit of that pressure,” Shelton said.

As for the pitching and defense, opposing teams averaged 6.3 runs per game during the weeklong slide.

“No one expected that pace (in April) to keep up,” Shelton said on AT&T SportsNet after Sunday’s loss. “During that time, we were playing full games, and right now, we’re not pitching extremely well. We’re not swinging the bats extremely well. We’ve had some plays we should have made. So we just need to reset a little bit and get back to the consistency we had. A little bit of that has to do with — offensively — just not trying to do too much.”

Given the Pirates’ recent slump, your first instinct might be to say, “Well, at least they’ve got Colorado coming up.”

Indeed, the Rockies are up next on the schedule. They come to PNC Park for three games starting Monday night. They do so as the last-place team in the National League West with a 12-21 record. The Pirates swept Colorado in Denver earlier this year, outscoring the Rockies 33-9 along the way. But manager Bud Black’s team has suddenly won six of its last seven games, including a 13-6 win over the New York Mets on Sunday afternoon. Rookie Brenton Doyle had three hits, including his first career home run.

Brenton Doyle ropes his 1st career homer to cap a 7-run inning for the @Rockies. pic.twitter.com/oFKNVRArts

— MLB (@MLB) May 7, 2023

That was part of a seven-run fifth inning for the Rocks. In four of those six wins, the Rockies have managed seven or more runs.

After Colorado leaves town, the Pirates vist the Baltimore Orioles. That’s a third opponent already this month from the powerhouse American League East after having been swept by both the Tampa Bay Rays and the Toronto Blue Jays. The Orioles are 22-12, in second place of that division.

“I spent a lot of time in the AL East. It will make you gray very fast because it’s a grind, man. It’s deep. It’s thick. They get after it every day,” Shelton said, recalling his coaching stops in Toronto and Tampa Bay. “We did get off to a good start. And we’re going to go through these times. We’re 20-15. We’re in a tough stretch right now, but we have to realize we’re 20-15. We’ve played some good baseball. We just got to get back to it.”

Shelton admitted that, as of late, some injuries may be catching up to the Pirates. The injuries to Oneil Cruz and Ji Man Choi are starting to be felt in the batting order. Andrew McCutchen only had one plate appearance versus the Blue Jays, thanks to a troublesome ankle. J.T. Brubaker is out for the year with Tommy John surgery, and Vince Velasquez is on the injured list with an elbow problem.

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But whatever the issues — and whatever the reasons for them — the Pirates need to stop the bleeding. Fast. No professional franchise has earned skepticism more over the past 30 years than the Pirates. Many had uttered the phrase, “it’s only April,” quite a bit since the Pirates came out of the gates so strong. Now the Pirates seem to be taking every step possible toward proving the cynics right.

Not only that, but part of the “wait and see” analysis had been that the Pirates built their solid start on a bunch of wins against below-average teams. Now that they are playing teams on hot streaks or with good records, playing substandard baseball is getting exposed.

When a significant chunk of the fan base isn’t old enough to remember the last division title or World Series win, it’s no wonder they can forget one good month so quickly.

This week, giving those fans an instant reminder of how the Pirates built that 20-8 record against Colorado and the Orioles is an absolute must.