Tim Benz: The Pirates keep trying to tell us who they are. We should just listen

If you ever forget who the Pittsburgh Pirates really are, give them five minutes. They’ll remind you right away.

Just three days after completing a sweep of St. Louis in which the Bucs shut out the Cards in all three contests (7-0, 1-0, 5-0), manager Don Kelly’s team countered that effort by going out to Seattle and losing in shutout fashion three games in a row (6-0, 1-0, 1-0).

According to OptaStats, no team in the history of Major League Baseball has ever done that.

The Pirates were shut out in all three games of their series against the Mariners after shutting out the Cardinals in all three games of their previous series. They are the first team in MLB history to have back-to-back series of 3+ games with a sweep of shutouts for and against,… pic.twitter.com/6EyWyLsijB

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) July 6, 2025

That’s about as Bucco-riffic as it gets right there. No team undercuts its own momentum and snuffs its own optimism like the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Next time they win a few in a row — such as the six-game win streak they just completed, which featured a 43-4 run differential against St. Louis and the New York Mets — just remember what happened this weekend in Seattle.

That was soooooo … Pirates.

It was a microcosm of the organization over the last 10 years since the franchise’s last playoff appearance.

Eh, forget that. It was a microcosm of most of the last three decades since the most recent National League division crown in 1992.

They went from the ultimate high of blowing out New York three straight games when the Mets came into town as a first-place club to blanking the Cards for 27 straight innings — only to follow that up by traveling 2,532 miles so they could fail to score a single run over three days of baseball.

Only the Pirates.

If you ever needed confirmation of the old baseball axiom that even the worst teams will win 50 games, and even the best teams will lose 50 games, it’s the other 62 that determine the standings, well, these Pirates are proving that this year.

Actually, they just proved it over the past 10 days.

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Sunday’s loss to the Mariners was particularly galling. Pittsburgh ace Paul Skenes was locked in a pitching duel with George Kirby. It was scoreless entering the bottom of the fifth, and Skenes was pulled after only 78 pitches through five innings. He had 10 strikeouts and no walks.

“We have a plan. We want him on the mound. He wants to be on the mound. But he’s in the top five in innings pitched in the big leagues. Like we talked about before, (we are) just trying to find ways to manage that with him and for him — we want him for the full season. Make sure that he’s in a good spot,” Kelly said via SportsNet Pittsburgh’s postgame show.

May I humbly suggest, Donnie, that the plan should be flexible enough to extend beyond five innings when the team is in a scoreless tie and Skenes has been dominant through just 78 pitches?

I mean, Zack Wheeler just threw a complete game with 108 pitches going in the box score, and the Phillies are in a pennant race atop the N.L. East. You couldn’t have thrown Skenes back out for the sixth inning and gotten him out at roughly 90 pitches and still considered that an economical day?

Last year’s NL Rookie of the Year was asked about his short outing and if he was told in advance that Sunday may be a “light volume day.”

“Yeah. I didn’t know the extent of it, but I knew that it was going to be lighter. Not a surprise,” Skenes replied.

I’d argue that 78 pitches in a 0-0 game against Kirby in the fifth is too light. Especially since when Skenes came out in the sixth, Carmen Mlodzinski served up a homer to Randy Arozarena for the lone run of the game.

The Randy Man delivers ????

Randy Arozarena clobbers a 110.2 MPH shot! pic.twitter.com/xs1i77KIAF

— MLB (@MLB) July 6, 2025

Managerial decisions with the franchise ace aside, the more pressing matter is that the last time Pittsburgh scored a run was Wednesday afternoon in the seventh inning. The once resurgent Bucco bats have regressed to their formerly anemic ways, striking out 36 times over three games in Seattle.

Oneil Cruz is back in one of his funks, going 1 for 17 since the calendar flipped to July, striking out six times. But, hey, he did have another Statcast moment with his 105 mph throw from center field Sunday.

Oneil Cruz just threw the runner out from center field at 105.2 mph ???? pic.twitter.com/bX8VwFRMHc

— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) July 6, 2025

So that looked good on social media, and it gave the broadcast crews something to talk about for three innings.

The Pirates got everything they deserved Sunday. At the end of the season, I’m willing to bet we’ll be saying the same thing about their overall record.

Despite the moments when we try to fool ourselves again between now and October.