Weary from losing 12 of 13 games, Pirates limp toward finish line

In a shortened season that rookie manager Derek Shelton repeatedly referred to as “a sprint, not a marathon,” the Pittsburgh Pirates are limping toward the finish line.

The Pirates lost 12 of 13 games leading into the final week of their 60-game campaign, blowing strong pitching performances over the weekend by starters Mitch Keller and Joe Musgrove.

Not that they had much hope for the playoffs, but the Pirates were the first MLB team eliminated from postseason contention. That appears merciful to some players, who were bearing the burden of so much losing.

“I feel like right now everyone’s carrying a little extra weight and a little extra pressure,” Musgrove said after a career-high 11 strikeouts in six scoreless innings in a 2-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday. “At this point of the season, we’re not making the playoffs. Our ultimate goal of getting into the playoffs and winning a World Series is gone. I think we need to change our goal, and we need to look at improving ourselves as players from the mindset and a performance standpoint.”

Musgrove believes Pirates players need to have a mindset of being focused solely on doing their job without worrying about whether they win or lose. For a team with a 15-38 record entering Monday’s game against the Chicago Cubs at PNC Park, the results no longer matter. The Pirates are the worst team in the major leagues and will finish last in the NL Central for the second consecutive season even if they win the remainder of their games.

Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said Sunday on 93.7 FM the team “expected to win more games.” A 4-17 start to the season, which included a seven-game losing streak, certainly didn’t help. Neither did the mounting injuries, from starters Musgrove and Keller to high-leverage relievers Nick Burdi, Kyle Crick, Michael Feliz and Keone Kela to corner infielder Phillip Evans.

The Pirates were out of contention before they could even dig their heels in.

“Getting off to the start that we did, putting ourselves in a hole, it definitely made our jobs a lot harder,” Musgrove said. “As much as you’d like to say, ‘Put it behind you, go out and win the next one,’ when you go through a week or two of poor performance, there is added pressure. Because, every year, you’re aiming for one goal, and every team’s aiming for that same goal. You feel yourself slipping and slipping farther away from that, you have no choice but to press.

“Things have to turn around at some point if you want to still have a chance to compete. I’m really hoping that in these last handful of games here, we can not take a selfish mindset but really look at our own careers and our own effort and mentality that we’re taking every day and try to improve on our own game and make strides to carry over into next year.”

If there is a silver lining to the season, it’s that the Pirates haven’t lost faith in Shelton despite their dreary record. Shelton has brought open communication and relentless positivity into a clubhouse that seemed to have lost faith in Clint Hurdle, who was fired an hour before the season finale last year.

Pirates second baseman/left fielder Adam Frazier called it a “night-and-day difference from where we were at last season at this point,” and middle infielder Kevin Newman said Shelton has been “amazing.”

“Through the struggles, through the ups and the downs, he’s made sure to allow us to still have a positive mindset, to use the downs as learning opportunities,” Newman said Saturday, before suffering a season-ending knee injury when hit by a pitch. “We’re going to be good eventually, and we know it. So we’re going to come back next year, we’re going to learn from the mistakes we made this year, we’re going to learn from what we need to accomplish to be competitive next year.”

That 19 of their 53 games have been decided by one run is a sign that the Pirates are competitive. The problem? They have won only six of those games. The Pirates also have lost 11 games by five runs or more, so they’re not immune to blowouts. They are 2-15 in interleague play, where Shelton’s AL Central experience was viewed as an advantage. And that’s with three games left at Cleveland this weekend.

If there’s reason for optimism, it’s from the return of staff ace and team leader Jameson Taillon from his second Tommy John surgery, as well as the emergence of young pitchers such as Keller, JT Brubaker and Blake Cederlind and third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, who quickly has become their best overall player.

The question is: Can the Pirates win with the same cast next season?

“We’re pretty confident in being able to be competitive,” Frazier said. “We’ve been in a lot of games that we haven’t won, so it’s just taking that next step and learning how to win games as a group. When that happens, I think we’re right in the mix.”

“It’s been a weird year. Throw that on top of things. All the changes that have been made have been changed for the good. We know we’re competitive. A couple things go our way and a couple more guys stay healthy the whole year, then I think that question’s worded a little bit different and we’re having a different conversation right now.”