The Pirates had a chance to sweep the Padres today, and gain serious momentum towards saving this train wreck season. Bubba Chandler delivered a solid outing, and the offense had ample opportunity to knock in runners in scoring position. Instead, the offense fell flat on its face and the Bucs whimper out of San Diego with only 2/3 taken. In a vacuum, not a bad result by any means but the sweep was in their grasps and they couldn’t take advantage. Much like the Dodgers series, this west coast trip will be seen as nothing more than wasted opportunities. Watch Jim and Doug break the game down in detail here:
Here’s my 3 takeaways from this series finale loss…
The Offense is Now Pathetic
As weird as it sounds, the Pirates offense has become the main culprit in sinking the team’s season. For all the greatness we saw in the first half of the season, the offense has shriveled into a dry husk of itself post All-Star Break. The bullpen got fixed, and in turn the lineup got transformed into Tommy Pham and Rowdy Tellez clones overnight. The pitching wasn’t elite but kept the Pirates within striking distance all game. The offense proceeded to take this gift and only mustered a single hit with RISP, despite having 13 chances and not being able to plate a run. They left double-digit runners on base again, and it simply isn’t good enough. The team has stopped hitting for power, and we are learning why singles and walks simply are not enough to win baseball games. The offense has to be good in order to compete for the wild card, and right now they are actively preventing the Bucs from sniffing .500.
Sometimes Good Isn’t Good Enough
The Pirates have never been able to have all 3 phases of the team click at the same time. There has not been a cohesive unit at any point, which explains their lack of hot streak all year. I say all this because Bubba Chandler was not bad today by any stretch of the imagination. He put together a solid performance against a good team. However, the Pirates cannot settle for “good enough” from Chandler when their backs are against the wall. Chandler needed to give up 1 or 0 runs today, and instead he gave up 2 and had to be pulled before finishing 6 innings. This isn’t anti-Chandler; this is the realization that the Pirates must be elite everywhere if they want to go on a run. They have burned through all their chances to be good enough and have to go win 20 games before the end of the season.
What a Frustrating Road Trip
The Pirates end up going 2-4 on their California trip, and if they were outclassed, it would be easy to swallow. However, the Pirates were in pole position to win at least 3 of these games (including today) and simply couldn’t execute. 2 walk-offs allowed to the Dodgers, getting shut out on the final day in San Diego, and being unable to get runners across the plate the entire time made for a must-shut-off television. This team sank its season in the most agonizing way possible by coming so close and not being able to land the plane. This is going to define the entire 2026 season for the Pirates. The inability to finish off games with all the promising talent surrounding the squad. I will have 1-13 with RISP on August 26th burned into my brain for a good while, because I will feel pain about how special the team could have been.
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