Ever since Doug asked to play the Brewers every day after Monday’s victory, the Pirates have gone 0-2 against Milwaukee. Tonight was another game where it never felt like the Bucs were ever close to winning. After the Brewers blooped their way to 3 runs off Paul Skenes in the 4th, the game felt over immediately. The Pirates couldn’t muster up any offense against yet another left handed pitcher, and they go quietly into that good night 4-2. Watch Dinardo and I break the game down here:

Paul Skenes Isn’t At Fault, But We Need Him to Be a Star

Paul Skenes was not very efficient tonight, throwing a mere 53 strikes on 93 pitches. He walked 4 batters, which ultimately became his downfall tonight as he continues to be the unluckiest pitcher in baseball. He only surrendered 2 hits, one of which was a broken bat single that scored 2 runs. Paul did not pitch badly enough to warrant a loss or to even give up 3 earned runs. However, the Pirates need Paul to be more than good and unlucky. The Pirates need Paul to be the Cy Young level pitcher that he has been in his first 2 seasons in the majors. With the offense slowing down and the rotation heading towards uncertainty without Mitch Keller, Skenes has to be the stopper that wills the team to wins with his heroics. It is not entirely his fault, as the defense behind him continues to make his numbers look worse than they actually are. With that said, anyone with eyes can tell that this simply isn’t good enough and even worse to happen during the team’s worst skid of the season. He is not the main culprit but he is a major reason as to why the Pirates are 3-12 in Skenes’ last 15 starts.

Ben Cherington’s Lack of Urgency Will Cost Him His Job

The Pirates entered tonight with the 26th best wRC+ against left-handed pitching and promptly got shut out by Kyle Harrison over 5 innings. Harrison even managed to strikeout 8 Pirates batters in a row on his way to 10 on the night. Ben Cherington saw a glaring weakness on the team and decided to not address the problem at the deadline. Despite players like Jo Adell, Taylor Ward, and others going for pennies on the dollar, Cherington baulked at the prices. He instead added 4 relievers. left-handed bat to plug the holes, and the Pirates continue to suffer for it. Even if the team manages to rally and make the playoffs, they are going to get shut down completely as long as the opposing team employs enough left-handed arms. When the team limps to 80-82 and finishes 6 games out of a playoff spot, Cherington should rightly be shown the door for his incompetence. He had the chance to fix things and decided that Ronny Simon would work well enough. A lack of urgency will best describe the 7 years of our lives that Cherington has wasted running our beloved team into the ground.

Pirates Might Already Be Out of the Race

The Pirates will fall to 4.5 games out of a wild card spot after tonight, and are behind 2 teams who sold at the deadline (Cardinals and Marlins). It is going to take a Herculean effort to get themselves out of this hole, especially since they have refused to go on any extended winning streaks this season. The team has never been able to put together a stretch of games where every single part is firing on all cylinders. If they want to catch the Diamondbacks and Padres, there needs to be changes and soon or else they will end up playing meaningless September games yet again.