Pirates Keep Finding Ways to Lose Winnable Games

So yesterday's show, I opened with the Bill Cowher quote of, so what if we won Ugly?

Well, the Pirates lost Ugly on Wednesday night, and if you want to keep looking at postseason odds, go for it.

I'm not going to stop you, but that was another indicator of just how this team isn't there.

Good morning, welcome to OffBeat, here on North Shore Nine, presented by FanDuel.

My name is Alex Stumpf, and this is a daily look at your Pittsburgh Pirates, who let a winnable game slip through their fingers yet again.

There are a lot of ways that could have turned out differently.

Maybe if Jacob Gonzalez's fly ball traveled two feet further, and that's a walk-off homer.

Maybe if Bryan Reynolds' line drive with two outs in the ninth was two feet shorter, and it drops in for a single instead of a sliding catch.

Maybe if they let Carmen Mlodzinski go out for a fourth inning.

Carmen Mlodzinski was outstanding.

That was the best he's looked in a month.

Not just because it was three perfect innings, but the way he was falling off the mound, where he was locating his pitches, he was hitting the glove.

He looked great.

And I will admit, I raised an eyebrow whenever I saw Camilo Doval go out in the tenth inning.

I asked Don Kelly about it postgame, and he brought up that they basically used Carmen in three inning rolls lately.

They liked the Doval matchup.

They went to him.

Didn't pan out.

He allows two runs in the tenth.

The Pirates end up losing in ten, five to four.

After the game, Carmen Mlodzinski was asked if he could have pitched a fourth inning.

And he said, quote, probably if needed.

I think just based off the rest I had from that last outing going 3.1, I think it was Saturday.

I think probably asking for there might have been a little bit too much, but probably could have gone one more just with how efficient I was.

End quote.

He probably, I think he probably could have gone a fourth.

I don't know if it would have been another one, two, three inning.

It's tougher inheriting a runner on base.

That's something that, a traditional reliever is more used to.

There are a long list of reasons I get that.

I will also say it shouldn't have gotten to that point.

There are so many little moments in that game.

Only getting one run in whenever you have second and third and only one out.

A run coming in whenever Oneil Cruz loses a ball in the twilight.

That ball in right center where he and Esmerlyn Valdez don't really communicate.

You want to see your center fielder just take charge on that play.

And he didn't.

And this is just my vantage point.

It looked like Valdez was playing the ball instead of playing back up there.

And maybe if he was just playing back up, Cruz catches it.

But I think Valdez is going after that ball because it wasn't clear that it was Cruz's ball.

There are a lot of little small moments like that define that game.

And it's those little small moments that define a team that is 68 and 72.

And it is five and a half games out of a wild card.

Could have been four and a half had they won.

And I really feel it's not serious postseason contention, in my opinion, if your winning percentage starts with a four.

It needs to start with a five or a six.

And there's just so little time left for the Pirates to make up ground.

Every one of these games is valuable if they want to become serious contenders.

Their postseason odds have been 1%, 2% for weeks now.

1%, 2%.

I call it the milk range.

Because the playoff odds are skim.

They need to win games like this.

That September schedule, we've looked at it for a while.

It's not that daunting.

There's that road trip in Chicago.

that seven-gamer.

I get it.

That'll be tough.

But, like, there are winnable games here.

This is a quad-A team with Rafael Devers.

And Devers is homering.

Back-to-back nights off of the starting pitcher.

This seemed very preventable.

This seemed winnable.

And there have been so many times this year where I have sat here in Section 322 and talked about how that was a winnable game.

And losing those games is the difference between being four games below .500 or maybe four games above .500.

what that four-game swing would mean, where they would be in that postseason spot, where they'd be able to realize that goal of the postseason, period, full stop.

I really don't know how much to say about what's left to say about this club anymore.

They're just not there.

Because if they were there, we would have seen it.

This team has not won three straight series all year.

And they've got a rubber match against an NL bottom dweller on Thursday.

And they're going to be throwing another bullpen game without their best long reliever.

Yeah, they can win it.

Yeah, they could win a third straight series.

But they're in a position where they have to rack up wins fast.

And every time you let a game like this go, you have to make it up with two wins.

And there's just not a lot of calendar left to do that.

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I didn't hate the decision to go to Doval for a couple reasons.

Like the runner on second base, sure.

That's tougher.

That's what you have traditional relievers for.

And we talked in a podcast earlier this week.

You have to find out if he has the juice.

If he has the sauce.

If he could actually be part of this bullpen in 2027.

Because he ain't going to come cheap.

He's at $6.1 million in salary this year.

He's going to get a raise off of that even after a pretty pedestrian year.

It's a big spot.

What do you do?

He was immediately given a free out with a sacrifice bunt to move the Manfred runner up to third base.

And he just didn't execute.

He wasn't hitting his spots.

Balls were being hit hard.

It's one of those outings where it's like, what is your role here?

I know people are going to clamor for Mason Montgomery and Luke Weaver, but they had pitched three out of four.

They can't pitch every single day.

At some point, you have to look at your B team and be like, win it.

Help this club win.

That's why they traded for you.

And it didn't come to fruition.

On the offense.

Find ways to win.

Find ways to get that one extra hit.

Didn't happen.

Make a play.

It just comes down to a team that has as much talent as we've seen in recent Pirates history.

And it hasn't resulted in anything.

I don't know what the rest of this season holds.

There's still 22 games left.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that the Pirates could rattle off some win streak.

But they haven't done it all year.

And at some point, this is the analytics guy saying this, at some point, you are what the back of the baseball card says you are.

And all year we have seen a team that has been with an arm's length of 500 one way or the other.

Maybe they could finish on the right side of 500.

Maybe they could finish on the right side of 500.

with this lighter September schedule.

But that was an ugly game.

And I know people are starving, just to make this some postseason hopes.

They just want a reason to believe in this club.

They want to believe.

You gotta believe.

But no.

Right now, the performance they had on the field I think is more indicative of what this club is.

The NL doesn't have a clear sixth postseason team.

But I think it will eventually go to the Padres just because they find ways to win games like this.

They don't throw away series against bad teams.

We said before this last road trip how if there is any hope, they have to show now.

They have to rev up now.

And they are five and six since then.

That's not a September stretch run.

This is a team that has talent, has players, but has underachieved drastically.

And it's not just one bullpen decision that decides a game like this.

It's a thousand little paper cuts.

That has been the case over and over and over again.

maybe a win on Thursday changes some things.

That would be three straight series wins.

You get a bottom feeder in the Angels, America's team, coming to town.

Sweep them.

yard 500 going to Chicago.

It's not out of the realm of possibility, but it just it's the milk range.

One or two percent is not serious and it's unfortunate that it's been a decade since they've even been playing in that milk range in September.

this is a game they needed to win and I'm not going to declare season over or anything like that because I think you have to be

a 500 club to have the season declared over and they have their four games under right now.

Period.

Full stop.

Thank you so much for listening to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

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Thank you so much for listening.

We'll talk again tomorrow.

All right.

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