The Pirates 35 Games In (21.6% of the Season)

The Pittsburgh Pirates have now played 35 games, or 21/6% of the 2-25 season.

They are 12-23 and on pace to lose 105 games.

The only teams with worse records are the White Sox (on pace for 114 losses), and the Rockies, who are, incredibly, on pace to lose 133 games)..

They have been shut out 6 times, most in MLB.

They rank 26th out of 30 teams in run differential.

They routinely trot out starting line-ups with three, four, or five guys hitting BELOW .200. 

They continue to make boneheaded base running mistakes, the outfielders routinely throw to the wrong base.  Oneil Cruz in CF is making Dave Kingman look like a Gold Glove outfielder by comparison. (For you kids out there, I consider Dave Kingman the worst defensive outfielder I have ever seen.  Many will agree with me.)

A case could be made that their best player is (still) Andrew McCutchen who is now 38 years old.

After falling into a once-in-a-generation pitcher in Paul Skenes, GM Ben Cherington beefed up the team around him this past off season by signing two washed up free agents, Adam Frazier (current BA: .227) and Tommy Pham (..184), and trading for a first baseman named Spencer Horwitz, who showed up in Spring Training needing arm surgery and has yet to play a game

They have a team loaded with utility infielders, but nobody can seem to play short stop.

They have the demeanor and the body language of a team that has flat out given up, four weeks before Memorial Day.

I could go on, but you get the idea.  The biggest question to date is this:  Why are these two guys still employed?

Sheltie and Ben C

We all know that the owner Bob Nutting is a cheapskate money grubber and won't spend money, but other teams with small budgets and cheap owners have been able to compete.  We will stipulate that Nutting deserves the fires of Hell when his time comes, but what about GM Ben Cherington and Manager Derek Shelton? They have been in place for six seasons now and the team is no further along than they were after the 2019 season when the Coonelly/Huntington/Hurdle team went away, and let me remind you that those guys steered the team to the post-season three years in a row before Nutting's penury caused that team to fizzle. 

ABOUT NINE HOURS LATER

Okay, I was interrupted as I was typing this post this morning and found myself busy with other matters all day until now.  (It is 8:50 PM).  The Pirates are playing the Cardinals in St. Louis and held leads of 2-0 and 3-2, but now trail the Cardinals 6-3 in the seventh inning, so I am figuring to Hell with trying to finish this other than by saying how much I look forward to Sheltie's post-game bon mots where he will say things like :we're just not getting it done" and "we just have to work a little harder"

Like I said, why are GMBC and Sheltie still on the job.

It has already been a long season, and it is only going together longer.