Five Over To Four Under

I've been off the blog for the last couple nights as I have been out of town. That's right, the Pirates start losing and Jon jumps off the bandwagon. I might just shut the blog down if they lose 10 in a row.

Obviously that's not true. This 9-game losing streak has been one of the most crushing things that the Pittsburgh sports scene has seen in a long time. Alright, well maybe the Steelers losing the Super Bowl last February is comparable, but this has certainly been quite a blow to the city.

Just 8 days ago, the Pirates were right in the hunt in the National League Central. Since then, they have not won a single game. The Milwaukee Brewers have won 7 games, and the St. Louis Cardinals have won 6 games, and the Pirates find themselves 9 games out of first place. You couldn't have made this stretch much worse if you were allowed to write it out.

The positive side of it is that we still have last year to look back on. The Pirates need 4 more wins to guarantee that they will improve on their record from last year. So unless the Pirates go on the worst 2-month stretch in MLB history (and then some), they are sure to improve. However, I'm sure not a lot of people will be happy with just a little improvement.

Let's ignore the context of this streak for a minute and look at a couple of other recent Pirates scuffles.

Last year, the Pirates lost 7 games in a row between April 20th and April 26th. They were swept by the Brewers and Astros, both in 3-game sets before losing another game to the Brewers before finally winning a game.

Sadly, that was not the worst streak of the year. They suffered 2 other 7-game losing streaks, one between July 7th and July 16th and another between August 8th and August 15th. Also, the Pirates had a 12-game losing streak that started on June 6th and lasted until June 18th. They lost the last game of a 3-game set to the Giants, then lost a make-up game to the Cubs before losing 3 straight 3-game series to the Nationals, Tigers, and White Sox. The losing streak was wrapped up with a loss to the Indians before it was finally broken with a 6-4 win over Cleveland.

During that 12-game streak, the Pirates were outscored 64-36 and went from 9.5 games back to 14 games back.

There's really no comparison from those losing streaks to this one, because the Pirates were never seriously in contention last year. Going from a first place race to being 4 games under .500 is absolutely, dare I say it, heartbreaking.