Nineteen

The Pirates loss today clinched their 19th consecutive losing season. You know what I say? So what.

Every day that passes we are getting further and further removed from when the Pirates were in first place and the city of Pittsburgh was in love with baseball again. However, grab some perspective, two months isn't that long ago. The Pirates provided us with more excitement and entertainment this year than they have in any season in recent memory.

What this team did from April to mid-July was more than enough to put a smile on my face that nothing could take away. As you may know, I'm a 20-year old college kid, which means that the last time the Pirates were in the playoffs I was not yet 2 years old. What I saw from this team this summer was amazing, and made my everyday life incrementally better.

Now I am not the type that gets my happiness from sports, I'm a very reasonable guy with a strong faith in God and bigger things, but there is no doubt that the Pirates did a lot this summer to make me happy. So why let that go away?

When you look back at this season a few years down the road, it'll look like just another losing season. It won't be a dismal 100+ loss season, but it will not stand out. So let's just let that happen when it happens and continue to remember the excitement that we felt just a few months ago. This team made Pittsburgh completely forget about the NFL lockout, and made them feel less pain when the Penguins were eliminated from the NHL playoffs.

Now we are back into football season and the Pirates have 82 losses. Things have changed a lot, but there is still good news.

On April 5th of next year, the Pittsburgh Pirates will be back at .500 and tied for first place. Something similar can be said any old year, but this time we have more reason to believe that they can stay competitive for longer than a few weeks.

Andrew McCutchen is already one of the best players in the league and should continue to get better. Jose Tabata is getting better every week and has a sense of security and confidence with the Pirates that should only help him capitalize on the potential that he has. Neil Walker played a full season in the major leagues and nobody will argue that he is capable of being an everyday second (or third) baseman in the bigs. James McDonald looks like a very capable big league pitcher with upside to flirt with "ace" status. Charlie Morton can dominate a team on any given night, and can now say that he has had a full year of competency at the major league level. The Pirates have three ace-calibur arms in the minor leagues and some solid young hitters as well.

The 2011 season was a successful one. Nobody expected this team to break the streak this year, although there is an element of disappointment since they started so well, but in the end they will have the amount of wins that most optimistic Pirate fans thought they would. There is reason to believe that the Pirates will be better next year, and there is major reason to believe that the division will be worse next year (thanks to the hopeful departure of Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols).

Today is a sad day for the Pirates, but keep your head up Pittsburgh, the future is bright. And even if the future is just as bad as the past, at the end of the day, it's just a game, right?