Kovacevic: Neither Pirates nor city showed up

"I can take getting beat," Andrew McCutchen was saying at his stall late Monday night, his eyes drifting skyward as if still searching for answers. "But that ... that's not getting beat. That's us losing. That's us giving away the game."

Yeah, and the Central Division, too.

Cardinals 3, Pirates 0.

As in, Cardinals four games ahead, Pirates zero chance of catching up.

It was that kind of evening at PNC Park, even as it was so, so much less.

The skies were charcoal dark and drizzling and, if that wasn't dreary enough, nearly 7,000 seats were left unsold for a September crunch-time series opener in which the home team could have positioned itself for its first division crown in two decades and change. The announced paid crowd at the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball: 30,198.

I couldn't believe it. Still can't, actually.



Look, I don't advise people how to spend their money, and I don't care in the slightest if they do or don't attend sporting events any more than if they attend Monkees reunions. But I do care about telling it like it is. And this widely held notion that these sensational, 95-win Pirates have captivated this city ... man, forget that.

Spare me, please, the miles-long list of excuses that's been passed down from generation to generation around here, one that only ever seems to apply to baseball. There are 2.5 million people in our metro region, probably half of whom claim to be serious fans of the Pirates, but almost 7,000 seats, all among the cheapest tickets at an average of $12, were tossed into the trash for an event that was tantamount to a playoff game.

For the people who do love baseball -- and you'd better believe that included the intense, vocal gathering that did show -- it had to be a terribly disconcerting sight.

And somehow, it only got darker and drearier from there. Because it wasn't just Pittsburgh that didn't show up when it mattered most.

The Pirates, the team that owns the National League's No. 1 ratio of scoring runners from third base and the No. 1 ratio of advancing runners from second to third, somehow stranded 16 men on base in a nine-inning shutout.

Four times, they left the bases loaded.

In 12 at-bats with runners in scoring position, they had zero hits.

St. Louis pitchers walked 10 batters and weren't punished once.

Clint Hurdle, hardly a man given to brevity: wasted no words on the subject: "We didn't meet the demands of the game tonight. We did everything but win the game. That's what I've got."

Cutch and Josh Harrison, among others, didn't offer much more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVdyJBRbJUE

It was shades of April, really.

With bases loaded in the second inning, Jordy Mercer flied to shallow left. Aware the pitcher was on deck, Rick Sofield made the right call in sending Starling Marte, anyway. Jason Heyward nailed him.

With bases loaded in the third, Marte struck out, and Neil Walker grounded out.

With bases loaded in the sixth, Polanco flied out.

With bases loaded in the seventh, Pedro Alvarez flied out.

Hang on. I'm checking to see if I missed any here. No, apparently that was plenty, because research by reader Jeffrey Zeiler showed the Pirates became only the third team since 1914 to leave that many men on base in a nine-inning shutout. The record was matched in 1994 and 1998.

So it couldn't have surprised anyone when St. Louis did that St. Louis thing in the ninth, even against brilliant closer Mark Melancon, and made the most of back-to-back one-out singles, an awful defensive display in right-center by Cutch and Polanco, and a two-run bomb by perennial tormentor Mark Reynolds to storm ahead, 3-0.

For the cherry on top, the Pirates stranded two more in the bottom of the ninth.

"It was frustrating," Polanco said, though it wasn't clear if he was referring to his error, the runners stranded or watching the Cardinals again get the best of them.

"Really tough," Walker said.

"It wasn't a good night," Hurdle said.

No, it wasn't a good night. In the later innings, emergency vehicle lights were flashing on the Clemente Bridge, where a pedestrian fell and cut open a gash on his forehead, giving a creepy vibe to the usually resplendent setting.