The Pirates have effectively answered two questions in the first 11 games coming out of the All-Star break.
Will they be buyers at next Wednesday’s trade deadline: No.
Will there be October baseball at PNC Park? Only if Major League Baseball decides on neutral-site postseason games.
The Pirates have all but taken themselves out of contention with a 2-9 stretch that has dropped them eight games under .500 at 46-54 at the 100-game mark of the season. The latest loss came Tuesday night, 4-3, to the Cardinals at PNC Park.
Mathematics alone says the Pirates will be hard-pressed to reach the playoffs.
It took 91 wins to get the second National League wild card last season. Let’s lower the threshold and say 88 victories will be enough for entry into the postseason this year. The Pirates would need to go 42-20 the rest of the way to get to 88. That’s a .677 clip, and it’s hard to imagine them having that kind of sustained success.
The Pirates, though, hold out hope of climbing back into the pennant race. They like to point out they have already overcome losing streaks of seven and eight games this season.
“Things can change suddenly in baseball,” losing pitcher Chris Archer said. “You can [win] 10 straight and change the outcome of what happens next.”
True, but it would have to be a dramatic change to put the Pirates into the postseason for the first time since 2015.
• Speaking of the trading deadline, I’m increasingly getting the feeling that it will be a relatively quiet one for the Pirates next week.
They certainly aren’t going to add a big addition at this point, especially after the Archer and Keone Kela trades made last July 31 didn’t pan out. Last year’s team didn’t have a very realistic chance of making the playoffs, and this team’s chances are even worse.
However, don’t expect the Pirates to begin a roster teardown. Neal Huntington isn’t posturing when he says he prefers not to trade Felipe Vazquez, and the Pirates are likely to exercise the $12.5-million club option on Starling Marte for next season because they believe they can contend in 2020.
Instead, look for the Pirates to make some smaller trades, most likely involving some combination of Corey Dickerson, Melky Cabrera, Francisco Liriano and Jordan Lyles.
All are eligible for free agency at the end of the season and the Pirates won’t get much in return. Yet it’s worth their while to see if they can turn a middling prospect or two in return into a decent major-league player.
• The Pirates will also look to trade Kela in the coming week after suspending him for two games for what they say was a violation of “the uniform player contract.”
No one denies Kela has a great arm and electric stuff. However, he also hasn’t pitched in a major-league game since May 6 because of right shoulder inflammation, and the Pirates almost certainly won’t go to arbitration with him next offseason.
Multiple scouts told me in the past few days that teams will be willing to trade for Kela if he shows he is healthy. Again, don’t look for a very big return.
“I know the optics are bad, trading for a guy who was just suspended,” said a scout from a National League team. “When you’re trying to get to the postseason, though, you’ve got to take some chances.”
• The Pirates have totally clammed up about Kela’s suspension, following their usual ham-handed way of handling bad news.
The Pirates can always hide behind the curtain of being a privately-owned entity. However, in my book, when you take a significant amount of tax money to build a stadium, then you owe it to the public to provide explanations in these situations.
• Archer wouldn’t follow in the path of Justin Verlander and David Price after the game. Both veteran pitchers have been highly critical of Major League Baseball this season, accusing it of juicing the baseballs to increase offense.
However, he has been tagged for 24 home runs in just 96 1/3 innings over 18 starts this year after allowing two more long balls Tuesday night.
“I definitely don’t want to give up 24 home runs. I don’t want to ever give up a home run,” Archer said. “Everything else I don’t really focus on. I just try to execute pitches to best of my ability.”
Paul Goldschmidt tagged Archer for a two-run homer in the third inning to tie the score at 3-3. Jose Martinez’s leadoff homer in the fifth proved to be the game-winner.
Here are both home runs. If you don’t think something is funny with the baseball, see how Martinez’s drive went even though he didn’t get all of it: