In loss to defending champs, Pirates show why they're falling short

ARLINGTON, Texas -- It wasn't all that long ago that the Pirates were thought to be playoff contenders. They added players at the trade deadline. A wild-card spot was there if they could finish strong in August and September.

But with the 4-3 loss to the Rangers Monday night at Globe Life Field, the eighth by one run in the past 17 total games, it provided the perfect microcosm that this team isn't quite there yet.

Maybe soon. Not yet.

Even though they're not playing their best baseball in 2024, the Rangers are the defending World Series champions. Everyone was reminded of that before this game when Aroldis Chapman received his ring from manager Bruce Bochy and general manager Chris Young for being part of the team that brought the franchise its first crown.

But even with the Rangers not playing to that standard, as this victory improved their to 58-68 on the season, it was clear their detail and execution was just ... better.

Texas didn't do anything extraordinary in this game. Outside of Marcus Semien and Corey Seager combining for four hits, only Jonah Heim's one hit was all the Rangers' lineup could muster against Luis Ortiz.

Ortiz needed only 92 pitches to get through six innings of work, in which he gave up only five hits and one walk while striking out seven. That's a heck of a night for a guy trying to make his case for a permanent spot in the rotation, pitching against a lineup that is capable of exploding any given night.

"Overall, watching from the side, I thought he was really effective. I thought he did a good job," Derek Shelton said of Ortiz. "He just did not execute two pitches to a really good hitter."

Yep. Two terrible pitches. One ...

and two:

No big-league pitcher can get away with these when facing a guy who's won not one but two World Series MVPs.

"My plan against him and everybody was just attack from the beginning," Ortiz said through interpreter Stephen Morales. "He took me deep into the count. At the end, I tried to make a pitch and just left it down the middle. ... As a pitcher, you have to turn the page and continue to compete and do your best for the rest of the game just to give the team a chance to win."

That's where Ortiz and the pitching staff have been kind of left out to dry. The pitching staff is the main reason why the Pirates were pretty much forced into buying at the trade deadline. They wouldn't have been in position to do so without it. 

That, of course, doesn't excuse Ortiz for giving one of the game's most dangerous hitters two meatballs. But, how about this team finally gets more offensive production outside of one big swing:

That's Jared Triolo, who's now expected to do more with Ke'Bryan Hayes on the injured list, taking Dane Dunning deep the next time the Pirates came to bat after Seager's second home run, cutting the deficit to one run. And the good thing here for Triolo is this came after he had stared at strike three in his first at-bat, stranding runners on the corners in a 1-0 game.

"Just trying to see something over the heart of the plate and do damage to it," Triolo said. "It was good. I was in a similar spot in my first at-bat and punched out on three strikes. It felt really good."

But this is where you can do a little digging and find that this team just isn't ready. Hats off to Triolo for doing his best Seager impression, making Dunning pay for giving him a meatball. But, once again, this team was rung up on far too many called third strikes. Add four more to the total tonight.

Now, those who watched the game know that some of these were not the greatest calls by home plate umpire John Bacon., including this one to Rowdy Tellez:

Here's the problem: Heim is one of the best catchers in baseball at stealing strikes. This year has been a down year of him as he ranks in the 32nd percentile in framing, according to Baseball Savant. However, in the three previous seasons, Heim has ranked no worse than in the 97th percentile. 

Heim comes with the reputation of being an elite framer and has stolen more than his fair share of strikes for Rangers batters. Thus, it would be logical to account for that in the game plan. Anything borderline should be thought of as a strike since Heim has the ability to sway the umpire's eyes from seeing balls and turning them into strikes.

Yet, when I asked Shelton after the game if that factored into the game plan ...

"You can't go for that," he said. "We know Heim’s good. He's elite back there as a receiver, but we have to just follow our game plan and not let that affect us."

If this team didn't have an issue with staring at third strikes, then it'd be understandable. But this mentality just compounds the issue. And, it played a role in the team going 1 for 4 with runners in scoring position and leaving seven runners on base. In a game where runs are coming at a premium, that hurts.

But even amid the called third strike issues, there's still these at-bats coming from veteran hitters:

Just about every hitter has moments in which they flail. But, again, this is too common of a theme.

These may sound like little things to pick at, especially in just one game. But anyone who's watched this team throughout the season, it's been the little things that have plagued them all year long. Sure, there are other issues. Injuries are piling up right now. But, that's also not what's burying them. True contenders find ways to limit the little mistakes. This team isn't doing that. Some of that is because of the younger talent on the team, but some of that is philosophical, as well, as we witnessed Monday night by not accounting for a battery that included an elite pitch-framer and a pitcher that's at his best when he's painting the corners.

Take these issues from Monday night -- the lack of execution on critical pitches, the called third strikes, the flaw in the game plan, the continued flailing at the plate as 11 Pirates struck out -- and also consider that this team doesn't have a Seager in their lineup that can go win them a ballgame. After all, Shelton gave all the credit to Seager for the Rangers' victory.

"Seager beat us today," he said. "I mean, he's one of the best players in game and we made two flat middle-middle breaking balls to him. You cannot do that. And I think we saw what happens when you do that."

The Pirates don't have that guy. Bryan Reynolds would come the closest to qualifying. And, it's no accident that the team's hottest stretch coincided with Reynolds heating up in June and July. But even that, the Triolo moments, the Cruz missiles -- they are just too few and far between.

Watching this team struggle in the same old ways in a game against the defending world champs, and it's clear to see that the Pirates just aren't there yet. Maybe they can be soon. Isiah Kiner-Falefa has said on record that this team reminds him of the 2022 Orioles team that ended the season with promise and followed with a 101-win season, the best in the American League.

It remains clear that these Pirates lacks what's necessary to look like a true contender.