Here is The Real Deal At Least As Far As I See It:
There comes a point where being good ceases to be sufficient. I don’t know honestly how to draw that line and if we were to phrase it as a question (When does being good cease being good enough?) I don’t even know how to go about answering that question. Did it happen in the 2014 Wild Card Game, when the Pirates sent a better team onto the field against the Giants, but armed them with Edinson Volquez against Madison Bumgarner? Did it happen last year, when the Pirates won 98 games, but lost enough games in their 18-22 start/to the Brewers and Reds/goddamn I just thought about that sweep by the Cardinals that started May of 2015/whatever else you have on your own personal list of grievances to make all of us legitimately feel like they should have won the 101 necessary to win the division? Did it happen in last year’s Wild Card Game, when I SWEAR TO GOD JAKE ARRIETA DIDN’T EVEN PITCH THAT WELL, but he threw a shutout anyway, and would it have even mattered after Gerrit Cole’s command deserted him that night? Did it happen this winter when they elected to prioritize everything over the one or two extra starters they needed in the hopes that the offense and bullpen could float them along until Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon were ready? Or will it never happen, because how on earth can the Pirates compete with a Cub team that both has an unlimited budget and knows how to use it?
Like I said at the beginning: I don’t know the answer. I suspect that the question has both an objective and a subjective answer that are not the same, and I don’t really care about drawing that distinction at this point. What I know is this: it gets harder and harder every year to stare at a huge division deficit in May and tell myself that it’s a long season. It is a long season! The Cubs will almost definitely not win the 125 games that they are currently on pace to win. They probably won’t win 119 since no one has ever done it before, and it’s actually still relatively unlikely that they win 110 games. I know that FiveThirtyEight has them projected for 104 wins right now, but only one team has done that since the turn of the century for a reason. If you talk yourself down to 100 Cub wins (and even THIS is a crazy statement after 26 games; countless excellent teams have won fewer than 100 games), I think it’s still possible to talk yourself up to 100 Pirate wins (it goes like this: they won 98 games last year despite not kicking into gear before mid-May, their offense is better this year, and they add Glasnow and Taillon increasingly soon). We’re dealing in a lot of hypotheticals, probably the tip-top projection possible for the Pirates, a big pinch of delusion, and more optimism than I normally carry around with me, but we’re still well within the realm of “stranger things have happened.”
But as a morose Pirate fan I don’t particularly want to do that tonight, and here’s the reason: last year, the Pirates’ first three games in May were three ridiculous and frustrating games in St. Louis. The Pirates blew leads and left runners on base and made errors and lost three straight games on walk-offs, by scores of 2-1, 2-1, and 3-2. Yes, the Pirates balanced those losses out with three amazing, gratifying, dramatic wins in Pittsburgh just before the All Star Break. And yes, the Pirates had bad losses and lucky wins against other teams over the course of the season. But when the season ended, the Cardinals were 100-62 and the Pirates were 98-64. The Pirates and Cardinals played 19 times; the Pirates won nine and the Cardinals won ten. Flip any one of those ten losses, and both teams are 99-63.
What I wanted from 2016 was for it to be an improvement on 2015, when the Pirates were good, but played catch-up all summer. When the Pirates cruised to 98 wins, but were never a serious threat to do anything other than play in a Wild Card Game after a post-All-Star Game slump. I’m not stupid; I knew that was a pipe dream after the Cubs exploded in the second half last year and had the winter that they did. I knew it was unlikely after the Pirates’ put all their eggs in the bullpen until June and saddled themselves with more rotation questions than they’d ever tried to answer at once. But knowing those things doesn’t mean that I wasn’t still hoping for something better.
And so here we are, on May 5th. The Pirates are six games behind the Cubs. It’s too early to worry about how many games you are behind someone in the standings. I’m worried anyway.
Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images
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