Pirates enduring frustrating 'close but no cigar' stretch of road games

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ current road trip has been defined by two things. Competitive games and frustrating results.

Overall this season, the Pirates are pretty decent in one-run games, 10-9. Of late, though, winning the tight ones have been a problem.

That’s unfortunate for a team that also has a propensity to get blown out. After all, this is a club that already has defeats of 21-0, 18-4, 11-1, 14-5 and 9-0 (twice) on its resume this year.

During its current six-game road trip, manager Derek Shelton’s team has started 0-4. The first game in Tampa Bay was a 4-3 loss in 10 innings, followed by defeats of 6-5 and 4-2. Then they lost a 3-2 series opener to the Washington Nationals Monday night.

Not to mention losses of 2-0 and 7-5 during their recent homestand against the San Francisco Giants. In 11 of their last 12 games, the Pirates have either won or been within two runs during a loss.

The starting pitching has been adequate. A starter has been tagged with a loss just once in the Pirates’ last 10 games. The fielding has been sound, committing just one error in the last eight games.

One issue of late, though, has been the bullpen. David Bednar blew a save on Saturday night in Tampa, after Chase De Jong gave up a homer in the eighth. Anthony Banda and Tyler Beede combined to yield three of the four runs during Sunday’s 4-2 loss to the Rays.

And Monday night’s defeat in Washington featured Yerry De Los Santos and Chris Stratton combining to let a 2-0 lead slip away after Miguel Yajure went the first four innings without allowing any runs.

Stratton has had a particularly difficult month. In June, he is 2-2 with a 7.11 ERA, allowing 10 earned runs to score in 12⅔ innings. For the season, the right-hander is 4-4 with a 5.46 ERA. He has been credited with five blown saves, seven holds and two saves.

It’s not just pitching. Clutch hitting has been rare. The Pirates faced a good pitching staff in Tampa. Then they couldn’t get the bats going against the Nationals in Monday’s series opener, either.

Throughout the four-game losing streak, the Pirates are just 4-for-21 with runners in scoring position. That’s a .190 batting average. During the four losses, they stranded 24 men on base.

The Pirates and Diamondbacks are tied for Major League baseball’s worst batting average with runners in scoring position at .212.

Then again, the Pirates don’t get a lot of runners into scoring position, either. They have just 477 at-bats with runners in scoring position, tied with the Detroit Tigers for the fewest in baseball.

In late/close situations, the Pirates are hitting a collective .196. Only three teams — the Angels, Cubs and Orioles — have a worse batting average than that.

We all knew wins would be few and far between for the Pirates in 2022. We all knew they’d have more than a handful of nights when they just wouldn’t be in it from the opening pitch. Which is why during stretches like this road trip when the Pirates have been competitive enough to win, the defeats manage to sting a little bit more.

Even if they are happening in yet another season when the bottom-line results are being sacrificed to the big picture of individual player development.