Pirates lose to Cubs, match 2019 team by falling 24 games under .500

Somehow, in this drastically shortened 2020 season, the Pittsburgh Pirates matched the 2019 team in one rather dubious way.

Games under .500.

A 5-0 loss to the Chicago Cubs in the opener of the final home series of the season Monday dropped the Pirates to 15-39. The 24 games under .500 equals how they finished 2019, when a second-half collapse put their final record at 69-93.

Of course, it’s a lot easier to finish so far under .500 over 162 games than it is over 60 games. The Pirates have a .278 winning percentage that would equate to a 45-117 record over the course of a normal 162-game season.

The fewest wins in MLB history over an 162-game season was the 2003 Detroit Tigers, who went 43-119.

The worst Pirates team since 1890 was the 1952 team that had a .273 winning percentage over 155 games. These Pirates could eclipse that mark for futility by going 1-5 over their final six: three more versus the Cubs and three at the Cleveland Indians.

“I think it wears on you,” manager Derek Shelton said of all the losing, “(but) I don’t see the fact that (the players are) not grinding.”

Monday’s loss came to a familiar foe: veteran left-hander Jon Lester, who improved to 13-6 in 26 career starts against the Pirates. He limited them to four singles and a walk in six innings Monday.

Though only one Pirates batter struck out, and Lester (3-2) induced just five swings and misses, he largely used a mixture of two- and four-seam fastballs and a cutter to keep the Pirates off-balance.

“The balls we hit hard tonight, they caught,” Shelton said. “There’s nothing we can do about that, but I don’t see anything that is showing lack of effort.”

The Pirates have lost 14 of their past 15. They have 31 runs and 23 extra-base hits in those games.

The lone bright spot over the recent weeks of misery for the Pirates is starting pitching, and JT Brubaker on Monday continued a recent strong run. The rookie had nine strikeouts and allowed two runs on four hits and one walk in 6⅔ innings.

Brubaker (1-3), who lowered his ERA to 4.46, was particularly effective with his breaking balls. Among a combined 41 sliders and curveballs, the Cubs swung and missed 13 times and put just one ball in play (a weakly grounded forceout from Javier Baez).

Brubaker, who will get one more start this season, said he hopes he’s shown he’s earned a spot in the 2021 rotation. The 26-year-old said he’s confident he belongs in the majors.

“I feel like I’ve done well,” Brubaker said. “I feel like I’ve competed. I feel like I’ve proven to myself that I can get guys out, former MVPs, reigning MVPs, just some of the best hitters in the league. I feel like I have proven myself that my stuff is good enough to get them out, and I can go right after them and not nibble to try to get them to swing at my stuff – just make them swing the bat and they will get themselves out.”

The Cubs tacked on three runs off the Pirates bullpen in the eighth to make the final result a laugher. Four of the Pirates’ previous five defeats were by one run.

Over the past seven games, Pirates starters have a 2.13 ERA with 47 strikeouts in 42⅓ innings. Pirates pitchers have 106 strikeouts over their past 11 games, and Brubaker fell one strikeout short of giving them 10-strikeout outings by starters in consecutive games for the first time since Sept. 8-9, 2015, when Francisco Liriano and J.A. Happ did it.

“This is four starts in a row where we’ve been really good,” Shelton said.

But only once over the stretch of all these recent high-strikeout games have the Pirates won, due in large part to an offense that is hitting .179 over the past 14 games. The Pirates have five extra-base hits in their past five games.

Twenty-one consecutive Pirates hitters had been retired between the sixth inning of Sunday’s loss to St. Louis and through three innings Monday until Bryan Reynolds led off the fourth inning Monday with an infield single.

Ke’Bryan Hayes had two hits to give him six multihit outings in 18 starts since his promotion to the majors Sept. 1. Hayes has six of the Pirates’ 29 hits during this final homestand.

The Pirates’ best chance to score Monday came in the sixth, but Erik Gonzalez grounded into a double play with runners on first and third to end the inning.

The Pirates fell to 40-87 since last year’s All-Star break and 1-6 against the Cubs this season.

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