The final score matters, but Pirates GM Ben Cherington also has a bigger picture in mind

Ben Cherington has been a baseball executive long enough to know the importance of the game’s numbers, whether they are as simple as the won/loss record or as complex some of the new analytics.

But at this stage of the season, you can bet Cherington hasn’t done the math on what it will take for the Pirates (48-83) to avoid losing 100 games.

“I don’t spend any energy thinking about what our record is going to be at the end of the season,” he said Sunday on his radio show on KDKA-FM. “At the end of the season, we’ll find out what our record is.”

Of course, Cherington wants to win every game. That should be clear to any Pirates fan who shows up at PNC Park or turns on his TV set at game time.

“These games are important. We want to compete and win every day,” he said. “I just can’t imagine a scenario where we are having a conversation about a game and it’s not important. Every game is important. We ought to go into every game prepared and expecting to execute to win.”

That’s simple logic, but Cherington’s look into how the team ends the season goes far deeper than the daily final scores.

“Culturally, within our clubhouse and baseball operations, we need to focus on drilling down to a much more granular level,” he said. “I’m thinking about ‘Did we win that pitch? Can we win the next pitch?’

“If you win a lot more pitches than you lose, over time that is going to add up to winning.”

Nonetheless, the 100-loss milepost is one the Pirates hope to avoid, if only for perception’s sake and even if they aren’t talking about it publicly.

The Pirates have lost 100 games only eight times in 140 seasons, including a record 113 in 1890 when they were known as the Pittsburgh Alleghenies. From 1917-54, it happened four times. After that, only in 1985, 2001 and 2010.

The Pirates need to improve their winning percentage from its current .366 to .484 (15-16) over the final 31 games to finish no worse than 63-99.

That’s sounds like a difficult rate of improvement to attain based on the first 131 games, but the Pirates have won six of their past 10. Still, no one will be bragging about losing 99 games.

What Cherington wants to see are answers — even if they’re preliminary ones — to questions that surround the franchise.

Right field is a good place to start.

The Pirates released Gregory Polanco on Saturday after he started 91 games there, and Cherington believes manager Derek Shelton will rotate players in that position the rest of the season.

“Playing time and at-bats are the valuable resources we have here,” he said. “I would expect to see more than one guy out there. It helps us going into the offseason to be in position to make good decisions.”

Which was the reason Polanco was released.

Meanwhile, it will be difficult to remove Yoshi Tsutsugo from the lineup. His game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth defeated the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday and gave him five homers in 13 games. Although he appears limited defensively, he has played both corner outfield positions and first base.

Wilmer Difo, Ben Gamel, Anthony Alford and Michael Chavis also have played the outfield. Chavis is nursing an elbow he injured Saturday night while diving for a ball in right field. He wasn’t in the Sunday lineup.

Cherington also will be monitoring how young pitchers such as J.T. Brubaker, Bryse Wilson and Wil Crowe finish the season. Wilson is scheduled to pitch Tuesday when the Pirates open a two-game series in Chicago against the White Sox.

Brubaker is on the injured list with a right thumb contusion, but Cherington hopes to see him back in the rotation before the end of the season.

“At this level, learning how to compete and focus literally pitch to pitch for a six-month season, ultimately for a seven-month season because that’s our aspiration, is part of becoming a really good major-leaguer,” he said.