Pictured: Paul Skenes looks on as his most recent start, where he threw 8 innings of 1-run baseball went to waste. May 18th, 2025. Colorized. 

It has been 23 games since the Pirates last scored more than five runs. That occurred on April 22nd in a 9-3 victory over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. When the Bucs won that game, they had a 9-15 record—pretty bad, but salvageable considering the number of games remaining in the season. 

Of course, the ability to win games is partially dependent on…scoring runs. In this 23 game stretch during which the Pirates have failed to score more than four runs, they have only won six games. They have fallen from 9-15 to 15-32. They fired manager Derek Shelton in the middle of the skid and promoted bench coach Don Kelly, who has overseen three of the six wins. In those three wins, however, the Pirates scored a combined 11 runs. 

I cannot exactly put into words how sick I get watching the Pirates’ offense. Early last week, they played the Mets in a three-game series. Despite only allowing six runs across the 27 innings in that series, the Pirates only triumphed once. 

Yesterday’s game against the Phillies was a microcosm of this. Paul Skenes threw eight innings, allowed four baserunners, and let only one run score against a lineup that is 10th in runs scored per game. He also struck out nine batters in those eight frames. A performance like that was deserving of a win, but the Buccos’ lineup could not touch the pitches of Phillies’ starter Mick Abel, who was making his MLB debut. Philadelphia won the game 1-0, with the Pirates wasting a gem from Skenes. 

Skenes is 3-5 this year despite having an ERA of only 2.44, good for thirteenth in Major League Baseball among qualified pitchers. The underlying stats are even more dismal:

• The Pirates have lost six games where Skenes has allowed one run or fewer in his 33 career starts
• Skenes has allowed two or fewer runs in ten-consecutive road starts, but the Pirates have only gone 5-5 in those games
• In the month of May this season, Skenes has made four starts. He has allowed only seven earned runs across 25 innings. The Pirates are 0-4 in those four games 

The offense is not the only problem. For example, here is the Pirates’ pitching log from Friday’s 8-4 loss to the Phillies, during which Andrew Heaney left the game and was in line for a victory following Alexander Canario’s three-run blast in the top of the sixth:

When the bullpen allows seven runs in three innings, it is extremely difficult to win ballgames, regardless of how good your starting pitching is. 

The complete inability to score runs, coupled with the bullpen’s penchant for allowing rush hour traffic on the base paths, puts so much pressure on the starting rotation to be perfect. The team is now at a point where eight innings of one-run ball is not good enough to get a win. 

The season is over. The franchise is cursed (Jared Jones is now likely to undergo surgery for a torn ulnar collateral ligament, which would cause him to miss all of this year and most, if not all of next year). All that we have as Pirates fans is eternal damnation.