Before Tuesday's game with the Marlins, Pirates manager John Russell was asked how he and the team are dealing with the adversity of their current six-game losing streak.
"You can't push the panic button, saying 'It's a must-win, we have to win,'" Russell said. For all of the years I played and all of the years I managed the only must-win games are the ones when you're facing elimination at the end of the season."
That may be true for good teams and winning organizations, but this is the Pirates we are talking about, right? For the last 15-plus years, they have sunk into oblivion by the time Steelers training camp begins in July, if not before.
It has only gotten worse in recent years. Now, any losing streak early in the season like the one the Pirates are in now sends any fans that might have come to the games far away as possible, unless of course there are bobbleheads to be had or fireworks shows to be watched.
Monday night there were neither and what the Pirates got was an announced crowd (meaning tickets sold) of 8,444, one of the smallest in PNC Park history. If the Pirates keep consistently playing games like they did Monday (a 10-4 blowout loss in which the home team was out of the game early), this trend will continue even when the weather improves.
There is a theory that the Pirates must play games in April like other, more successful teams would play games in late august in September. This isn't a team or organization that can dig any kind of hole and hope to get out of in time for a pennant chase.
Though Russell obviously wants the team to improve, he isn't gripping just yet.
"You can't change. That's one thing I've learned as a player and manager. You can't panic and change what you do. We've had some exciting games, we won some games and we were .500 then we lost some games and these things happen. You look around baseball and I don't think you're going to have too many teams that don't have the five, seven, eight, even 10-game streaks at some point in the season."
If the Pirates are ever to get back to respectability, they can't let any streak like that happen and must do whatever it takes to stop this current one.
All of the years of futility have drained the public's interest in the Pirates down to next to nothing. If the losing continues, even at this early stage in the season, the Pirates will become an afterthought earlier than at any point in the last 16 years.
They're not panicking, but maybe they should be.
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When a team's pitching staff surrenders 10-plus runs in three straight games, and pitching is supposed to be a strong point ... it might be time to start extending the finger toward the panic button.
Before last night's game, I estimated the over/under for how many runs Matt Morris would give up at 7. I thought I had it right on the money until the Marlins scored that eighth run off him!
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