It looked as though 2024 was going to be a different year for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Having missed the playoffs every year since 2015, the Pirates started off the season on such a strong note, winning nine of their first 12 games. They even managed to bounce back and climb above .500 after falling off a cliff in the middle of the season, and at the day of the trade deadline, their record was at 55-52, which was good enough to have them right in the middle of the tight wild card race in the National League.
Since then, however, the Pirates haven't played close to their best baseball. They have won just three of their 16 games since July 31, falling way off the pace in the playoff race. At the time of writing, they are 7.5 games back of the third wild card spot (currently held by the Atlanta Braves), and their 58-65 record makes it very unlikely for them to mount a push for the postseason moving forward.
It looks as though there will be consequences for this poor run of play from the Pirates. A change in leadership in the dugout may ensue for Pittsburgh, with Bob Nightengale of USA Today reporting that Pittsburgh's fall-off “could cost manager Derek Shelton his job”. If not, there could be some changes coming Shelton's coaching staff.
There are always consequences to pay in professional sports if a team falls short of expectations. Now, the Pirates weren't exactly favored to make the playoffs heading into 2024, and merely them being in the running feels like found money. But when they've already been surpassing expectations left and right, prompting the front office to make a few trades to bolster the team prior to the deadline, then a team has to deliver. The Pirates, simply put, haven't.
At the end of the day, a change in leadership may not be the worst idea for the Pirates anyway. Derek Shelton has been at the helm since the start of the 2020 season, and during his tenure, the team has won just 41.2 percent of its games. The team is on the rise, but Shelton could get the ax if the powers that be decide that the team is not improving quickly enough.
Pirates' 3-13 stretch since July 31 dooms playoff hopes
At present, the Pirates can still make the playoffs. But they will have to, as Montgomery Scott said in Star Trek Into Darkness, “jump from a moving car, off a bridge, and into a shot glass” to make that happen. Fangraphs has their playoff odds at 0.6 percent, which may as well be zero percent considering the fact that they need to pass six teams and make up 7.5 games in the 39 games that remain in their season.
To be fair to the Pirates, their schedule following the trade deadline was absolutely brutal. They ran into red-hot teams Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres — two teams that stand tall in the NL Wild Card standings at present. Pittsburgh also encountered the Los Angeles Dodgers during that time, and the Dodgers are always tough to get past despite their mounting injury woes.
Against those incredible NL West teams, the Pirates went 1-11 — including a stretch in which they lost 10 straight games. Following that wretched run of games, they battled against the Seattle Mariners, another playoff hopeful. Thanks to ace Paul Skenes, they stopped the bleeding, taking two out of three from the Mariners. But it might be too little too late for their playoff hopes.
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