Loss No. 100, '21 season motivate Bucs

PITTSBURGH -- The Pirates have been clear about their main focus this season: Player development and growth. But they’ve also set out with the intention to win every single game.

That has happened many fewer times than the Pirates have hoped. And in falling, 9-0, to the Cubs in Thursday night’s series finale at PNC Park, the team cemented its 100th loss of the season.

The Pirates became the fourth team to reach the 100-loss mark in 2021, alongside the D-backs, Orioles and Rangers. That ties an MLB record for the most teams to hit 100 losses, matching the ‘02 and ‘19 seasons.

“It’s not [a good feeling], especially as hard as we work,” manager Derek Shelton said about the feeling after No. 100. “We just have to keep moving forward.”

A small part of the total of losses the Pirates have incurred come from giving young, relatively untested pitchers the necessary games to grow at the Major League level. On Thursday, Miguel Yajure made his fourth outing with the Bucs, but it was the first that went awry, as the Cubs tagged the club’s No. 24 prospect for seven runs on seven hits and two walks over two innings.

“I have to take advantage of the opportunity,” Yajure said. “This time, I didn’t take advantage. I think you have to keep working. It’s a really bad taste, it made me feel so mad and I will try to do my best during the offseason and try to come back stronger.”

Pitching as a whole has been an issue, with lopsided innings like Yajure’s six-run second inning being too familiar a sight. The Pirates (5.09 ERA) are one of three teams with a staff-wide ERA higher than 5, trailing only the D-backs (5.11) and Orioles (5.77) -- two other 100-loss teams.

But maybe a larger part of the Bucs' struggles has been an offense that has rarely found its stride for a long stretch of games. The Pirates were last in slugging percentage (.361) and OPS (.668) entering Thursday’s finale, and they are the only team in MLB with fewer than 600 runs scored (589).

And that number did not change from Wednesday to Thursday, as the Bucs were shut out for the 16th time in 159 games, led by seven clean innings from Cubs starter Justin Steele.

“He has a sneaky fastball. That’s the thing,” Shelton said. “It shows up at 92 or 93 [mph], but it plays higher than that. We had multiple fastballs get on us. We didn’t take very good swings off him.”

It’s not unexpected that the Pirates were likely to struggle in 2021, given the many trades they made from '20-21 under general manager Ben Cherington. Among the players on the ‘18 roster that won 82 games who were dealt under new leadership: Josh Bell, Adam Frazier, Starling Marte, Joe Musgrove, Richard Rodríguez and Jameson Taillon.

What the Pirates hope those trades do is set them up for a sustained window of contention with a rejuvenated base of prospects.

“I’d say we’re [headed] in the right direction,” shortstop Kevin Newman said. “The pieces are there, and they’re coming together. I think there were a lot of opportunities to learn this year throughout the whole team. So I think the guys are going to learn from that and take that into the offseason and just keep building on it.”

But hoping and planning for the future doesn’t make the moment any sweeter. The Pirates know they have to be better to get where they want to go.

“We're up here busting it every game,” said center fielder Bryan Reynolds. “I think you guys can see that. We play hard. We fight. We rarely get blown out. It's pretty close.

“But it comes back to what I was saying: You've got to keep going out there and trying to get better every day, and then when we're [ready to contend], the time we've got now to work on and get better will pay off even more.”

“I think they’re going to use the entire year as motivation,” Shelton said. “I don’t think a specific number accounts for that. I think we just have to continue to get better.”