Pittsburgh Pirates home stand report card for 8/17-8/24

In conclusion

Well, it looks like the Pittsburgh Pirates are at least starting to find stability. For a while now, it’s been apparent that this is not a good baseball team. But for whatever reason, these guys kept reeling us back in, giving us optimism that maybe, they could make some noise. Now, the hot-and-cold spinning wheel has appeared to have finally landed on cold. It was only a matter of time.

Now that the Bucs are eight games out of first, it appears as if the nail is just about in the coffin. For the first time in a while, the thought of the Bucs getting hot and giving the notion that they could be a force in the NL Central isn’t in my mind. That’s not a bad thing. Every time the Pirates went on a run, all it was doing was delaying the inevitable. Not only is this a team that should be eight games out of first; they could easily be even further behind given all that has gone wrong in 2017.

Not having meaningful baseball to watch in September is depressing, and this city hasn’t had to experience that since 2011. But the false hope that this team provided for four months only led to more disappointment. Now that it’s pretty clear that the Pirates are not going anywhere this season, they have no expectations.

Next: Cervelli Activated off the DL

At this point, all we can do as fans is look for points of light going forward. See if Josh Bell continues to progress on his way to becoming a superstar. If Trevor Williams can continue to be effective and efficient. If Adam Frazier can end the season hitting close to .300. Just because the team is out of it doesn’t mean there can’t be positives As for this home stand, however, there wasn’t a whole lot of encouragement. Things are pretty bad, but there’s always that hope that it could get better. 2018 isn’t far away.

Overall Grade: C-