Pittsburgh Pirates: The Collapse Continues & Other Takeaways From Being Swept In St. Louis

Ray Searage Needs Fired

In August of 2010 Ray Searage became the pitching coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In the nine calendar years that have followed Searage has had plenty of success with the Pirates. This success has led to him being viewed as one of the best pitching coaches in baseball.

It has been a heck of a journey for Pirate pitchers and their fans with Searage. However, to quote Tony Stark, part of the journey is the end. And the end needs to be now for Searage and the Pirates.

The Pirate pitching staff has grossly under performed this season. What was expected to be one of the best pitching staffs in baseball has been one of the worst. This falls at the feet of Searage.

In an interview with Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette over the weekend, Searage was very defensive of the Pirates and their pitching philosophy. “And please, all the fans out there, we are not pitching to contact. Please get over that and move on,” Searage told Mackey. Well, rather the Pirates are pitching to contact or not their philosophy is no longer working.

This philosophy being broken is nothing new, either. Last year, I wrote about the Pirate pitching philosophy being broken. Unfortunately, nothing has changed.

The Pirates need to move on from Searage. There is close to a 0% chance he will be the team’s pitching coach in 2020. So, the sooner the team moves on from the veteran pitching coach the sooner. It is time for the successful Searage Era to come to an end in Pittsburgh.