Brutal Pirates stat adds new layer of frustration (and big problem) to 2025 season

The Pittsburgh Pirates played in six games on their most recent road trip through Baltimore and Washington. Five of those games were decided by one run. The one game that wasn't – a 5-1 Pirates win over the Nationals on Saturday – was Pittsburgh's lone victory on the trip.

The Pirates have now played in a Major League-leading 57 one-run games this season. They are 24-33 in those one-run games – the most one-run losses they've had in a single season since 1986, per Jose Negron of DK Pittsburgh Sports.

One-run losses sting because they highlight how frequently the Pirates were right there. Instead of being outclassed at every turn, they’re consistently competitive thanks to their starting pitching, but coming up short more than they succeed. It suggests this isn’t a talent gap as much as execution in key moments, which is harder to swallow.

One-run games magnify bullpen performance. The Pirates’ uneven relief corps has been a storyline all season, and the record in these tight games reinforces the narrative that they can’t finish. Fans see blown saves, inherited runners scoring, or missed shutdown innings as the difference between a winning and losing season.

Pirates' offensive woes magnified by losing record in one-run games

The bullpen is hardly the only thing holding the Pirates back from a winning record in one-run games. On the other side of the coin, their failure to tack on insurance runs or secure big hits late is arguably a bigger issue. A weak situational hitting profile (i.e., high strikeout rates, poor on-base percentage with runners in scoring position) manifests itself most in one-run outcomes.

The Pirates aren’t just losing; they’re failing to capitalize when margins are thin. If they were even .500 in one-run games (about 29–28 instead of 24–33), that’s a swing of plus-5 wins – not quite enough to put them squarely in the Wild Card picture, but enough to paint the picture that this season was just as much of a squandered opportunity as it was an inevitable struggle.

Constantly losing close games wears down clubhouse confidence. Players and fans alike start expecting the worst when a game is tight, which becomes a self-fulfilling cycle. It feeds the perception that the Pirates lack the “winning DNA” or killer instinct of playoff teams.

The Pirates’ one-run record doesn’t just show bad luck – it exposes thin margins in bullpen reliability, situational hitting and in-game decision-making. That makes the season especially frustrating, because fans can see a version of 2025 where just a handful more clutch moments flip the narrative entirely.