Pirates are wasting Luke Weaver in the most frustrating way possible

The Pittsburgh Pirates acquired Luke Weaver at the trade deadline for one obvious reason: to help close out games that mattered.

So far, they haven't given him any.

Weaver has thrown exactly 11 pitches since becoming a Pirate, all of them in a scoreless ninth inning while Pittsburgh was already trailing 6-2. That's it. One appearance, four-run deficit, nothing remotely resembling the high-leverage situations he was brought here to handle. And that's what makes the whole thing so frustrating.

This isn't really about manager Don Kelly refusing to use his newest reliever. There simply haven't been many opportunities for him to do so. The Pirates are 3-7 since acquiring Weaver and haven't produced a single save opportunity during that stretch.

You can't protect leads that don't exist.

Pirates' second-half struggles have made Luke Weaver addition look irrelevant

That's the cruel irony of Pittsburgh's deadline addition. The Pirates identified the bullpen as a weakness, spent prospect capital to acquire one of the better available relievers and then immediately fell into a stretch where their shiny new late-inning weapon became practically irrelevant.

Weaver arrived with a 1.84 ERA in 44 innings and the kind of swing-and-miss stuff Pittsburgh desperately needed at the back end of its bullpen. He was supposed to help prevent exactly the kind of late-inning disasters that plagued the Pirates earlier in the season.

Instead, the Pirates' problems have become even more fundamental. They aren't blowing enough late leads for Weaver to fix because they aren't getting late leads in the first place. That's arguably worse.

A deadline acquisition like Weaver is supposed to matter most in August and September, when a team fighting for a playoff spot needs every possible advantage in close games. Pittsburgh went out and added exactly that type of pitcher, and then the offense and the rest of the club essentially made him unnecessary.

There's still time for Weaver to become important. A few wins could quickly create the late-inning situations Pittsburgh envisioned when it acquired him. But every loss makes the move feel increasingly pointless.

This was supposed to be the stretch when the Pirates pushed toward October and Weaver helped shorten games from nine innings to eight. Instead, he has mostly watched from the bullpen as Pittsburgh's season slips away before he's even needed.

There are plenty of ways to waste a talented reliever, but the Pirates somehow found the most frustrating one. They acquired Weaver to protect leads, then stopped giving him any leads to protect.

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