Pirates can no longer make excuses for their offense falling off a cliff

Former Pittsburgh Pirates catcher and current broadcaster Michael McKenry recently offered some useful context for the Pirates’ offensive struggles, pointing out the impressive résumés of the starting pitchers they have faced lately.

Cy Young Awards. All-Star appearances. MVP credentials. The kind of arms capable of making almost any lineup look ordinary.

That might explain why scoring runs has been difficult of late. It doesn't explain this.

The Pirates have now been shut out 15 times this season, the most in Major League Baseball. Seven of those shutouts have come in just 38 games since the All-Star break, during a stretch in which an offense that spent much of the first half looking like one of baseball’s biggest surprises has become almost unrecognizable.

At a certain point, the caliber of the opposing pitcher stops being an explanation and starts becoming an excuse.

Pirates' offense has disappeared in second half, and they have no one to blame but themselves

The Pirates are still among MLB’s highest-scoring teams because of everything they banked during those first few months, but that reputation no longer reflects the team taking the field every night.

Before Wednesday's game in San Diego, the Pirates ranked third-worst in baseball with a 26.3% second-half strikeout rate. Their .226 batting average ranked 26th, and their .350 slugging percentage was better than only the Los Angeles Angels.

There's plenty of blame to go around, but Bryan Reynolds might be the clearest example. Before the break, Reynolds was hitting .283 with an .877 OPS, 14 homers and 59 RBI, numbers that had him looking like a major snub from the National League All-Star roster. In 38 games since, he's hitting .215 with a .593 OPS. He has one home run and seven RBI in 149 at-bats.

Brandon Lowe's production has also dipped from an .803 first-half OPS to .741, while his strikeout rate has ballooned to 37.7%. He went 0-for-11 with eight strikeouts in San Diego. Spencer Horwitz went from hitting .280 with an .841 OPS before the break to .159 with a .411 OPS afterward, albeit while battling injuries. Esmerlyn Valdez went from hitting .309 with a 1.084 OPS in his first 28 games to .200 with a .747 OPS since the break.

Jake Mangum and Henry Davis have regressed. Ryan O'Hearn and Endy Rodriguez were struggling before landing on the injured list. Nick Gonzales has essentially maintained his production, and Jared Triolo has improved slightly, but that's about where the list of exceptions ends.

Injuries obviously matter, but they don't completely explain a lineup this poor — especially when the Pirates' pitching has given them opportunities to survive it. That was precisely what made Wednesday's loss in San Diego so damaging. Pittsburgh had a chance to gain two games on the Padres in the wild-card race. The pitching staff did its job, but the offense didn't. Again.

Cruz is back. Griffin is targeting Sept. 4. O'Hearn could return in the middle of September, perhaps sooner if Pittsburgh can accelerate his return as a designated hitter. Maybe reinforcements spark something.

But the Pirates are now five games under .500, 7.5 games behind San Diego for the final wild-card spot with three other teams standing between them. A 15-23 record since the break has probably already turned what was once a legitimate playoff chase into a long-shot September fantasy.

They didn't get here because they happened to face a few Cy Young winners. Good teams have to beat good pitchers sometimes. For the first half of the season, the Pirates looked like they finally had an offense capable of doing that.

For the past six weeks, however, they've looked like the Pirates offenses everyone thought they had finally left behind.

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