Pirates pitcher has NSFW response to Pittsburgh’s rocky start to the season

As we wrote during about the weekend, The Athletic recently ranked all 30 Major League teams for the 21st century (subscription required) and it didn't make for good reading if you're a Pittsburgh Pirates fans. This is because they were ranked last by Stephen J. Nesbitt and were additionally the only organization given a negative score, which speaks volumes.

This is unfortunately the kind of thing which can happen, when you only have three playoff appearances to your name in 25 years, which is tied for fewest in the Majors over the period in question. However, what really makes all this particularly damning is the Pirates' 12 seasons of 90+ losses so far in the 21st century.

With all this in mind, it probably comes as no surprise to Pirates fans that their team has begun the 2025 season in similarly subpar fashion. Despite opening the campaign on the road in Miami versus a team which had the worst home record in the NL last year, they only managed to win one out of four games against the Marlins. Then they got pasted by the Rays on Monday night.

Andrew Heaney has a succinct message for his Pirates teammates

Nothing seemed to really go right for the Pirates in Miami, although this isn't anything new in Pittsburgh. Regardless, starting pitcher Andrew Heaney didn't seem too bothered when asked about the tough start to the season by the media:

Now, we appreciate there will be some people not impressed by Heaney's language, but there is something amusing about his curt response to the question. And on a peripheral level, he is indeed correct, with another 158 games to go in the season at the time of writing.

Andrew Heaney yet to fully discover the Pirates experience

The thing is though, the Pirates experience is still an extremely new one for the 2012 ninth overall draft pick. This is his first year in Pittsburgh after signing a $5.25 million deal, following 11 seasons elsewhere and including the last two in Texas with the Rangers.

In this respect, Heaney had the best year of his career while with the Rangers, winning a career-high 10 games and going on to help them clinch their first ever World Series during the 2023 season. As such it's no surprise he isn't concerned by the start to 2025 in Pittsburgh.

Further, the southpaw looked good in his first Major League start for the Pirates on Sunday, against the team that drafted him. He went five innings and allowed just four hits, a walk and one run, ending up with the no-decision in a 3-2 loss in the series finale.

However, as per some of the comments about Heaney's NSFW take, he'll find out soon enough how things usually turn out in Pittsburgh, with one person taking to X to respond: "Welcome to baseball hell." Assuming things do follow a similar path to previous seasons for the Pirates, you can only imagine some of the profanities Heaney will come out with ...

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