Pirates’ three-error nightmare exposes a season-long flaw they can’t keep dismissing

The Pittsburgh Pirates somehow escaped one of the ugliest defensive sequences of their season Saturday against the St. Louis Cardinals having allowed only one run. That was the good news.

The much bigger problem is that the sequence hardly looked out of character for a team that has spent far too much of 2026 giving opponents extra outs.

It started in the seventh inning when Jacob Gonzalez allowed a ground ball to go straight through his legs. On the very next play, Gonzalez booted another grounder that could have become a double play. Then Oneil Cruz joined the mess, whiffing on a catch as he tried to gather momentum for a throw before actually securing the baseball.

Three consecutive plays. Three errors. Somehow, only one run scored. The Pirates can laugh about surviving that particular disaster, but can't laugh off the larger issue anymore.

Pittsburgh is now tied for the major-league lead with 90 errors, a staggering total for a club that entered this season expecting to contend for a playoff spot. These aren't rebuilding Pirates anymore, where sloppy baseball could be dismissed as part of young players learning at the major-league level.

Pirates somehow survived three straight errors, but their season-long defensive problem is no joke

The Pirates have repeatedly made games harder on themselves by failing to convert outs that should already be in the bank, and Saturday's seventh inning was simply the most concentrated example..

Cruz's mistake was particularly egregious. He appeared to be thinking about making the next play before completing the first one, trying to position himself for the throw before he had actually caught the baseball. In some ways, that sequence summed up the Pirates perfectly: a team capable of making athletic, aggressive plays that too often sabotages itself on the routine ones.

Those mistakes become even less tolerable when the margin for error elsewhere is shrinking. A team struggling to consistently generate offense cannot afford to manufacture additional opportunities for its opponents. A pitching staff trying to protect tight leads shouldn't have to record four, five or apparently six outs in an inning.

The Pirates were fortunate Saturday. Three straight errors somehow produced only one run instead of a completely disastrous inning. But 90 errors are illustrative of a season-long problem.

If Pittsburgh truly intends to operate like a contender, cleaning up its defense can't simply be treated as an offseason footnote. Because playoff teams already have enough problems trying to get 27 outs. The Pirates need to stop volunteering to get more.

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