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Pittsburgh Pirates fans haven't had much to cheer about this season, which probably explains why many of them have stopped going to games altogether.
This fact wasn't lost on Brett Keisel, the former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end, who was in attendance for the Pirates' 7-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds Monday at PNC Park.
Keisel, a local legend among Pittsburgh fans, posted a video on X showing the abundance of empty seats during the game and captioned it with just a single word: "Shame."
Steelers legend Brett Keisel shames Pirates for poor home atmosphere at PNC Park
The paid attendance for Monday's blowout loss was just over 10,000. The actual attendance was visibly less than that. The Pirates currently have the fifth-lowest average attendance among all 30 MLB teams this season with 16,702. Two of the four teams that rank lower than Pittsburgh in average attendance – the Athletics (29th) and the Tampa Bay Rays (30th) – are playing in minor league stadiums this season.
The Pirates have won just 11 of the 25 games they have played at home this season, and they sit far too comfortably at the bottom of the National League Central division with a 17-33 record overall. They rank dead last in the league in total runs scored with 143 – a full 16 runs fewer than the lowly Colorado Rockies, who have just eight total wins on the year.
The Pirates earned their latest dubious distinction after Wednesday's 3-1 win over Cincinnati in which they tied the MLB record with their 26th consecutive game with fewer than four runs. They now share a three-way tie with the 1931 Boston Braves and 1969 California Angels for the longest such streak in baseball's modern era.
It's only May, but this season already felt lost for the Pirates before it even began because there's no reason to believe that things will get better under the current ownership. Keisel was right – "shame" is the only word to what Bob Nutting has done to make a laughingstock out of one of baseball's most storied franchises.
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