You've seen some ugly losses this year. Yet even after your team has been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention (though they were realistically eliminated quite a while back), you can't help but follow Game #152. There's an interesting, potentially good pitching match up in the opposing pitcher with the great ERA whom your incompetent former general manager traded away without getting anything in return facing off against one of your team's best pitchers whose performance over the past two seasons, while still on the learning curve of a young pitcher, at least ensured that your incompetent former general manager never managed to rob his team of another starter by turning this pitcher into a reliever. In addition to the potential duel of the two starting pitchers, there's the knowledge that the Pirates have hit a little better since the beginning of August and that San Diego's hitting is not equal to the level of their top two starting pitchers by any stretch of the imagination. You see a game at a pitcher's ballpark, which should be great for your team's young power pitcher, and you think, well--if your team's going to win any games in this series, it will have to be this game.
1st inning. Your team's off to a great start. Well, not that great, but at least they're not going to be no-hit by the opposing pitcher who's almost no-hit your team in the past. And they score a run. That's good news.
Bottom of the 1st inning: Perhaps due to unfamiliarity with such an uncommon event, your team's starting pitcher doesn't know what to do with a lead. You yearn for all of your team's young pitchers to develop maturity that renders their still-way-too-high first inning ERA's a thing of the past. You wish your catcher would learn how to block balls rather than allow passed balls. The opposing team regains the lead, but your pitcher gets out of the inning giving up 2 runs, only one of which is counted as an earned run. You recall other games this season when this pitcher, whom you can't help but love due to his stuff, potential, and at times really good performances, has completely slammed the door shut after first inning hiccups. Whatever the reason, you hope that this could probably be the case tonight as well.
Top of the 3rd inning: Your team scores runs off the guy with the great ERA and the pristine home ERA. Three runs off this guy in a game is good for your team. You probably can't expect anything more. In fact, you know you shouldn't expect anything more from your team. No matter how "off" fans of the opposing team might feel the pitcher they've nicknamed "Cy" to be, it's still your team, and their record indicates they are a bad baseball team.
2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th innings: It's really nice to watch when one of your promising players filled with potential actually fulfills that promise and potential in a game situation. Forget promise, forget potential, forget the fact that stating the truth that the opposition is nowhere close to being the best hitting team in the league, and just relish the fact that on this night, your team's young starting pitcher is just good. As in, tonight, really, really good.
8th inning: You wince when you see Shawn Chacon come into the game to hold a one-run lead. The eighth inning takes too long to play and your manager uses three pitchers, including his closer to obtain the last out, to preserve a one-run lead.
9th inning: Your team's offense is dormant. You feel fairly confident and content with your closer coming into the game, but the fact of the matter is, one long ball could tie the game. You feel your starting pitcher deserves a better fate than that after his performance. Still, your team manages to get to 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth. But there's a double that had the chance to be an out, and then there's a walk from a closer who, really, when he's on, which has been most of the time, just doesn't walk batters. Trouble's brewing. Then there's the walk-off home-run for the opposition and their team celebrating like defeating the Pirates was worthy of celebration, which, of course, defeating the Pirates was a wonderful feat given that the opposition had just won a meaningful baseball game while contending for a pennant and the wild card.
Immediate Aftermath: You watch the opposition celebrate and wonder what it it would have been like for your team not to celebrate a meaningful victory, but just a playing "spoiler" win. You wonder how exciting it could be to be the fan of a team that has a chance to celebrate meaningful wins this late in September. You can't help but be happy for the joyous, celebrating opposing players even as you feel a perhaps greater measure of suckiness/pain/hurt that comes from watching the seemingly unceasing nightmare of good baseball teams continuously finding ways to beat your bad baseball team--even when one of your team's good players gives a great performance.
Reflections on the After Aftermath:
Hopes: Your team's color announcer notes something that you have as well: Your young starting pitcher just pitched a great game against a playoff contender late in September with his best stuff. If your bad baseball team ever morphs into a mediocre team (as you remember the division home of your team with hope), it can probably be taken as a good sign that this pitcher is able to pitch this well this late in the season. And, yes, sure, your closer blew a save, but as you've reminded yourself after a few ugly outings by tonight's starting pitcher and after a few other ugly outings of other young starting pitchers this season, a few ugly starts can be part of the developmental process. Besides, even the game's best pitchers have nights where they're "off," and even great closers occasionally blow a save. You hope Matt Capps, whom you still love for many of the same reasons you love tonight's starting pitcher, learns from this blown save experience exactly what pitches to throw should he ever find himself pitching in a game that's meaningful for his team this late in September. And though of course you dismiss this thought as a delusional dream of grandeur, you can't help but wish that in a season or two, your baseball team is actually playing meaningful games in September.
Aggravations: Seeing the replay of the game's highlights a day later will still sting--it's just a reminder of how far away your team, not individual players, but the team, is from being known as an overall good baseball team. Plus, there's something aggravating about reading the opinions of fans who complain about their team's starting pitcher not getting a win--granted, "Cy" doesn't have the wins his pristine ERA proclaims he should (only 9, which again points out win-loss statistics aren't everything). Your pitcher's already been hung with 4 tough losses this season, and this one won't even go into the "tough loss" category. At least you, a fan of a bad baseball team, can concur with fans of a good baseball team and note that won-loss record is not necessarily the best way to judge the quality of a starting pitcher. The lack of wins is just aggravating when pitchers who pitch well enough to win don't win.
Analyzing the Quotes/Suckiness, Pain, Hurt, and Nightmare Continue:
You discover your team's starting pitcher didn't come out for the eighth, despite having only thrown 92 pitches, because his arm was "kind of sore." He also added he'd never before thrown this many innings. You wince. As a fan of a perennially losing baseball team that's lost many pitchers to injury, you imagine the worst. You want to hope your pitcher was just doing his usual honesty thing where he speaks his mind bluntly, but your mind goes to places that are very, very bad. If his arm is actually sore, you want your manager to forget about his next two starts and just make sure he's healthy and rested for next season. If your manager won't have common sense, then you'd hope your new CEO would have some common sense and do the right thing for the future of the player, team, and whole organization.
But speaking of the future for the team and the whole organization, well, you wish you could do something more than note individual successes to this point (regardless of what happens in the next and last ten games). Like, oh, pitching over 200 innings is good, and so is a top-10 NL strikeout rate. Despite your frustration with the won-loss statistic, 14 wins on a team twenty games under .500 is really good, especially when one takes into consideration games that weren't won. Finding a young closer who throws strikes is good. A one-time batting champion hitting above .300 again and playing really good defense at his position is also good.
But the thing is, the thing made clear by how those opponents celebrated and the dejected way you watched your team leave the field, is that you're tired, drawn out, worn down, and exhausted by this cycle of being forced to look at "encouraging signs" from individuals rather than celebrating victories. And knowing the visceral suckiness/pain/hurt you feel as you watch the nightmare continue to unfold, you can only imagine what the players, especially the ones, mentioned and not mentioned, who've made strides and lots of strides, have to feel when it comes to losing baseball games like yesterday's game.
Like the players, you want the nightmare to end, and you want the nightmare to be replaced by a no longer delusional dream of playing meaningful games--meaningful for your team--in September. But, at least until next spring training, you'll have to settle for maintaining the health of your team's best players, enjoying a great performance by any of your team's players when such an event occurs, and watching other teams, but not your team, celebrate meaningful victories with the giddy joy of young children. Such, unfortunately, is what it entails to be a fan of the 2007 Pittsburgh Pirates.*
(*The asterisk only denotes the year 2007. As a PBC fan, hope springs eternal in the sense of hoping that the suckiness/pain/hurt/nightmare of being a Bucco fan will be replaced by the celebratory joy that fans of good baseball teams enjoy at this time in September. However delusional such a dream of a good baseball team may appear to be to the opposition or to fellow fans, here's to hoping that dream isn't delusional for the new CEO, the GM he hires, and next year's edition of the Pittsburgh Pirates.)
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