The Pittsburgh Pirates are running out of runway, and the reasons for the slide are sitting right there in the numbers.
Since the All-Star break, Pittsburgh has gone 8-15 and fallen to 58-62, putting the club four games under .500 for the first time in 2026. The skid has been ugly in every direction: six wins in the last 20 games, six straight series losses and two separate four-game losing streaks.
One of the biggest cracks has come where the Pirates expected strength. Their rotation entered the season looking like one of baseball’s best, built around reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes, rookie arms Braxton Ashcraft and Bubba Chandler, plus veterans Mitch Keller and Jared Jones returning from injury. Instead, the group has unraveled, especially after the break, when Pittsburgh’s starters have put up a 5.84 ERA.
Chandler has been the lone bright spot, turning in strong outings against the New York Yankees and New York Mets while keeping damage to a minimum early in games. The rest of the group has had trouble staying efficient, whether it’s long innings, rising pitch counts or balls leaving the yard.
Ashcraft has been hit hard by the home run ball, with 11 homers allowed in his last seven starts, while Jones followed a strong July with two rough starts in August. Skenes, meanwhile, is still in an almost three-month-long slump.
The rotation took another hit when Keller was lost for the season with a right arm teres major muscle injury. That leaves Pittsburgh needing a bullpen day going forward, with Carmen Mlodzinski handling a starting/bulk relief role in that game.
The other major issue is on the offensive side, where left-handed pitching has become a wall the Pirates just can’t climb. Pittsburgh is 2-9 against southpaws since the All-Star break and 10-26 against them overall this season.
In the second half, opposing left-handed starters have held the Pirates to a 2.36 ERA, with 16 earned runs over 61 innings. Five lefties have thrown scoreless outings, and two others have given up just one run.
The Pirates haven’t scored multiple runs against a left-handed starter since July 20, more than three weeks ago.
The last eight starts against Pittsburgh by left-handed pitching have been especially brutal: just five earned runs allowed over 48 innings for a 0.94 ERA, with all but one of those starts ending in a win for the opponent. Against right-handed pitching, the Pirates have gone 6-6, which only sharpens the contrast.
That slump is especially jarring because Pittsburgh’s offense looked like a strength at the break. The Pirates led the majors in hits (886), RBI (495) and batting average (.263), and were tied for first in runs scored. It was a dramatic turnaround from 2025, when the lineup was widely viewed as one of the worst in baseball.
Since then, the bats have cooled off sharply. Before the break, Pittsburgh hit .263/.342/.426 for a .768 OPS. After the break, that has dropped to .229/.301/.351 for a .652 OPS, a 100-point dip.
Injuries have played a part. Catcher Endy Rodríguez and first baseman Spencer Horwitz have just returned, first baseman Ryan O'Hearn recently suffered a right quad injury, and shortstop Konnor Griffin and Oneil Cruz have yet to play. On top of that, some key hitters have slipped into slumps, including left fielder Bryan Reynolds and right fielder Esmerlyn Valdez, both of whom have been productive overall but are not rolling right now.
With the rotation faltering, left-handed pitching giving them fits and the offense cooling off, the Pirates are looking at a stretch where too many pieces have gone sideways at once. They need a turnaround fast if they want to keep the season from slipping away.
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Jake Mangum Is Taking Heat For A Much Bigger Pirates Problem
Jake Mangum has become an easy target in the wake of Oneil Cruzs injury, especially because his game is built on aggression and energy that can look messy when the results are uneven. Since getting more opportunity, he has shown enough offense to keep himself in the conversation, and for a Pirates club searching for anything stable, that has mattered more than the occasional rough edge in his approach.
The criticism, though, says as much about the larger mood around the roster as it does about Mangum himself. Pittsburghs problems have been deeper than one outfielders style of play, with pitching issues and a wave of injuries doing far more damage than any single lineup decision, and focusing on Mangum risks obscuring how many different things have gone wrong this season. [Read more 🡒]
Pirates Let A Costly Fix For Their Lefty Problem Slip Away
The Pirates have spent much of the season trying to balance a strong bullpen against an offense that can go missing, especially when left-handed pitching is on the mound. That has made the search for right-handed help even more pressing, and it is why the clubs decision-making around bats has drawn extra attention as the lineup continues to look uneven from one series to the next. Rookie Esmerlyn Valdez has been mired in a slump, adding to the sense that Pittsburgh could use another answer in a spot where production has been hard to find.
Austin Hays looked like the kind of fit that could have eased some of that pressure, given his track record against lefties and the sort of depth he might have provided in a platoon role. Instead, the opportunity moved on without the Pirates, and Hays has already settled in with the Padres. For a club still trying to patch together offense, letting that type of short-term fix slip away only sharpens the focus on how thin the margin can be when one side of the matchup keeps giving this lineup trouble. [Read more 🡒]
Pirates Front Office Now Owns A Promise Fans Wont Forget
Travis Williams put the timeline on the record, and Pirates fans heard it loud and clear. The team president publicly set making the playoffs as the goal for the 2026 season, a statement that raised expectations around a club that has spent years trying to convince its fan base that better days are coming.
By August, the gap between the promise and the standings has only made the mood more restless. Pittsburgh has dropped six straight series, sits 5.5 games out of the final National League Wild Card spot and has just a 7% chance of getting in, a backdrop that helped fuel chants of "Sell the team" during a recent game. For a front office that tied its own credibility to postseason progress, the pressure is now coming from the stands as much as the box score. [Read more 🡒]