Red Sox fans are having a rough time after another postseason exit, but the latest Yankees loss still doesn’t touch what Pirates fans lived through in back-to-back Octobers.
Boston fell to New York in the Wild Card Round for the second straight year, a brutal result for a club that finally pushed through a long rebuild and then went all-in at the trade deadline. The frustration is real. But the idea that this is the worst two-year playoff stretch ever is exactly the kind of “prisoners of the moment” talk Pittsburgh supporters know better than anyone.
Because if you want to talk about a postseason gut punch that can’t be topped, you go straight to 2014 and 2015.
The Pirates entered 2014 coming off a monster 2013 season: 94 wins, a trip to the NLDS, and awards for Andrew McCutchen, Clint Hurdle, and Francisco Liriano. They followed that with an 88-win season that still earned them a home Wild Card Game against the Giants.
That matchup went about as badly as possible. Madison Bumgarner ripped through the Pirates’ lineup and finished off an 8-0 shutout with four hits allowed.
A year later, Pittsburgh was even better. The Pirates added 10 wins in 2015, but because the Cardinals won the division with a 100-62 record, they were back in the Wild Card Game.
This time it was the Cubs, and Jake Arrieta was every bit as overwhelming as Bumgarner had been the year before. Kyle Schwarber’s homer into the Allegheny helped drain the building, and the Pirates were shut out again, 4-0.
Those losses hit even harder because of what the pitchers were doing at the time. Bumgarner’s performance was just the start of an October that ended with an unthinkable 52⅔ innings. Arrieta, meanwhile, was finishing what might have been the greatest second half in baseball history, posting a record-low 0.75 ERA after the 2015 All-Star Game.
That was the punishment for two seasons in which Pittsburgh averaged 93 wins. So yes, the Red Sox have every right to feel sick right now. But on the all-time misery scale, they’re still only halfway to Pirates territory.
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Among the names to watch are shortstop Wyatt Sanford, catcher Easton Carmichael and pitcher Zander Mueth, three players with different paths but the same basic goal: keep moving up the system. The Fall League will give Pittsburgh a clearer read on how they handle better competition, and for some of them, the month ahead could help determine whether the next step comes sooner rather than later. [Read more 🡒]