Pirates can't back solid Brubaker (9 K's)

PITTSBURGH -- Bryan Reynolds has hit .300 at every level he’s played since high school. He typically carries himself with a quiet confidence that suggests he always expects to hit. But 10 games into this season, he had four hits. At the halfway point, he was batting .184.

“I might have put a little too much pressure on myself because I knew it was a shortened season, and I might have thought I didn’t have time to have a slump,” Reynolds said Monday afternoon. “So I had one the whole season instead.”

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That narrative applies to many players in the Pirates’ lineup, as the team has endured a season-long slump that continued in its 5-0 loss to the Cubs on Monday night at PNC Park. Failing to capitalize on a strong start from rookie JT Brubaker, who struck out nine in 6 2/3 innings, the Bucs managed only four singles and two walks against Jon Lester and a trio of Cubs relievers.

It’s fair to think that this season can’t end soon enough for Pittsburgh, which has lost 13 of its last 14 games and 39 of 54 overall this year. But the looming finish line of this truncated season may have had an adverse effect on the Pirates’ slow-starting hitters.

This season afforded little time for hitters to dig their way out of holes, to hit their way out of slumps, and several Pirates players have admitted that reality got in their head.

“Knowing there were only 60 games, you look up and 10 games in you’re hitting .200 or whatever it may be, you start putting that pressure on yourself. You kind of let it snowball,” second baseman Adam Frazier said. “It’s not where anybody wants to be. It’s frustrating. … Being shrunk to 60 games is part of the challenge as well. We all let that hit us right across the jaw and take us out of our game, to say the least.”

Hitters could talk about timing and mess with their swing mechanics, but they couldn’t snap their fingers to snap out of slumps. And so a rough start has turned into a season in which the Pirates are grading out, by two metrics, as one of the least productive offenses in MLB’s modern era.

Their adjusted OPS+ entering Monday’s game was 69, tied with the 1901 Boston Beaneaters for the lowest single-season mark since 1900. Their 68 wRC+ is the third-lowest since 1900, behind only the 2020 Rangers and 1920 Athletics.

“When you have an endgame and you don’t have as many games to catch up, it’s real. The one thing that we all kind of forget about at times is we’re dealing with human beings, and it’s human nature to, when you’re struggling, want to catch up really quickly,” manager Derek Shelton said. “How we’ve tried to combat it is just to stay positive. It sounds a lot more simple than it is, but focus on the singular at-bat.”

Over this final week, the Pirates will also do their best to focus on the positive developments they’ve seen this year. That list includes Brubaker, who -- one rough outing against the White Sox aside -- has improved every time he’s taken the mound. He’ll have one more chance to stake his claim on a spot in next year’s Opening Day rotation, as he’s scheduled to start the season finale Sunday in Cleveland.

The 26-year-old took another step forward in his eighth start, giving up only two runs on four hits and a walk. Brubaker made the Cubs swing and miss on 19 of his 98 pitches, one more whiff than Joe Musgrove generated in his 11-strikeout outing against the Cardinals on Sunday. Brubaker pitched backward at times and used his entire arsenal throughout the night, finishing four strikeouts with sinkers, three with sliders and two with curveballs.

“I feel like I’ve done well. I feel like I’ve competed, I feel like I’ve proven to myself that I can get guys out, former MVPs, reigning MVPs, just some of the best hitters in the league,” Brubaker said. “I feel like I have proven myself that my stuff is good enough to get them out, and I can go right after them and not nibble to try to get them to swing at my stuff -- just make them swing the bat and they will get themselves out.”

The Cubs scratched across one run on a smartly executed bunt by Javier Báez in the second, then Brubaker hit Jason Kipnis before allowing a double to Victor Caratini in the fifth. Monday was the third time in a row Brubaker has walked off the mound with the Pirates having scored zero runs to support him.

Over their last four games, Pittsburgh’s starters have combined to allow only three earned runs in 23 2/3 innings. The Pirates have lost all four games.

“This is four starts in a row where we've been really good, and I think that's a positive sign,” Shelton said. “We just haven't scored any runs.”