PITTSBURGH — Wearing Hawaiian shirts as they headed out for a cross-country flight, the Pittsburgh Pirates insisted that a record 19th consecutive losing season was a year of progress.
“This isn’t anything like before,” losing pitcher Charlie Morton said after Wednesday’s 3-2 defeat to the St. Louis Cardinals clinched another sub-.500 record. “The atmosphere is totally different. We were in contention for a good while. It’s been a long time since that’s happened.”
A year after going a big league-worst 57-105, the Pirates were 51-44 and led the NL Central by a half-game before play July 20. But they have gone 16-38 since, leaving them at 67-82.
“Our how-to is going to have to get better, because we’ve got to get this organization to the point where we’re no longer talking about consecutive losing seasons,” said first-year manager Clint Hurdle, who planned the Hawaiian shirts in advance.
When the Pirates last had a winning season, Barry Bonds led them to Game 7 of the NL Championship Series. At times this year, it seemed like the Pirates finally were on their way to a winning season.
“They compete,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “Clint and his coaching staff have done a really good job of getting their players to play hard for nine innings.”
The Associated Press
