Tim Benz: Opening Day crowd should open the ears of the Pirates (and the owner)

Losing is one thing. How you lose and when you lose is another.

Ask the Pittsburgh Steelers.

For many NFL franchises, a 10-7 record and a playoff berth might sound like a pretty good year.

When you lose five poorly played games in a row to close out the season for an eighth consecutive year without a playoff win, 10-7 doesn’t feel so great.

Losing ugly and losing late in the NFL means no one is going to remember how well you were playing before Thanksgiving.

Losing ugly and losing early is an equally catastrophic curse for a consistently bad baseball team.

Ask the Pittsburgh Pirates.

With just four winning seasons since the end of the 1992 NLCS and no playoff victories since 2013, playing as poorly as the Pirates have played to start 2025 means no one is going to care by Mother’s Day.

Teams such as the Pirates that typically inspire such little faith can’t lose five times in seven tries before the home opener and expect fans to be in a festive mood.

That’s why someone was flying a plane over the stadium with a “Sell the team, Bob” message to owner Bob Nutting trailing behind it.

There is a “Sell the team, Bob” plane flying around already over the North Shore. pic.twitter.com/OFMVCxjtzZ

— Bob Greenburg (@BobGreenburg) April 4, 2025

And you certainly can’t play as badly as the Pirates played in their home opener against the New York Yankees and expect things to be any better.

That’s why fans were also chanting “Sell the team” numerous times before the game even reached the end of the fourth inning of a 9-4 Yankees victory. It’s why there were some audible boos when manager Derek Shelton’s name was introduced during pregame ceremonies.

Hey, Opening Day goodwill only lasts for so long.

The defeat drops the Pirates to 2-6. The Bucs gave up 13 hits, yielded six walks, went down on strikes 11 times, had a runner picked off first base and committed a pair of errors.

“Their frustration is that they want to win. I want to win. Our players want to win,” Shelton said. “We’ve got to keep focus on that.”

Deflating any optimism that might have existed coming out of Bradenton this quickly, this emphatically, is poison for a fanbase that is as perpetually frustrated as this one is.

“We are all trying our hardest out here. This game is a really tough game,” starting pitcher Mitch Keller said. “But we’ve got to play clean baseball. And it is hard to play clean baseball when your starting pitcher is not filling it up and throwing strikes and keeping you engaged.”

The Pirates lineup can’t hit. The defense can’t field. The bullpen is shaky, and, now that Jared Jones is on the shelf, the starting rotation suddenly looks thin after Paul Skenes.

Aside from all that, this year is off to a great start.

“We’re having a slow start, and we are trying to figure out how to play better,” first baseman/catcher Endy Rodriguez said. “Everybody is going to help each other. We always talk. That’s a very important thing about baseball, to play as a team. We are going to get there.”

Where “there” is remains to be seen. At some point it was fair to assume that the Pirates’ season would be reduced to “When is Skenes pitching again” mode. But I wasn’t expecting that to occur before the Easter Bunny paid a visit.

At least we have that to fall back on … for a few years, anyway.

This makes me sick. pic.twitter.com/EPAPcqVZHZ

— Austin Bechtold (@AustinRBechtold) April 4, 2025

LISTEN: Tim Benz and Kevin Gorman discuss Pirates Opening Day.