Avoiding History

The Pirates caught a break when Pedro Martinez slipped in the shower, scrubbing him from his start against the Bucs Monday. The team responded to its good fortune with an 11-1 win over the Mets, keyed by some timely hitting and a gritty pitching performance from Paul Maholm, who labored through a 116-pitch, six-inning effort, but yielded just one run and improved his still disappointing record to 3-7.

With a win today, the Pirates can reach double digits in road victories (they are currently 9-31) and post their 30th triumph. All this by the Fourth of July!

Too bad the team can't chop up its 10-run win of last night into 10 one-run victories to partially replace the 24 single-tally losses they've piled up this year. If that could magically happen, they'd be 39-45 and on the fringes of the division race in the aggressively mediocre NL Central.

But let's walk on the sunny side today. The team still has a mission, which is to distance itself from the worst squads in Pirates history.

The worst record, unlikely ever to be broken (we hope) belongs to the 1890 forebears of the Pirates, the Pittsburgh Alleghenys, who went 23-113. The current team racked up its 24th win on June 11. Even if it were to lose every remaining game and finish 29-133, they could not finish with a worse winning percentage than the '90 Alleghenys (.169).

More good news: The 2006 Pirates will not approach the number of errors committed by nonpitchers on the 1890 team: 439. (Did they have really tough scorers in those days? Bad fields, no doubt.) In fact, the entire infield on the current team probably won't combine for the 70 miscues recorded by Doggie Miller in split duty at third base and shortstop. (Doggie tacked on another five for good measure in a fill-in role behind the plate.)

The 1952 club (42-112, .273 WP) has the second-worst record in team history, and it will stay that way if the current team can go 16-62 the rest of the way, which seems likely, even by its lowly standards. No three pitchers on the 2006 staff will combine for 54 losses, as the '52 club's Murray Dickson (21), Bob Friend (17) and Howie Pollett (16) did. From a statistical hitting standpoint, the third-best player on the 1952 team was Joe Garagiola. The Buccin' Ear is confident that when the dust settles on the '06 campaign, the team's third-best offensive player's numbers and performance will leave Joe in the dust, although none will probably achieve the same notoriety the then-broadcaster-in-waiting did.

From second place to third place on the Worst Of list is a short step: the 1953 team went 50-104 (.325). The current Buccos can speed past that one by playing a little better than .300 ball (24-54) from here on in. Definitely doable.

If the 2006 team can put the '53 club in the rearview mirror, it will also likely speed past the 1917 Pirates (51-103/.331). That team had one thing in common with its Modern Era counterpart, though: its ability to ditch promising pitching. It had a young righthander named Burleigh Grimes, who would record 270 career victories and be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1964. For the '17 Buccos, however, he went 3-16 and was traded to Brooklyn, where he posted a record of 19-9 the following year.

So to avoid placing among the bottom five, the Pirates must get past the previously discussed (see post of May 31) 1985 team (57-104/.354). The 2006 edition is already halfway to its goal of 58 wins for the season. However, it is also more than halfway to its maximum loss count of 104. So the magic numbers for our heroes are 29 (wins), 49 (losses) and .377 (WP) the rest of the season.

Can they do it? They can, of course, but there is a huge potential catch looming: the last five series of the year are all against teams that have an excellent or at least decent chance of being in contention for something in September (in order, the Mets, the Dodgers, the Padres, the Astros and the Reds). On the plus side, the Mets may be coasting by that time; on the minus side, the road games are against the Dodgers and the Padres, the two teams most likely to be battling it out down the stretch, as they are in the closely contested Western Division.

The Buccin' Ear's advice? Circle the dates of September 4-7. That's when the Pirates invade Wrigley Field for a series with the victory-challenged Cubs that may go a long way toward not only determining the team's place in history, but also toward revealing this year's worst team in baseball -- or at least the National League, which these days is another way of saying the same thing.

Thanks to www.baseballreference.com and www.postgazette.com for help with the research on this post.