The first leg of the Pirates' season is in the books.
And it wasn't exactly pretty.
The first 16 games of the Derek Shelton and Ben Cherington era have gone about as poorly as possible, filled with injuries and losses, and both stick out more in an abbreviated season.
So in case you need a refresher, or are just tuning in, these are the five biggest storylines from the first quarter of the Pirates' 2020 season.
• LOTS OF LOSSES
There's no way around it: A 3-13 record is horrible. It matches the 1952 Pirates for the worst start in franchise history, and that team finished with the worst record (42-112) out of any Pirates team since the start of the 20th century.
“I don’t like to see the record either, and none of us do," Cherington said this weekend. "None of us like the feeling after a loss. That’s why we work hard to make it better, because we don’t like that feeling. But we’ve learned a lot, and will continue to learn a lot.”
The Pirates have been competitive in most games, playing seven one-run contests thus far, but they have only won one of those games. They've also dropped three extra-inning affairs and lost in a variety of unexpected ways, including failing to track down a fly ball, having a cleat get stuck and allowing a record amount of home runs to start a game.
At some point a bounce will go their way, right?
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