Loserville

BY KEVIN KERNAN

If you want to see the future of Major League Baseball, take a hard look at the NL Central.

Mediocrity reigns.

Occasionally, to show BallNine is not just about big-name teams such as the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers and Phillies, it is good to look at an entire division.

When it comes to the 2024 season, the NL Central is the epitome of the “Who Cares’’ division.

It is a division that is always promising better days, loading up on draft picks, having a few incredibly talented players like Elly De La Cruz and Paul Skenes, and then delivering mediocrity – at best.

This is baseball’s most embarrassing division, even worse than the AL Central. Welcome to Loserville.

At least the AL Central has three teams over 70 wins. The Brewers are the only NL Central team with more than 70 wins.

If not for the Brewers, who will win their fourth NL Central Division title in seven years, this would be the Lost Division. Props to the Brewers, they find a way to get it done in the regular season and go nowhere in October; they still have never won a World Series.

There is one statistic that stands out this year for the Brewers, they are 31-15 in Inter-league play. Against the Reds, Cubs and Cardinals, all division rivals, they are 21-11.

That’s a credit to Pat Murphy, who took over as manager when Craig Counsell sold out to the Cubs. The Cubs are 8.5 games back in the division and five games back in the wild card, having to jump two teams.

The Cubs were involved in a game on Wednesday that tells you all you need to know about this division, and more importantly, the Pirates.

Rookie sensation Paul Skenes started and left the game after five innings with a 10-3 lead. Somehow, though, the Pirates – at home – managed to surrender 11 unanswered runs as the Cubs ran out to a 14-10 victory. Now you know why the Pirates bullpen is 27th in MLB with 4.58 ERA. The Brewers are second in bullpen ERA at 3.35 behind the  Guardians who lead MLB with a 2.79 bullpen ERA.

If there is ever one game to show how poorly a club is run, this was it.

The Pirates did not prepare Skenes properly for the season, limiting his outings in the beginning of the season while in the minors (7 starts, 27.1 innings) making it that much more difficult for him to be a starting pitcher.

Baseball is soon about to adopt new legislation to try to get starters six innings of work. This game shows how those in charge of teams have failed and have not been able to get starters deep into games. Skenes went 82 pitches and surrendered two earned runs. And he was out after five innings with a seven-run lead.

Skenes is having his workload limited. The people in charge of the Pirates, starting with Ben Cherington, have to limit his innings because this is the cookie-cutter way things are done in baseball these days.

One size fits all.

On the Pirates broadcast, after Skenes was lifted, it was said, “Makes sense, he has the big lead, hot day.’’

I don’t blame the broadcaster for saying that; he works for a club that continues to lose in all diverse ways and I’m certain that was the thinking of the front office when Skenes was pulled. But that is exactly what is wrong with the game today. Push the envelope a bit, even if it is just one more inning. Earlier this season fans wanted to see Paul Skenes pitch and it was a PNC happening. Only 12,660 Yinzers showed up Wednesday at beautiful PNC Park and as the Cubs mounted their late comeback, PNC became a ghost town.

Skenes’ bullpen fell apart. Something that has happened before in Pittsburgh. Remember, bad teams do that.

Pittsburgh fans are already locked into the Steelers’ opening game against the Falcons in Atlanta. With college football and NFL starting, baseball is taking a back seat.

I talked to two former pitching coaches on Wednesday. One said he understands that the Pirates are trying to protect Skenes, but then brought up a great point. “You protect the guy, but you are also thinking if you get a four- or five-run lead the bullpen is supposed to hold them. The problem with bullpens today is you are throwing more velocity at everyone, not command, and you are hoping the velocity gets them out. The good bullpens have guys who can command the stuff.’’

That is such a great comment and says so much about the game because bullpens are all about velocity – not command.

Skenes’ bullpen fell apart. Something that has happened before in Pittsburgh. Remember, bad teams do that.

The Pirates bullpen let Skenes down. Ben Cherington built the bullpen. The Pirates owner is cheap. The Pirates have failed to build the kind of bullpen to help Skenes and the rest of their starters. Their most important asset needs to have a reliable bullpen, especially in a year when Skenes’ innings are limited. That didn’t happen. The plan failed.

Then there is the big question of today about this pitching protection by limiting innings and pitch counts. Hate to tell you, but that plan is not really working.

The second pitching coach got to the heart of that philosophy and told BallNine: “I get it, we are only going to limit him this year to around 117 (Major League) innings, 150 overall maybe. But that stuff is not working. They are still getting hurt. Stop all that nonsense. It is not a scientific thing that you have figured out. It’s something that somebody came up with that they think is going to enable the growth of the player in a healthy manner and it’s not working. To me, all the protectionism has not worked. There is no proof this system works, the injuries are still out there, they are as bad as they have ever been if not worse.’’

And all you have to do is look at the injured list. Look at all the pitching injuries to the mighty Dodgers.

This former pitching coach made a great point too, but remember, I talk to veteran pitching coaches and players and coaches and managers who were in the game, who knows the game.

People who run teams now talk to analysts and all their analytics handlers, not to real baseball men. Just look at the front office of any team and the incredible number of analysts and such.

Teams like the Pirates continue to suck. The Pirates haven’t been to the playoffs since 2015 and haven’t won a playoff game since 2013, but those were the Clint Hurdle Pirates.

“My first full season in pro ball I wanted to go seven innings every time I went out there,’’ the pitching coach said of the value of length in a start.

Now they get their work in.

You would think they would want to go deeper into a game, especially with a 10-3 lead. But management has different ideas. They are not saving the games nor the arms.

What’s wrong with having Skenes figuring out how to pitch on a hot day in Pittsburgh at least for six innings with a big lead? The excuse making by the front office and managers in these situations is pathetic and is a disservice to the fans. After a game like that and a loss like that, if I’m a Pirates fan, I’m saying, “I’m done with you guys.’’

To the credit of the fans in St. Louis, one of my favorite baseball towns, that is exactly the message the Cardinal faithful are delivering to management, who continue to put one of the most boring teams in baseball on the field. Take a look at the crowds there the last few nights, not the announced crowd – as they used to say on Everybody Loves Raymond, the AIS crowd: Asses in Seats.

It’s embarrassing for such a valued franchise to fall apart. Here we are 60 years removed from October 1964 and David Halberstam’s wonderful book and those championship Bob Gibson Cardinals; these Cardinals have no hope of getting to October 2024.

The Cardinals are 10.5 back of the Brewers and nine out in the wild card.

It’s much worse than that for the Cardinals, too. I talked to a scout this week who has studied the Cardinals’ minor league system, and he says player development has completely changed from the days of the Cardinal Way. “It is nothing like it used to be,’’ the scout told me. “It’s mystifying the things they are doing in player development and now it is showing up on the major league level. I started seeing big changes about 2018.’’

The Cardinals were a dreadful 71-91 last season under longtime baseball boss John Mozeliak and are under .500 right now this season. If they finish under .500 again it will mark the first time since 1958-1959 that the Cardinals have had back-to-back losing seasons. On that 1959 squad, a 38-year-old Stan Musial played only 115 games and batted .255. These Cardinals have had to go out and buy starting pitching – and that is always a difficult assignment – and stars like Paul Goldschmidt, 36, have aged (.231 batting average, .394 slug).

On offense, the Cardinals have managed to pull off a terrible combination: they are 22nd in slugging at .388 and 22nd in stolen bases with 72. No real power and no real running game is no way to go through life in the National League.

The Reds can steal bases but do little else right and are 26th in hitting with a .231 batting average and are 21st in starting pitching with a 4.32 mark. If you can figure out the Reds plan for success, please let me know. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2012 and last won the World Series 34 years ago.

The Cubs, meanwhile, are always hyped up before the season and then reality hits. They need to turn it on to make it to the postseason, but this team has many shortcomings. None of that matters to the fans in the Wrigley Field bleachers, though, the beer is cold and every game has Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Going to Wrigley on a hot summer day is still a Top 5 baseball experience, it would just be nice if the Cubs could deliver more in the postseason. Joe Maddon’s Cubs delivered in 2016 – that was magical, and I was in Chicago the night they won it all in Cleveland – it was quite the party at Harry Caray’s that night and I even ventured over to Billy Goat Tavern and the latest version of The Goat came over too … and left his mark on the floor.

Problem is the Cubs haven’t won a playoff game since 2017 and the last three years they have averaged 76 victories. They are hovering around .500 this season and need a strong finish or else Wrigleyville is Loserville again, just like the NL Central.