Aug 6, 2016 4 min read

Think the Pirates can play .654 ball from now until October?

That’s what was needed going into Saturday night’s game with the Reds for them to win 90 games. They were a game over .500 after 107 games and needed to go 36-19.

I’m not betting on it. Not when Andrew McCutchen and Jung Ho Kang are struggling to stay above the Mendoza Line for a month and a half.

Most of the criticism and blame has been focused on McCutchen, who’s hitting .215 since June, but Kang is hitting .225. He hit .186 in July.

Last July, when the Pirates were on their way to 98 wins, Kang hit .379.

McCutchen hit .202 in June. Last June, he hit .337.

You don’t have to look any further than those two to see why the Pirates look like they’re on their way to winning 82 games instead of 98.

The Pirates gave McCutchen three days off last week, hoping the break would kick-start him for the stretch, but he really didn’t get three days off. He just didn’t play in the games.

If they really thought getting away would clear his head, they should have allowed him to get away to, say, Stone Harbor.

You know, for a vacation.

I’m going to guess if he’s required to show up at the ballpark and put on the uniform, he’d rather play.

Meanwhile, if Kang looked this bad at the plate last year, it would have been taken as a sign he just wasn’t ready to make the jump from Korean baseball to the majors.

• Of course, now that the Pirates are looking a lot like a team that’s not going to the postseason, fans are lining up with the torches and pitchforks to take to Bob Nutting’s front door.

They feel the Pirates stink because he’s cheap.

The fact this story line develops every time the Pirates flirt with dropping below .500 speaks volumes about the stupidity of Major League Baseball’s economics.

There are people who know the baseball business who will tell you the Pirates, because of revenue sharing, are one of the most profitable teams in MLB – more profitable than some of the teams from TV mega-markets.

But that discussion wouldn’t take place if there were a salary cap and a salary floor. Neither is going to happen.

• If you think the Nutting family is pocketing your money and not giving you the return you deserve in the form of competitive teams, then you might want to think about not giving them any more of your money.

If you do continue to give them your money, you might want to stop whining.

• It’s a shame to see what MLB stupidity has done to the Cincinnati Reds.

Somehow, it made sense for them to be the first team to trade a guy who was leading the league in RBI at the time of the deal. Jay Bruce went to the New York Mets.

The Reds also traded one of the best pitchers in baseball, Johnny Cueto, to the Royals at the deadline last year.

• ESPN is hemorrhaging subscribers as people are finding new ways to watch sports. At one point last year, they were losing $840,000 worth of subscriptions per day.

It might be because, other than actual games, most of its programming stinks. It’s nice to see one of their best and most successful shows is still “Pardon the Interruption,” which consists of two old guys sitting across a table from each other arguing about the news and issues of the day.

The hipper ESPN tries to get, the more unwatchable the shows become. “First Take” was in Latrobe last week and it included two guys discussing the Steelers and interviewing players and coaches for an hour. There also was a woman, who spoke for a total of about four minutes, on the panel who served no purpose.

Look up the word vapid and you will find a picture of an ESPN co-hostess who adds to the show the way models add to “The Price is Right.”

Female reporters serve a purpose. They, you know, report.

Most of ESPN’s co-hostesses set the women’s equal rights movement back 50 years and don’t draw one extra viewer to the network.

Or subscriber.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday sports column for the Observer-Reporter.