Futilitywatch '09: Pirates Fall Below .500 For the First Time

Futilitywatch '09 is our semi-regular look at the Pittsburgh Pirates' march towards their record 17th consecutive losing season.

After a promising 4-3 start to the season, the Buccos have lost two straight to the dismal Houston Astros, who had previously been shutout by Zach Duke and Kyle Lohse consecutively. On Thursday, the Pirates lost a game in which Russ Ortiz started for Houston. Clearly this point in the season is as good as any to start a feature named "Futilitywatch."

The Season Thus Far

The pitching staff aboard the Flying Dutchman (weird how a legendary doomed Pirate ship shares a nickname with one of the greatest Pirates in history, isn't it?) is off to a pretty good start in 2009 and that's probably the Pirates' best hope to avoid a losing season this year. Both Duke and Ian Snell are showing early signs of improvement and Paul Maholm has continued his solid run from 2008 into his first two starts of 2009. Of course, that's the key. No one's made more than two starts so far, which means drawing conclusions about improvements in the National League's worst pitching staff in 2008 is premature.

The offense has been as bad as advertised, save Adam LaRoche's sudden ability to hit in April. Even with him, Nyjer Morgan, and Freddy Sanchez defying early expectations, the Pirates are still 24th in the big leagues in runs so far in '09. But hey, at least Andy LaRoche got his first hit today!

A Little Bit of History

Since this is the first installment of Futilitywatch, we'll start at the beginning. With 82 losses this year, the Pittsburgh Pirates will break the record held by the 1933-1948 Philadelphia Phillies for the most consecutive losing seasons in both Major League Baseball history and the history of all professional sports in North America. Those Phillies were so bad that they actually started losing in 1918, took a quick breather with a 78-76 season in 1932, and then kept right on losing again. Between 1918 and 1948, they had 12 100-plus loss seasons. And even they figured out how to sneak out a winning record once.

The Numbers

Pirates record: 4-5
Wins remaining to avoid ignominy: 77 (we'll even give credit for 81-81!)
Losses until immortality: 77
1949 Phillies' record after 9 games: 3-6
Hits by Andy LaRoche: 1
Earned runs allowed by Zach Duke: 1