Despite Improvement, Pirates’ ’26 Season Will Officially End in Familiar Spot

The Pirates will not be part of the MLB playoffs for an 11th straight season. With the Padres defeating the Marlins on Friday night, Pittsburgh has been officially eliminated from the postseason.

The year began with playoff expectations, a clear statement from team president Travis Williams made at the end of last season when he said that was the goal, “Period. Full stop.”

The Pirates made a number of notable offseason acquisitions to try and position themselves to make the playoffs for the first time since 2015 and end MLB’s second-longest postseason drought. Only the Angels (2014) have gone longer since advancing past the regular season. 

The bulk of the focus was on improving the league’s worst offense from a year ago, and the Pirates did that. The additions of players such as Brandon Lowe and Ryan O’Hearn, along with improvements from several holdovers from last year’s roster gave the Pirates one of the better offensive units in baseball in 2026.

One addition to help the offense backfired completely, however, and the ramifications from his disastrous season are still being felt. Marcell Ozuna’s inability to play a position in the field had ripple effects on the rest of the lineup construction, and his inability to hit left-handed pitching is a reason the Pirates have still struggled to do so.  

Still, the Pirates rank second in MLB in hits and fifth in runs scored.

But while the offense showed dramatic improvement from a season ago, the pitching staff regressed. The only starting pitcher who exceeded expectations was Braxton Ashcraft, who went 14-5 with a 3.65 ERA in 28 starts before landing on the injured list last week. Reigning Cy Young winner Paul Skenes took a large step back due to a number of factors, and yes, some of it was bad luck. But he was also not nearly as dominant as he had been for the first two years of his career.

Prior to getting overhauled at the trade deadline, the bullpen was the team’s biggest issue for the first few months of the season. The bullpen did drastically improve, but by the time it did, it was already too late.

The Pirates did get better this season. They are in position to finish with a winning record for the first time in eight years. For a fanbase that has seen only eight postseason games since a heartbreaking loss in the 1992 NLCS – not to mention no playoff series wins since 1979 – a winning season might be reason to celebrate. But in reality, it was a disappointing end to a year with real expectations. 

And yes, the Pirates are in a pretty good position headed into 2027. Excluding upcoming free agents Lowe, Gregory Soto and Kirby Yates, everyone else on the roster will return if the Pirates want them to. 

At times, the Pirates looked like a playoff team this season. They actually held the third wild card spot as late as the final days of July. The effort was there – in the offseason and on the field. But in the end, it wasn’t enough.

So, the Pirates will be doing what they’ve grown accustom to doing this time of year – look towards next season and hope they can finally break through. 

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