Carpenter clinches Pirates' 14th losing season

March 16, 2012 10:23 pm

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By Dejan Kovacevic / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

ST. LOUIS -- The Pirates' modest push to avoid the inevitable reached a quick, quiet end.

Chris Carpenter's complete-game three-hitter lifted the St. Louis Cardinals to a 3-1 victory last night at Busch Stadium, handing the Pirates loss No. 82 and, thus, formally clinching their 14th consecutive losing season.

That extended a streak that is:

Longest in franchise history. The previous high was nine, in 1949-57.

Third longest in Major League Baseball history. The Philadelphia Phillies set the standard at 16, in 1933-48.

Longest, currently, in the four major professional sports. Only the NBA's Golden State Warriors are close, with 12.

It extended, too, the personal run of misery for so many in the Pirates' organization.

From the man who bought the team in 1996 and has yet to oversee a winning season, but expresses optimism it will come soon ...

"We're not happy with the record, obviously," owner Kevin McClatchy said yesterday. "But we feel good about what we see around the diamond and where we're headed. You almost see a different team than the one we started with, in many ways. It's a very young group, but they're starting to get some confidence, get more comfortable. That's what we have to hope continues to happen."

To the player who has been on the roster the longest ...

"Six years for me now," shortstop Jack Wilson said at his stall. "It's tough. It's no fun. Out of the losing seasons I've been here, this one has been a little bit different because of the one-run losses and stuff like that. But it still hurts."

To the manager who, in his first year on the job, so often is asked questions about the 13 that preceded him ...

"Don't want to talk about it," Jim Tracy said when the subject of the streak was broached by a reporter after the game.

He paused and continued briefly: "We're 23-22 since the All-Star break. I'm looking at the optimistic side, and that is that we've been playing very, very good baseball. We'll keep working on that for the final month."

The Pirates had held the line at 81 losses while sweeping three from the Chicago Cubs at home, but Carpenter halted that momentum emphatically by striking out eight, walking none and facing four more batters than the minimum.

He did not allow a hit in the final three innings and finished it off with a five-pitch ninth that saw meek groundouts from Jose Bautista, Freddy Sanchez and Jason Bay. The latter struck out his previous three times up.

"Vintage Chris Carpenter," Tracy said. "I can't say it's the first time I've seen him pitch like that."

"He was locating all his pitches, and we were swinging at 'em," first baseman Ryan Doumit said. "Hats off to him."

The Cardinals were almost as complimentary of the Pirates' Zach Duke, who hung with Carpenter for seven innings while giving up three runs and eight hits and was the other reason the game zipped through in an hour and 54 minutes.

"It's tough to say he's the losing pitcher," St. Louis manager Tony La Russa said of Duke.

"He's going to be a fine major-league pitcher for a long time," Carpenter said.

Duke's bugaboo, as has been the case in 14 of his 29 starts, was the opponent scoring in the first inning. In this one, a leadoff walk to Preston Wilson and single by So Taguchi led to Juan Encarnacion's RBI single and a run-scoring wild pitch that put the Cardinals ahead, 2-0.

"Very frustrating," Duke said. "I did something I just can't do, and that's to walk a leadoff guy."

His first-inning ERA rose to 9.31, and the opponents' batting average to .375.

Wilson homered to lead off the third, ramming a Duke fastball into the bullpen beyond left-center.

The Pirates cut St. Louis' lead to 3-1 in the bottom half on a manufactured run. Ronny Paulino singled for the first of two hits, took second on a wild pitch, took third on Jose Castillo's willful grounder to the right side and scored on Duke's infield chopper to first.

From there, it was all Carpenter, now 9-1 for his career against the Pirates, 4-0 for the summer.

The Pirates, 53-82 on the season, must go 10-17 to avoid the eighth 100-loss record in the franchise's 120-year history.

14 Losing Seasons

The Pirates' last winning season was in 1992 when they won the NL East and just missed the World Series.

Here are the Pirates' wins in each of the past 16 seasons compared to the division winner of that year.

Kyle Ericson, Associated Press
Starter Zach Duke stands on the mound waiting for a new ball as the Cardinals' Preston Wilson, left, circles the bases after hitting a solo home run in the third inning last night.
Click photo for larger image.

Today

Matchup: Pirates (Shawn Chacon 6-5) vs. Cardinals (Jeff Weaver 5-13), 8:15 p.m.
Where: Busch Stadium, St. Louis.
Radio: KDKA-AM (1020) and Pirates Radio Network.

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