Let other folks downplay the way the Pittsburgh Pirates have begun 2024.
Manager Derek Shelton is thrilled that his club is 5-0 for the first time in 41 years — and has scored at least a half-dozen runs each time out this deep into a season for the first time in at least 124 years.
“There’s significance to getting off to a good start,” Shelton said Monday night after the Pirates beat the host Washington Nationals 8-4 to follow up a four-game series sweep at the Miami Marlins. “You come out of spring training and all the things you talk about that you kind of want to implement — and we’ve talked a lot about what our intent should be and how it should be — [and] we’ve kind of executed that in the first five games.”
Pittsburgh is coming off a 76-86 record a year ago and a fourth-place finish in the NL Central. The team hasn’t ended up with a winning record since 2018 and hasn’t won a game in the postseason since 2013.
So this sort of early success, as little as it might ordinarily mean in the marathon of a 162-game major league schedule, might actually carry some weight.
“I was just nervous to not mess it up,” left-handed starter Marco Gonzales said with a chuckle after his first outing with the Pirates, a no-decision in which he allowed just one run in five innings. “I’m just glad to get mine out of the way and keep it rolling. I don’t think anybody in here is really keeping track right now. We’re just having fun. That’s the best part about this.”