‘We want to keep winning’: Pirates GM Ben Cherington focused on improvement

He’s encouraged by their recent series wins over the Braves and Dodgers.

The Pittsburgh Pirates resided in last place in the NL Central, seven games behind the Milwaukee Brewers, but only a half-game back in wild-card standings. So Pirates general manager Ben Cherington believes teams “have a pretty good idea” of what is and isn’t working this season.

Even though the Pirates have yet to play two divisional opponents, the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds, Cherington is counting on them to create some separation in the standings next week.

“If it’s a book, you sort of know what the book’s about,” Cherington said Saturday afternoon. “You’re not quite sure what the end of the book is maybe, but you kind of know what the book is about. … Everybody’s fighting, scratching and crawling for a win, day to day.”

What has Cherington optimistic is how the Pirates endured the rough months of April (10-17) and May (12-14) — which included sweeps to the Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics and New York Mets — and responded with home series wins against the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers. The first four starters in the rotation have been strong, but the offense and bullpen are starting to live up to their potential.

“It’s exciting because there are parts of the team that are performing well. Some of those parts are things you need to give you a chance to face up against the toughest teams and win the really hard games,” Cherington said. “That’s exciting. I think it’s also a team that, by and large, has come back pretty quickly from our worst days.

“We’ve had bad days. We’ve had some, for sure. When we’ve had them, I feel like we fought back pretty quickly and showed up the next day and competed. That’s a good sign from the room. Not surprising, but a good sign from the room.”

Although the Pirates have a minus-21 run differential, their offense is starting to show signs of improvement. Over the last month, they rank in baseball’s top 10 with 32 home runs (tied for fourth), 122 RBIs (seventh) and 126 runs scored (eighth).

“Not a straight line. It’s a jagged edge, but the offense has trended positively in the last little bit,” Cherington said. “That’s encouraging. Still feel there’s more potential, too. Players that haven’t found their level yet. It’s exciting. And of course, we’re also clear that there’s parts of the team we just want to make better. Hopefully we can find a way to do that over the course of the season.”

While Cherington continues to stress the Pirates will look for internal help first, he emphasized that while he’s looking forward to the future, he’s hyper-focused on the immediate future.

“We want to keep winning, winning more. And yes, forever we want to do that, but in 2024, we want to do that,” Cherington said. “It’s not just about the young starters. It’s about the entire team. We want to do everything we can to put our team in a position to stay in it, get better, keep winning more games.”