ST. LOUIS — The Cardinals might be “Mid-America’s Team,” but the rest of the country prefers a good underdog story, and the Pirates are it.
After 20 straight losing seasons, the Pirates returned to the playoffs on Tuesday, thumping the Reds 6-2 in a wild-card game at PNC Park, and have their bandwagon rolling at high speed heading into Thursday’s Game 1 of the NL Division Series against the Cardinals.
“My neighbors want to see us win, so that’s good,” Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said Wednesday during a team workout at Busch Stadium.
The Cardinals have enjoyed recent postseason success, winning the World Series in 2011 before losing to the Giants in Game 7 of the NLCS last year. In the 20 seasons the Pirates went without a playoff appearance, the Cardinals reached the postseason 10 times.
But none of that history will be relevant Thursday when Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright delivers the first pitch of this best-of-five showdown between NL Central rivals.
Former Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett, who is scheduled to face Wainwright, saw his Pirates lusting for more after Tuesday’s 6-2 manhandling of the Reds.
“They’re not content with getting where we’re at,” Burnett said, when asked what he learned about the Pirates on Tuesday. “They want to go further. They want to dump more champagne on each other, they want to celebrate more, and they want to win more.
“The thing that’s impressed me most about these guys is the one -game mentality we keep throwing at them. Doesn’t seem to matter what comes at them or what happens good or bad, they come ready to play the next day, and they have short memories.”
But as rambunctious as the scene was at PNC Park for the wild-card game, Busch Stadium never has been a pushover in creating an atmosphere conducive for the home team. Since this building opened in 2006, the Cardinals are 37-24 at home against the Pirates. This season, the Pirates were only 3-6 here. The Cardinals ended up winning the NL Central, finishing three games ahead of the Pirates.
“I think as much as anything, to have six consecutive non losing months spoke volumes of what the improvements we were able to make throughout the season, the performance we were able to do off the mound and out of the bullpen,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said.
“Our offense has probably grown throughout the season, and we’ve got more growth in front of us, but we’ve defended the ball very well. We’ve pitched the ball very well. Ninety-four times during the season we scored more runs than the other team. So we have a good team.”
Other than adding free-agent catcher Russell Martin from the Yankees last winter, the Pirates dealt for first baseman Justin Morneau before the trade deadline and later acquired veterans Marlon Byrd and John Buck from the Mets.
“The excitement is cool, because everybody loves an underdog,” Buck said.
Especially an underdog that hadn’t sniffed the playoffs for the last two decades.
“The city of Pittsburgh was a baseball town before, and the fans have come back,” second baseman Neil Walker said. “We’ll take any fans on the bandwagon, anywhere we can get them.”