At the beginning of this season, after every Pirates game, I gave an update on the franchise record that the team had.

After a week or two in, I stopped. I’ll be honest, half of it was out of neglect; I was simply forgetting to update it after each and every game. But the other reason why I stopped was because I did not seriously think the Pirates, even with their poor roster construction, would ever seriously risk falling below their lifetime .500 level.

It would have meant that the Pirates would have to be 20 games under .500 this season to reach that. Even with their poor offensive staff, a team that employed Paul Skenes just seemed incapable of that to me. Shame on me, I suppose.

After a disastrous start that has seen the Pirates open this year 15-32, 17 games under .500, a historic and depressing feat might be accomplished in a matter of days.

After being swept by the Phillies in Philadelphia, the Pirates are a mere four losses away from falling below .500 as a franchise, one that spans nearly 150 years of existence.

The fact that this team is bad enough to potentially accomplish that is one thing. But it looks infinitely worse when you realize that the Pirates, as a franchise, have not been a losing franchise since mid-way through the 1903 season.

Now, those margins to keeping that historic run alive are razor thin.

Baseball author and historian John Dreker broke down the early history of this team during the opening week of 2025.

In this franchise’s first ever season, back when they were members of the American Association and were known to most as the Alleghenys, the team achieved a winning record on September 21st, 1882, when they beat the Louisville Eclipse 6-4.

The franchise would have a losing record for nearly two decades before they finally got on the right side again. They had dug themselves quite a hole early on.

The Alleghenys lost more than twice as many as they won in both 1883 and 1884, and suffered their worst-ever season in 1890, when the formation of the Player’s League tore through the Alleghenys’ roster, giving them a 23-113 season.

The team would go through a league change, a name change, three ballparks, and almost 20 managers before they finally would rebound and get their overall record above .500.

The Pirates entered the 1903 season with an all-time record of
1,339-1,372, and as were on their way to their third straight National League pennant that year, the franchise finally got back above the .500 line on August 21st, 1903.

They’ve been a winning franchise ever since. For nearly 120 years, the Pirates have played winning baseball. Even with 20 consecutive losing seasons starting in 1993 and the three 100-loss seasons that the Pirates have suffered in the last 15 years, their glory days have been able to keep them above water for so long.

It’s really a testament to how strong certain eras of Pirates baseball were. The Buccos from 1900 to 1910 won four NL pennants, made it to two World Series, and won it all in 1909. The 1909 Pirates still hold the franchise record with 110 wins, and the 1902 team ranks second with 103.

The 1970s Bucs won two World Series rings, and four 70s teams rank in the top ten of Pirates’ winningest seasons.

But that distant success now hangs in the balance. Just a handful of games separates the Pirates from falling into the club of losing franchises.

Despite the team’s now former manager Derek Shelton declaring “it’s time to win,” for this season, the Pirates are one of the worst teams in baseball this year. Their bullpen is incredibly shaky and their offense is one of, if not the most anemic in the sport. Skenes has his starts regularly wasted and their rotation gets absolutely no help whatsoever.

Amidst all of the things that have gone wrong with the 2025 Pirates, they might now be on the hook as the team that plummeted the franchise below .500 for the first time in over a century.

(Featured photo of the 1903 Pittsburgh Pirates, from the Boston Public Library)