Hey Cincinnati, It’s Time to Ditch the Pirates Superiority Complex

The email landed in my inbox with the subtlety of a Joey Votto home run swing. The subject line said it all: “C’mon, it’s the Pittsburgh Pirates!” The message, from a frustrated Reds fan, was laced with a familiar indignation: “It ticks me off the Reds keep losing to the Pirates. It’s the Pirates, for God’s sake!”

That sentiment, my fellow Cincinnati sports fans, is the problem. It’s an ingrained, decades-old reflex that has become a cognitive trap. We puff out our chests, look north up I-71, and scoff. It’s just Pittsburgh. It’s just the Pirates. But the cold, hard truth of the modern National League Central is that this attitude is not just arrogant—it’s empirically wrong. The data doesn’t lie, and it’s time we adjusted our worldview before another season slips away because we underestimated a rival that has long ceased being a pushover.

The Hard Numbers: A Reality Check for Reds Country

Let’s move past the nostalgia of the Big Red Machine and the 1990 wire-to-wire season. The baseball landscape has shifted, and the Pirates have been shifting it right under the Reds’ cleats. This isn’t about a bad week; it’s about a bad decade of dominance by Pittsburgh in this head-to-head matchup.

Consider these undeniable facts from the recent era:

• Since 2022, the Pirates are 36-25 against the Reds. That’s not a fluke; it’s a pattern of success.
• The Reds have lost the season series to Pittsburgh in 5 of the last 8 years. They are, quite literally, our superiors more often than not.
• In the past decade, the Reds have almost as many last-place finishes in the NL Central (four) as the Pirates (five). The moral high ground is a myth.

This week’s series, where the Pirates took two of three from the Reds, wasn’t an anomaly. It was a continuation of a trend. The “lowly Pirates” narrative is a security blanket we cling to that provides no actual warmth or wins. Respect isn’t given; it’s earned. And Pittsburgh has been earning it against Cincinnati for years while we’ve been busy denying it.

Why the Disconnect? Anatomy of a Baseball Blind Spot

So why does this stubborn mindset persist in Cincinnati? The roots are deep. For generations, the Pirates were the other team in Pennsylvania, often overshadowed and struggling. The Reds’ historic greatness created a natural hierarchy in fans’ minds. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh’s identity became tied to other sports—the Steelers’ dynasty, the Penguins’ excellence. The Pirates were the afterthought, and we treated them as such.

But baseball economics and cycles of rebuilding have a way of leveling perceptions. While the Reds embarked on their own necessary but painful rebuilds, the Pirates, under GM Ben Cherington, have been executing a shrewd, ground-up reconstruction. They’ve invested heavily in player development, built one of the top farm systems in baseball, and are now seeing that pipeline produce impact talent like Oneil Cruz, Ke’Bryan Hayes, and a steady stream of power arms.

We look down on them because we remember Andrew McCutchen leaving and the subsequent down years. But we’re not paying attention to the young, athletic, and pesky team they’ve built in the present. Our arrogance is based on a past that no longer exists, blinding us to the current threat.

The Rivalry Reborn: What the Pirates Got That the Reds Don’t

Analyzing the recent matchups reveals a clear blueprint. The Pirates have consistently out-executed the Reds in fundamental areas that decide close games. They play a brand of baseball that can be frustratingly effective:

• Aggressive Base Running: They pressure defenses and take extra bases, forcing errors.
• Clutch Two-Out Hitting: They have a knack for extending innings and delivering timely hits against the Reds’ bullpen.
• Pitching Discipline: Their staff, while not always star-laden, attacks the zone and exploits the Reds’ sometimes-aggressive swing tendencies.

More importantly, they play with a nothing-to-lose swagger against Cincinnati. They know the history, they hear the “It’s just the Pirates” chatter, and they use it as fuel. The Reds, perhaps subconsciously buying into their own fans’ outdated rhetoric, sometimes seem to play down to the competition, expecting victory to be handed to them based on jersey pedigree alone. In professional sports, that’s a recipe for consistent disappointment.

Looking Ahead: A Prescription for Changing the Narrative

The path forward for the Reds—and more importantly, for the fans—is clear. It begins with a simple, humbling admission: The Pittsburgh Pirates are a legitimate divisional rival and a peer in the NL Central standings. They are not a “should-win” series; they are a tough opponent that requires maximum focus and preparation to beat.

For the front office, it means scouting and constructing the roster with the specific challenges Pittsburgh presents in mind. For Manager David Bell and the players, it means entering every series against the Pirates with the same intensity they’d bring against the Cardinals or Brewers. The days of penciling in four wins from a Pittsburgh series are over.

For us, the fans? Our job is to evolve. Stop with the dismissive tweets and the exasperated “It’s the Pirates!” comments. That energy is wasted and rooted in fiction. Instead, recognize the rivalry for what it has become: a hard-fought, critical divisional battle between two young teams fighting for the same space. The disrespect needs to end because it only serves to motivate the other side.

The final out of this week’s series should also be the final out of an outdated era of thinking. The Pittsburgh Pirates have the Reds’ number. They have for years. Continuing to look down on them isn’t just condescending; it’s a denial of reality that prevents us from accurately assessing our own team and the league they play in. The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one. Cincinnati, our problem is our pride. Let’s trade it in for some clear-eyed respect, and maybe then, the wins will start to follow.

Got a topic or question that gets you fired up? Ask columnist Jason Williams anything – sports or non-sports – and he’ll pick some of your questions and comments from his inbox and respond on Cincinnati.com. Email: jwilliams@enquirer.com

Source: Based on news from Yahoo Sports.