Bucs end season with number 105

The Bucs lose the final game of the season to the Marlins 5-2 on Sunday afternoon sealing the Pirates 2010 record to 57-105 –the second worst record in franchise history and lowest since 1954.

Both the Pirates .242 batting average and the pitchers 5.00 ERA ranked last in the National League this season.

“Obviously, 100-plus loss season is not where we thought we’d be,” general manager Neal Huntington said. “The most obvious starting point is that the losses have been difficult, the losses have been tough. A good number of them were unexpected.

“At the same time, you see some pieces being put in place. You see some guys developing and getting better, and you begin to become optimistic about where we’re headed. It hasn’t translated into wins and losses as we would have liked and expected, but there are some pieces that we can build with as we go forward. Each one of us, myself included, has to get better.”

The Pirates bats fell silent on the last game of the season. Not a single player managed to get more than one hit and they combined to strike out 12 times.

Ryan Doumit committed an error, bobbled a ball in right field (which should have been ruled as an error) and struck out three times in, perhaps, his final game in a Pirates uniform.

Neil Walker and Jose Tabata –who were chasing to end the season at .300– both went hitless.

But despite the horrible season and loss, some of the players are looking forward to next season and beyond.

“A lot of us learned quite a bit,” Walker said. “If you look at it from a won-loss standpoint, it wasn’t very good. But I think a lot of us learned a lot at the Major League level — especially a lot of us young guys — and learned how to be resilient and how to push forward and get better. I think we can take a lot of positives here playing pretty good baseball late in the year.”

Added Tabata: “We need to come back next year with a winning mentality and do something good. There needs to be energy for next year.”

Brian Burres got the loss after allowing three runs on five hits through 5.2 innings. The Pirates rotation ended the season with a 34-84 record.

“Coming out of Spring Training, obviously, we didn’t know that our starting rotation was going to lose 84 games,” Russell said. “You look at our season in a nutshell, and it’s 84 losses from our starting rotation.”

The Pirates 2011 season opener is April 1st in Chicago.