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CHICAGO -- Exactly a month from today, the Pirates will be packing their bags in Miami and mercifully concluding this 2010 season already destined to finish as one of the franchise's worst.
That destiny alone would appear to set up the coming month as possibly the least relevant, least urgent in recent memory.
But is it?
Here are 10 issues, specific to these final 29 games, that might leave a legitimate, lasting imprint:
10. Avoid 113 losses.
Forget about avoiding 100. The Pirates currently are 44-89 and would need to go 19-11, and that has about as much chance of happening as one of their starters garnering a Cy Young vote.
Avoiding 110 is more reasonable, but that would take a 9-21 finish, better than the recent pace.
How about avoiding 113, the franchise record of the 1890 Pittsburg Alleghenys?
Jeff Banister, the bench coach in his 25th season with the organization, is a heart-on-sleeve type when it comes to the Pirates, and he cringes at those numbers.
Game: Pirates vs. Washington Nationals, 7:05 p.m., PNC Park.
TV, radio: FSN Pittsburgh, WPGB-FM (104.7).
Pitching: LHP Zach Duke (6-12, 5.17) vs. RHP Livan Hernandez (9-9, 3.49).
Season: Nationals, 3-0.
Key matchup: : Washington's Adam Dunn, currently on a 9-for-15 tear with two home runs, is a career .500 hitter against Duke, 7 for 14 with two home runs.
Of note: Neither team has won more than three games in a row all season.
"This hurts," Banister said. "But I think there is a lot of winning that's going on here that maybe doesn't show up in the box scores, in the maturing of these young men into big league ballplayers. We have to make sure that good things keep happening, even if they're beneath the surface. But, yeah, winning would be nice, too."
9. Beat the Orioles?
In the 1970s, Pirates vs. Baltimore took on quite the different meaning, with the Pirates topping the Orioles twice in glorious Game 7s for two World Series championships.
Today, these teams are in a reverse-duel to see which will end up with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 draft, and the Pirates have the upper -- lower? -- hand with Major League Baseball's worst record. The Orioles are 49-84, five games better.
That is the sort of thing that turns the stomachs of proud Pirates alumni such as Kent Tekulve, who recorded the Family's final out of the 1979 Series.
"All things run in cycles, but to have two organizations that were considered to be elite both struggling at the same time some 30 years later is hard to fathom," Tekulve said. "Hopefully, for these two great sports towns, they both get it fixed soon."
The potential prize at No. 1 is Rice University third baseman Anthony Rendon, but Rendon recently had a major ankle injury that has cast some doubt on his status.
8. Full-season toughness
The Pirates justifiably are encouraged by the performance of the three anchor rookies: Neil Walker is batting .310 with 49 RBIs in a half-season, Jose Tabata is batting .307, and Pedro Alvarez has 10 home runs in Pittsburgh on top of his 13 in the minors.
All can get better, and none has played as much as four full months in the majors. To that end, this final stretch figures to provide a test of endurance, physically and mentally, that could reveal plenty about how long it will take them to become full-season performers, one of the biggest variables in young baseball players.
"It's a matter of continuing to work hard, do what you need to do," Walker said. "I think we'll be fine."
7. Legend left out?
A couple months ago, management was including Garrett Jones' name with the core group of Andrew McCutchen and the rookies, but that picture has blurred since the All-Star break: Jones has batted .193 with a .249 on-base percentage.
The home runs are still there -- nine since the break, 20 total -- and September will not singularly define management's view of Jones, especially since his rights are controlled for four more years. But it could help.
"I want to finish on a positive note," Jones said. "I consider this a disappointing year, and I'd love to be able to go into the offseason on a high note, then be raring to go next spring."
6. Playoffs?
The Pirates housed many of their top pitching prospects with Class AA Altoona in hopes they would grow individually and together, and that paid off with Bryan Morris, Rudy Owens, Justin Wilson and Jeff Locke all faring well, plus the Curve clinching an Eastern League playoff berth this week.
The same could be true of Class A Bradenton in the Florida State League, depending on the coming weekend. That team has some of the top position-player prospects, notably dynamic center fielder Starling Marte.
"Our focus is always on the big picture," director of player development Kyle Stark said. "However, part of that is winning in Pittsburgh, so we're shaping our fighting mentality every night we put on the uniform and learning how to win in the minors. Postseason experience at any level is invaluable."
5. Pitching, anyone?
If it really was fired pitching coach Joe Kerrigan's fault that some young pitchers took backward steps, then Charlie Morton, Brad Lincoln and Daniel McCutchen all can illustrate that this month. In the process, they can begin to build faith that the Pirates' rotation will be something other than a disastrous sequel in 2011.
So far, Morton has looked no different, Lincoln has been slow to recover from a stiff neck in Indianapolis, and McCutchen has acquitted himself well, with a 1.90 ERA in his 10 relief appearances, plus six scoreless innings against St. Louis in an emergency start last week.
"My goal now is to just stay on a roll and have it lead into next year," McCutchen said.
4. Front-office evaluations.
In his monthly online chat Wednesday, team president Frank Coonelly was asked by a reader what the Pirates' front office does in September.
He replied: "The focus of this front office is to convince this young roster that it can play winning baseball and develop a winning attitude."
That would appear to be the greatest challenge as it relates to the road, where the Pirates have lost a mind-boggling 39 of the past 44 road games.
General manager Neal Huntington has attended roughly a quarter of the Pirates' road games and was not on the just-completed 1-5 trip through Milwaukee and Chicago. No one else from the front office was seen on the trip until late in the series at Wrigley Field.
Coonelly said Thursday that he supported Huntington's decision to scout Altoona games instead, in part because the team has "some very difficult decisions" this offseason regarding protecting prospects in the Rule 5 draft.
"I would like Neal to be in two places at once, but that is not possible," Coonelly said. "He has been on many of our road trips, but there are other aspects of his job, like seeing potential draft selections and our farm system."
Coonelly added his view that it was not rare in baseball for teams not to send someone from the front office on the road.
Bottom line: No one else loses like the Pirates do on the road, and all concerned -- including Huntington -- have acknowledged lacking answers as to why.
3. Short and right.
Much more than Jones, the players with starting jobs on the line are shortstop Ronny Cedeno and right fielder Lastings Milledge, their positions maybe representing the best possible areas for management to pursue everyday upgrades this winter.
Cedeno has ranged from very good to very bad to very benched, batting .248 with six home runs and better-than-one-might-think defense. Milledge's average is better at .272, but 72 of his 100 hits are singles, only four are home runs, and his defense has been maddeningly inconsistent.
Picture the Pirates with above-average performers at these positions, and 2011 looks a little different.
Or ...
"I want to be that shortstop, and I want to show them that," Cedeno said. "It's a big month for me, and it depends on me."
2. Staff preservation.
Coonelly made it known late last month that "nobody's job is absolutely safe" in reference to Huntington, manager John Russell and the coaching staff, all of whom are at least partly to blame for a season that Coonelly described as an "embarrassment" and a team he called "under-performing."
Those were not hints for anyone in Coonelly's employ to go house-hunting.
1. Rise above.
Maybe more important than beating out Baltimore for the top pick, more important than avoiding any additional dubious milestones, the Pirates would benefit most from having their real core of players rise above the mess around them.
Walker and Tabata have excelled at this, two of the National League's top players -- never mind rookies -- since their arrival. Alvarez has struggled far more than those two, but his work ethic and attitude appear to be beyond reproach.
Andrew McCutchen has developed a philosophy for keeping his head afloat, saying in Chicago the other day, "No matter what happens, you still have to show up at the ballpark feeling like a winner."
Colin Dunlap's blog on the Pirates is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.
