Bucs officially eliminated, but will keep moving forward

PITTSBURGH — The Pirates began the season with postseason expectations and championship aspirations. They want to play meaningful games in September and playoff baseball in October, as general manager Neal Huntington has often said.

But that dream officially ended late Tuesday night, when the Pirates lost their fourth straight game, a 6-4 defeat to the Cubs, and the Giants beat the Rockies, 12-3, in San Francisco. The combination of those two outcomes left Pittsburgh mathematically eliminated from the postseason race.

The Pirates’ odds of making the postseason, per FanGraphs.com, reached 0.0 percent on Tuesday morning for the first time this season. The pack of three National League Wild Card contenders — the Mets, Giants and Cardinals — simply separated itself too far from the Pirates, who have done little down the stretch to catch up.

After a four-game sweep of the Brewers at Miller Park thrust them back into the postseason picture, the Pirates have lost 19 of their past 29 games and fallen three games under .500. Their odds dwindled over the past three weeks, but they remained close enough to not officially fall out of the race until Tuesday night.

And so the …

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