The standard sunshine and rainbows of any spring, the Konnor Griffin Grapefruit-ball bombs and the Bob Nutting-approved payroll boost all notwithstanding, nothing about this 145h edition of the Pittsburgh Baseball Club will begin counting until Freddy Peralta’s first pitch to Oneil Cruz tomorrow at 1:15 p.m. here at Citi Field.

And once it’s thrown, all the rest’s summarily discarded. Even once Paul Skenes takes to the mound for the bottom of the first.

“This is it, for real,” Bryan Reynolds was telling me this afternoon at the team’s annual pre-opener workout. “Time to get it going.”

Yep. That’s it. Here they go.

But before they do, allow me, please, to offer up my thoroughly unsolicited and possibly unwanted six ways — that’s one for each of Ben Cherington’s failed seasons to date — in which these Pirates just might be different than those others, in ascending order:

6. Just a feel thing?

I’m never numb to the intangibles within big-league team sports. I’ve covered spring trainings and other camps in which it couldn’t have been clearer that the vibe ranged from Alcatraz to … well, how did Joe Musgrove put it to me the one year?

Oh, right: “Hey, you never know. We could surprise some people.”

Ow.

This part, for sure, is decidedly different already.

I invested the smartest three minutes of my day in this talk with Tony Beasley, back with the Pirates as the third base coach after other tours with other teams, plus all the singing and preaching and other spiritual stuff he’s always done:

            

“It’s just a belief system we have in ourselves, and you you can feel it,” he’d reply when I asked about the collective mindset. “There’s a confidence that … you know, you can fake it or you can tell when it’s genuine. I can tell that it’s genuine here. I’ve been around it on both senses. The expectations are real, and we believe we can achieve those expectations, that we have the guys in place who can actually get it done.”

After a pause, he’d add, “It’s just understanding that, when you play teams … we’re not playing them, they’re playing us. That’s flipped from where we’ve been in past years and where we’re going to be this year and and for the foreseeable future.”

All right, then. 

Part of what I liked about the Steelers last summer in Latrobe was their legit positivity, and they wound up division champs. Part of what I liked about the Penguins last September in Cranberry was they were for-real put off by predictions that they’d stink, and they’re still in contention. And the same very much applied through the time I spent in Bradenton a couple weeks back.

There’s a feeling of freshness, of newness, even if a fair amount of the roster’s the same. That’s largely due to the new bats — Brandon Lowe, Ryan O’Hearn and Marcell Ozuna — but it’s also emanated, to my eyes and ears, from Don Kelly soaking up every second of his first full season as manager. He’s been quite the sight to behold, bouncing about all creation, always with the trademark smile, always with an encouraging word.

That won’t win, but it won’t hurt.

5. Actual support from above?

Not about to go overboard on this one, but it certainly bears a mention that, for the first time in forever, there’s palpable faith in the very top of the team’s corporate structure. Nutting won’t exactly challenge Corey O’Connor in the next mayoral race, but payroll’s at a franchise-record $102 million, and that includes a real-money increase of $15 million from a year ago. That’s how the bats were acquired, and that coursed through the entire environment as a result. 

It’ll mean zip without an even greater commitment to getting a salary cap system in the coming labor war, but then, it’s also plausible that the Pirates needed to spend up to something reasonable just to be taken seriously in such a setting.

Either way, it’s a plus.

4. Reinforcements at hand

Endy Rodriguez should be on this roster. I’d make a compelling case for Jhostynxon Garcia, too. And Esmerlyn Valdez, that rarest of beasts in that he’s an actual Latin American prospect culled from the Pirates’ actual Latin American operations.

That’s not the overflow anyone should expect from a seventh-year rebuild, it’s more than what’d been in Indianapolis previously.

Not to mention …

3. The kid’s coming

He’s real. Soon enough, he’ll be spectacular.

Look, I’m taking very little issue with Konnor Griffin starting out in Indianapolis. He’s yet to make 100 plate appearances above Class A, for crying out loud. But I can hope in advance that, when he shows he’s ready, that’s prioritized over any preconceived notion Cherington might have. There’s never a benefit to holding back a special talent. 

2. Still more pitching ceiling

Skenes just needs to be Skenes.

Meaning in his demeanor, too, such as when he was asked by a New York reporter here today if opening the season in New York might be special to him: “Maybe a little bit. It’s kinda chilly.”

And how he’d feeling about facing the Mets’ marquee lineup: “They’re a good team. It’ll be exciting to face them.”

Plaster that on the back page, baby.

Mitch Keller, in turn, just needs to be Mitch. Durable, dependable and often dynamite. 

It’s after this that the extremes enter the equation. Bubba Chandler’s an elite prospect in his own right, and nothing he showed in 2025 diminished that, in particular the pleasant surprise of consistent command. Braxton Ashcraft enjoyed a similar, if less celebrated, ascent, at least as seen internally. Both could be very good.

What they undoubtedly won’t be, of course, are 200-inning horses, and that’s where the rest of the rotation takes on a riskier look. Neither’s stretched out for that kind of workload, and neither could be until 2027 at the earliest. Which means the innings they can’t cover will fall to someone else either already on the staff — and most of those are young, too — or external acquisitions, which are always expensive at the trade deadline. 

But four months of these four?

Yes, please.

Besides, I admired Ashcraft’s answer when I brought up here the inning count.

“I think it’s really important for both of us to not focus at all on what may or may not be in terms of moderating innings and pitch limits,” he’d say. “My goal this year is to go out and cover 180 innings. Bubba can say the same thing. At the end of the day, we’re here to win baseball games, and if we’re contributing to that at a high level and when we’re contributing to that at a high level, it’s going to be really hard to take the ball out of our hand.”

See what Beasley means? 

1. My God, what if they hit?

Hit the bleeping ball, and all else falls in place. I believe that. This team was 46-21 when scoring four measly runs — or more — in 2025. Think about that.

I asked Nick Gonzales about the assimilation of the offense:

  

The new guys should hit. They’ve hit elsewhere, and they haven’t been with the Pirates long enough to have been deprogrammed so soon. 

Cynical or real?

Revisit the 2025 record and let me know. 

Regardless, all three of Lowe, O’Hearn and Ozuna should represent upgrades over those replaced. They come with production, with pop and, best of all, with professional consistency. If nothing else, the days of the three-hour forfeiture of at-bats should be at an end. 

What needs to be emphasized, I feel, is this: Six of the nine names Kelly writes onto his card tomorrow will be returnees. And of those, Reynolds and Cruz, more than anyone, need to rise up. Reynolds can’t have 16 home runs and 73 RBIs again. Cruz can’t hit .200 again. I don’t have enormous expectations at the plate for Jared Triolo, Gonzales or anyone in possession of a catcher’s mask, but that makes it all the more imperative that Reynolds and Cruz join the three newcomers in creating a formidable first five in the order.

Where’ll it all end up?

Like everyone else, I’ve got no idea. But also like seemingly everyone else, for once, I feel like it’ll be fun finding out, and that’s a welcome difference unto itself.Â