The 2019 Pittsburgh Pirates had an awful defense. To say they were the worst defensive team in all of Major League Baseball is not an exaggeration, but the truth. The team had a -46 defensive runs saved, a -54 UZR, -8.4 UZR/150, and -33.5 range runs. They ranked last in all of the listed stats, except for DRS, where they ranked 24th out of 30 teams.
It’s pretty clear that the pitchers were impacted by the lack of a sufficient defense. The Pirates had a .315 team opponent batting average on balls in play, despite pitchers allowing hard hit contact only 35.