The All-Star week in Atlanta should have been two days of celebration for the Pittsburgh Pirates and their fans. 

Their biggest star, pitcher Paul Skenes, started the game for the National League for the second year in a row. 

Their most talented position player, outfielder Oneil Cruz, dazzled at the Home Run Derby on Monday night by hitting a series of majestic home runs where each one seemingly traveled further than the one that preceded it.

Skenes started Tuesday’s game, throwing a scoreless first inning that was highlighted by two strikeouts and getting New York Yankees superstar Aaron Judge to weakly ground out to end the inning.

It was a showcase of their two key building blocks, and they lived up to the hype. 

Instead of being a moment of celebration, however, all it did was shine a light on how incompetently the team has been run and how hopeless the current situation for the franchise has become. And that mostly has to do with Skenes and how much of the first two seasons of his career have been wasted.

The decision to start Skenes in Tuesday’s game was absolutely valid. He is the best pitcher in the National League statistically and is arguably the best starting pitcher in all of Major League Baseball. At worst, he is probably second or third on the list.

He is pitching at a Cy Young level and has a 1.98 ERA in his first 43 career starts, including a 2.01 mark this season. 

Despite all of that individual dominance, his record is only 4-8. The Pirates have won just nine of the 20 games he has started.

They are staggering numbers, and seem almost impossible to believe.  All of that is a result of the team’s lack of run support for him and how bad management has done at building a competitive team around him. 

The Pirates were given the type of gift in Skenes that teams do not typically get and he not only has matched that hype, he has arguably exceeded it. He is the type of player that should completely change the direction and mindset of a franchise and put them into a win-now mode. They should be doing everything they can to win while he is still pitching for them, because everybody knows there is a ticking clock on that as a large payday looms.

Instead, the Pirates have done none of that.

Their two big offseason additions to fix their lineup were trading for first basemen Spencer Horwitz and signing veteran outfielder Tommy Pham. Neither player has been good, and have contributed to the Pirates being one of the worst offensive teams in the league. 

They already have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball and seem destined to trade one of their top starting pitchers, Mitch Keller, by the July 31 trade deadline, further reducing the current, and future, payrolls and weakening their solid rotation.

It is an especially grim situation. 

What makes it even worse is the Pirates are, theoretically, not that far away from contending, at least as it relates to their pitching staff. Entering the All-Star break the Pirates have allowed the fewest runs per game (3.91) of any NL team. That sort of pitching should put them near the top of the standings.

Instead, they are 19 games under .500 (39-58) and are not even within striking distance of a playoff spot. Fans in Pittsburgh were already well aware of it. Now that the rest of the baseball world watched Cruz crush home runs and Skenes start the All-Star Game with a 4-8 record, everyone should know it as well. 

Everybody involved with the Pirates should be humiliated by that.