Andrew McCutchen and Clint Hurdle do a forearm-bash during pregame intros Wednesday at PNC Park. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

There was precious little moping to be seen in the moments after the Pirates’ 2014 season finally ran out of comebacks late Wednesday night. Certainly not in PNC Park’s home clubhouse.

That’s because this team’s true leader, as is the case with all winning baseball teams, is its manager. And this is what Clint Hurdle, per his recollection, told his players before they’d pulled off the first uniform: “Feel what you need to feel. We all feel disappointment. There should not be any shame. You walk out of this clubhouse head held high. You look people in the eye. We created something here that’s becoming special.”

Tough as these past 24 hours have been for the franchise’s faithful, that’s a tough point to dispute. And the back-to-back playoff appearances, while rightly grabbing all the headlines and now the angst, are only part of that.

Here are five very real reasons to look ahead to Bradenton next spring and all that could follow:

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Brandon Crawford crosses home after his fourth-inning grand slam Wednesday at PNC Park. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

The most sickening sound in PNC Park history, by my highly unofficial reckoning, came on the afternoon of April 22, 2010. Jim Edmonds, in the twilight of his career with the Brewers at the time, launched what felt like the eleventy-billionth home run of the day for the visitors, just over the Clemente Wall. And because the place had emptied out an hour or two earlier, because pretty much everything in those years rang so hollow, anyway, that ball clanked off one of those blue seats out there so loudly, so obnoxiously that it just felt so … I don’t know … easy, I guess.

The Pirates had been a joke long before that, of course, but that accounted for the runs 14, 15 and 16 of a final tally that, as some of you will ruefully recall, was 20-0.

Milwaukee 20, Pittsburgh 0.

I wrote that day that it was the lowest point in the franchise’s century-and-a-quarter history. And trust me, I was referring as much to that sound as the score.

Flash forward to Wednesday night and the fourth inning of the Pirates’ National League wild card game with the Giants.

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Thousands of Pirates fans fill the heart of Market Square on Wednesday afternoon. — PITTSBURGH PIRATES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Hey, baseball, welcome back!

Been a while, but not too long, right?

We’ll trust you’re having an easier time navigating our tunnels and bridges and roads. We’ll also trust you’re familiar by now with the whole fries-in-the-sandwich concept, the absence of any steel mills remaining in city limits, the world-class waterfronts with our Fountain back at full steam, the breathtaking skyline with a new neighbor poking her head high, all that stuff.

We’re pretty good like that.

The baseball team’s pretty good, too, we’ll assume you’ve noticed before October this time around.

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