Oh can baseball be a weird sort of sport. There’s hot and cold, warm and tepid... all in a few weeks of effort. Just ask the Washington Nationals how the first 1/3rd of the 2019 season was going, and more than a few of us fans. The World Series pennant and hat that my wife bought me for that season was testament to the fact that Yogi Berra was a pure prophet of baseball (maybe some life lessons, too... but baseball most certainly).
The truth is that the flight to Pittsburgh might have been a real struggle to maintain any focus.