Was anybody else dangerously close to jumping off the Pittsburgh Pirates bandwagon after Friday’s 2-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians?

For myself, I was starting to teeter, but knew Saturday would be a do-or-die game. A loss to the Indians would have handed the Pirates their fifth consecutive defeat and dropped the team back to .500.

It took the Pirates awhile to build itself to 32-27 and tie for the National League Central division lead with the Cincinnati Reds. While .500 would not exactly be the worst of scenarios, it still was going to bring to mind last year’s epic collapse and saw a promising season crumble by the wayside.

You remember it. You know you do, though you try to forget.

The Bucs sat atop the NL Central at 51-44 on July 19 after a 1-0 victory over the Reds. One week later, the Pirates were five games over .500 (54-49) after salvaging a four-game split with the Atlanta Braves.

Then, it came. A sweep by the Philadelphia Phillies, the Chicago Cubs and the San Diego Padres — the latter two teams among the worse in the National League — resulted in a 10-game losing streak. Five games over became five games under in a week and a half.

The team took two of three games against the San Francisco Giants to pull to 56-60, but the damage was done. The 10-game streak led to a 19-43 finish and the 19th consecutive losing season for the Pirates.

Fast forward to Saturday.

The Pirates, surprisingly used a four-run ninth inning — a Casey McGehee two-run double and Pedro Alvarez two-run homer — to pull away with a 9-2 triumph then followed up with a 9-5 decision to improve to 34-31, four games back of the Reds.

Granted it did not help that the Reds went 6-0 over the past week to gain some separation, but that’s not the point. The point is things could have unravelled and the Pirates could have fallen. Instead, a pair of bounce-back wins against the Indians — who were battling for first place themselves in the American League Central — may have salvaged the season.

I know it’s only June, a month earlier than last year’s downturn, but these are the types of streaks that can really hurt a team. The Pirates stayed afloat as long as they could a year ago because they avoided the long losing streak.

That almost happened this past week, but it didn’t. The Pirates find themselves in second place, one game ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals and four ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers.

As long as the Pirates keep grinding, I’ll keep watching and hope this is finally the year the team breaks its losing streak. And, in the NL Central, anything is possible.

Should the Pirates find themselves still relevant in September, and with a chance at a winning campaign, look back to this past weekend, when the Pirates may have saved their season.

Sam Tallarico is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.