Mark Madden: Booing David Bednar shows fair-weather Pirates fans don't know how to support a good team

David Bednar should not be relieved of his duties as Pittsburgh Pirates closer after blowing three saves in the season’s early going.

Bednar led the National League in saves with 39 last season and had an ERA of 2.00. That’s a big sample. This year, so far, is a small sample.

Bednar will find his level. He’s a good closer. He uses Styx’s “Renegade” as his entrance music.

Anyway, how would the bullpen be rearranged?

If Aroldis Chapman becomes the closer, does Bednar pitch the eighth? If so, what’s the difference?

Does Bednar drop even further down the pecking order? You want to make that kind of radical adjustment after less than two weeks of the schedule?

The experts on X advise that because the Pirates are likely to be no better than borderline playoff contenders, every game counts.

If that’s so, why is Paul Skenes in Class AAA instead of with the Pirates? The games he pitched would count, right?

The Pirates are 9-3, but fans think major change is needed. The Pirates have been bad so long, the citizens don’t know how to support a good team. We can’t have nice things. (But maybe this isn’t a good team.)

That brings us to the aftermath of Bednar’s blown save Tuesday afternoon against Detroit at PNC Park.

Bednar was booed by the meager crowd, and first baseman Rowdy Tellez didn’t like it.

“What happened today was, I think, unacceptable,” Tellez said to a group of media that was talking to Bednar. “We, as a group in Pittsburgh, got to be better. We don’t do that out here.”

Tellez has been in Pittsburgh for about 15 minutes, so stylizing himself as “we” was a bit laughable. But he’s eaten at Primanti’s by now. (Probably more than once. He’s a large man.)

But Tellez was otherwise right.

Bednar’s a two-time All-Star. He’s local, hailing from Mars. He shouldn’t be booed after a few bad games.

It reflects on the myth of Pittsburgh as a great baseball town because Johnny Cueto dropped the ball once upon a time. That was the exception, not the rule.

The reality of Pittsburgh as a baseball town is better reflected by Tuesday’s treatment of Bednar and the small gathering of just over 10,000 fans that turned up that day. Or the less than 10,000 that attended Monday.

Heck, beyond the sold-out home opener, crowds were disappointing for the first series at PNC Park: less than 25,000 for the other two games, with the stands heavily caked by visiting ticket-buyers from Baltimore.

That’s the actuality of Pittsburgh’s attachment to baseball and the Pirates: It’s inconsistent, it’s convenient, it’s a “nice night out at the ballpark” thing and doesn’t really kick in until (cue the usual excuses) the weather turns nice, the kids are out of school, blah, blah, blah.

Pirates fans are fair-weather both literally and figuratively.

If fans hesitate to go all-in competitively with the Pirates, who can blame them? The Pirates haven’t won a playoff series since the World Series in 1979 and have ownership that emphasizes profit over everything. It’s not a franchise that intends to win, and much of Pittsburgh has adjusted accordingly.

That’s why locals cling so romantically to moments like Cueto dropping the ball: Ruling out ancient history, it’s all you got.

Well, you got the Renegade Dog, too: PNC Park’s new food offering, a foot-long hot dog smothered in pot roast, pierogis, pickle slices and onions.

But while the publicity glossies and preseason hype promised a treat, photos taken on-site haven’t looked the part and reviews upon consumption have been mixed. The jig is up, the news is out, as they say.