In anticipation of low ticket sales for the Nationals' visit, Pittsburgh tried out an innovative promotion that could have made winners of everyone. They made the mistake of tying the promotion to their success on the field.

Washington swings through PNC Park next weekend, and ticket sales are, shall we say, not brisk. So the Pirates launched something called "You Score As The Bucs Score." For every run they scored in this past weekend's series against the Diamondbacks, the team would take a dollar off the price of their $24 seats against the Nats.

Making free baseball tickets look like a possibility, the Pirates lit up the D-Backs for 10 runs Friday night. They didn't score again the rest of the weekend.

A $10 discount sounds pretty good, until you phrase it as paying $14 for bad seats to watch the Pirates and the Nationals. Then it sounds like the tenth circle of hell.

So who's the big loser here? Is it Pittsburgh fans, promised essentially free money, and getting stuck with a thanks-but-no-thanks discount? Or is it the Pirates, who only had to put up a few runs to make their fans love them for the first time this season, and failed miserably. Obviously, the real loser is the Washington Nationals, the fat kid picked last for kickball.

Pirates To Offer "You Score As The Bucs Score" Promotion For Three Games of Diamondbacks Series, July 24-26 [MLB]

Send an email to Barry Petchesky, the author of this post, at barryp@deadspin.com.