The Pirates didn’t do much to earn sympathy by getting petty with Jake Arrieta in the midst of his dominant start in Wednesday’s Wild Card game, or by taking out their frustrations on water coolers afterward, but make no mistake: They got a raw deal. The Pirates were far too good to see their fate determined by the outcome of a single game after achieving the Majors’ second-best record in the first 162.

They knew the rules, certainly. And after their third straight appearance in the Wild Card game and their second straight Wild Card loss at home, the Pirates likely recognize better than anyone the importance of winning that one particular game. But the outcome of any one particular baseball game — especially one between two very good teams — is ultimately about as random as a coin toss. So if Major League Baseball is invested in having its best clubs play deepest into the postseason — better ensuring that the World Series is played between baseball’s two best teams — the current system needs some sort of update.

It’s not the presence of two Wild Cards that’s necessarily a problem. Heck, if there were still only one Wild Card, the 97-win Cubs would have gone home on Sunday, an outcome just as unfair as the Pirates heading home Wednesday. The problem ultimately comes down to the awarding of Wild Cards based on the same standards for clubs in all divisions when clubs are playing so many of their games inside their divisions.

Think about it: It’s impressive enough that the Pirates and Cubs managed 98 and 97 wins this year, respectively. But that they did it in the NL Central means they did it while also playing a disproportionately large number of their games against the two other clubs with the best records in baseball, including the 100-win Cardinals, due to the league’s unbalanced schedules.

Based on every aspect of their regular-season performances, both the Pirates and Cubs appear far superior to the Mets and Dodgers. But those lesser teams clinched their divisions and cruised into the postseason by beating up weaker opponents while the Cubs, Pirates and Cardinals spent the whole season beating each other up.

Having three teams in the same division finish up with the three best records in baseball seems like something of a one-year blip, and so perhaps not something MLB should fret too much over when looking down the road. But the Pirates’ exit nonetheless underscores an inherently unfair aspect of the current postseason setup, and one the league should look to improve.

The Wild Card games themselves are exciting as heck. And there’s likely no going back on having the postseason start with single-elimination contests, as they make for extremely good television. But part of what makes baseball so awesome is its long 162-game season, in which teams essentially play enough games to allow us to rule out the type of randomness that can dominate an individual affair. Bad teams win one game all the time. Bad teams never win 97 games.

Assuming the league and its players association will never abide best-of-three series for the Wild Cards, as Theo Epstein once proposed, and allowing that unbalanced schedules make for easier travel logistics and better regional rivalries, MLB could at least reduce the chances of great teams catching tough breaks by going back to four divisions instead of six. That would allow clubs a broader spectrum of opponents against which to ply their trades, maintain the importance of winning the division pennant, and — by including four Wild Cards per league instead of just two — increase both the number of teams that get a taste of the postseason and the number of TV-friendly elimination games on the schedule.

Of course, though that system might balance the scales a little bit, it would far from eliminate the chance of running into some bum luck like the Pirates did this season. Good teams would still wind up going home after a single postseason game while lousier ones would still occasionally find ways to sneak into the World Series. That’ll always happen.

And none of it likely matters all that much to the Pirates and their fans right now as they recede into the long offseason. The Pirates were one of the best teams in baseball for 162 games, then they ran into Jake Arrieta in the 163rd. Tough luck, Pirates. That’s baseball.