Crazy night of baseball at PNC Park
PITTSBURGH – The emotions and state of mind of Pirates fans was hard to gauge as they slowly streamed out of PNC Park on Tuesday night.
What they had just witnessed was hard to put into words.
It was a rollercoaster of a game against the lowly San Francisco Giants that finally ended with an frantic 13-12 Pittsburgh victory.
There were a pair of former All-Star pitchers struggling through disappointing seasons, there was an historical nine-run inning, there was a collapse that had Pirates fans groaning and ready to pull their hair out, and then there was the generosity of the Giants who finally handed Pittsburgh the win they so badly needed to stay on the edge of the National League Wild Card race.
Where to begin?
Guess we should go back to the beginning.
Paul Skenes started on the mound for the Pirates and there were those who felt he was finally returning to the form that helped him win the 2024 NL Rookie of the Year award and the 2025 NL Cy Young award as he was coming off his first scoreless outing since May 12.
But Skenes quickly showed he wasn’t back on track at all. He started the first inning by allowing a single and a walk but worked out of that jam and then the Pirates got him two runs in the bottom of the inning on RBI singles by Nick Gonzales and Oneil Cruz.
Skenes gave that lead up before getting a second out in the second. A lead-off walk started his troubles and Rafael Devers’ three-run homer capped a five-run outburst.
Skenes settled down, sort of, the next two innings with a 1-2-3 third and escaping a single and another walk in the fourth after the Pirates had rang up nine runs in the bottom of the third to hand him what would seem to be a comfortable six-run lead.
Skenes retired the first two batters in the fifth and needed one more out to qualify for a win. Instead he gave up a pair of two-strike hits, prompting manager Don Kelly to yank him after 95 pitches in just 4.2 innings, having coughed up five runs on eight hits and three walks with three strikeouts.
Note to the baseball media. Quit calling Skenes the “ace” of the staff. He is not, not in 2026 anyhow. That tag belongs to 14-5 Braxton Ashcraft.
Somehow Webb performed even worse than Skenes.
Did I mention a nine-run inning?
The Pirates began the bottom of the third against Webb with consecutive singles by Bryan Reynolds, Gonzales, Cruz and Esmerlyn Valdez. Webb then walked Jacob Gonzalez and Jared Triolo both with the bases loaded and suddenly the game was tied at 5-5.
At this point you had to wonder what was going through the head of first-year Giants manager Tony Vitello. Webb clearly had nothing on this night yet even after a long mound visit he was still out there facing the sub-.170 hitting Henry Davis. The light-hitting catcher stroked a two-run single to put Pittsburgh ahead and finally, mercifully ended Webb’s night.
Enter rookie Braxton Roxby, who promptly coughed up singles to Horwitz and Brandon Lowe.
Pittsburgh had batted around without making an out at this point until Reynold’s hit into a force out.
The Bucs weren’t done yet, though.
Gonzales was hit by a pitch and Cruz got his second hit of the inning, this one a two-run single, to make it 11-5. After Valdez struck out, Gonzalez reached on an infield hit before Triolo hit into a force out to end the marathon inning, which lasted 34 minutes and 44 seconds.
Final totals: nine runs on nine hits, two walks and a hit batter with 15 batters coming to the plate.
The nine runs were the most scored in an inning without an extra-base hit in major league history.
Now up by six runs, the Pirates seemed to be in good shape.
Then their usually reliable bullpen had a meltdown.
Yohan Ramirez allowed two runs in the sixth as San Fran pulled within 11-7.
Lowe drilled a home run, his team-leading 29th of the season, in the bottom of the seventh to bump Pittsburgh’s lead up to five and all seemed well for Pirates fans with a five-run lead and needing just six more outs.
Kelly called on Evan Sisk to pitch the eighth.
Now any baseball fan will tell you the last thing a pitcher should do with a late, multi-run lead is issue free passes.
But after recording one out, Sisk excruciatingly could not find the strike zone, not even the huge one of 6-foot-7 Bryce Eldridge, and walked the bases loaded.
Having seen enough of Sisk, Kelly went with Luke Weaver, who has been largely ineffective since coming over from the New York Mets in a deadline trade.
Weaver kept the walk parade going with another to force in a run, then allowed a two-run double to Drew Cavanaugh and a two-run, game-tying single to Nate Furman.
The Pirates’ once six-run lead had now completely vanished.
Weaver, who did induce an inning-ending double play, now has a 6.48 ERA in nine games with Pittsburgh. It was 1.84 while he was with the Mets.
I guess he can’t handle the pressure of playing in Pittsburgh?
The Pirates’ desperate goal now was not to suffer their most embarrassing loss of the season.
They put two runners on in the bottom of the eighth but failed to score.
Closer Mason Montgomery, who has been pitching lights out, took over in the ninth for the Pirates. He drilled Turner Hill with his first pitch.
Washington Wild Things fans may remember Hill. He was on their preseason roster in 2023 before the Giants snagged him. The lefty hitter was 4 for 5 this night and now looking to help send Pirates fans home crushed.
Montgomery teetered on the edge of disaster as Lee took third on a two-out double to right by Jonah Cox, but got a ground out to end the threat.
Now with a chance to pull out a walk-off win and salvage an important victory out of the mess the game had become for them, the Pirates got a lead-off single by Lowe.
The second baseman reached second on Gonzales’ one-out single and both runners moved up on a Cruz ground out, setting the stage for Rafael Flores Jr., who smacked a ground ball that diving Giants third baseman Osleivis Basabe came up with.
Pirates fans moaned. It seemed the game would continue into extra innings.
But Basabe’s throw bounced past first baseman Devers and Lowe pranced home with the winning run.
The Pirates, thanks to the gift from San Fran, had survived, 13-12.
An exhausting, heart-stopping, exhilarating, yet infuriating three hours and 38 minutes of baseball was over.
Just another night at the ballpark.
Rob Burchianti is sports editor of the Ăĺ±±˝űµŘ and can be reached at rburchianti@heraldstandard.com