Pirates beat Cards with another dramatic rally
The teams with the two best records in the league wrapped up the most entertaining series of the season Sunday night. The Pirates (53-35) took three of four from the Cardinals (56-33) at home in PNC Park to climb to within 2 1/2 games of the top spot in the NL Central.
St. Louis took the first game of the series on Thursday (STL 4, PIT 1) before Pittsburgh rebounded with a win in the second game Friday (PIT 5, STL 2). That’s when things really started to get wild.
The Pirates tied Saturday’s game in the bottom of the eighth, then again in the bottom of the 10th before finally winning on Andrew McCutchen‘s walk-off two-run home run in the 14th (PIT 6, STL 5). Here’s the video:
Incredible. The Pirates kept battling back time after time. The win probability graph, which shows each team’s chances of winning the game at any give point based on historical data, shows the Cardinals had a better than 85 percent chance of winning the game in four different innings (5th, 8th, 10th, 14th) yet lost anyway:
Source: FanGraphs
But, wait! The craziness didn’t end there. The Cardinals and Pirates again went to extra innings in Sunday night’s series finale, and Randal Grichuk gave St. Louis a 5-3 lead with a bases-loaded triple in the top of the 10th. Mark Reynolds was thrown out at home on the play, which proved to be costly.
In the bottom of the 10th, the Pirates strung together five hits in two-thirds of an inning against all-world closer Trevor Rosenthal, including four hits with two outs. Five straight batters reached base against Rosenthal with two outs (the four hits plus a Travis Ishikawa walk). Gregory Polanco then did the honors with a walk-off single:
At one point on Sunday night the Cardinals had a 95.8 percent of winning the game. 95.8 percent! And they still lost (PIT 6, STL 5). The Pirates have some serious fight in them. It would have been easy to roll over and sleepwalk into the All-Star break after Grichuk’s triple, but no, they battled back against a great closer and won for a second straight day in epic walk-off fashion.
Source: FanGraphs
On behalf of baseball fans everywhere: Please, baseball gods, let the Pirates and Cardinals meet in the postseason. What an incredible series.
The Pirates walk off the Cardinals again on Sunday. (USATSI)
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