The Pittsburgh Pirates (20–27) made a wild comeback victory in the ninth inning, having blown a four-run lead, to win 6–5 against the league-leading Los Angeles Dodgers (33–15) on Memorial Day.
In May, the Pirates have defeated the Dodgers in three out of four games. However, the Dodgers have climbed to tie the Yankees with the best record in MLB after a four-game sweep of the Diamondbacks.
“We’ve played well against them and we haven’t beat ourselves, which is the most important thing,” said Pirates manager Derek Shelton. “You really have to execute because they’re so good.”
The Pirates jumped out to a 4–0 lead after three runs in the second and one in the third off of Dodgers’ starter Walker Buehler, who pitched five innings. Meanwhile, Zach Thompson shut out the Dodgers for four innings before being relieved after six innings of work.
In the top of the second inning, Tucupita Marcano homered to score Josh Van Meter and Jack Suwinski. Bryan Reynolds followed in the third with a 419-foot shot to right-center to lead 4–0.
The Dodgers excitedly got on the board in the bottom of the fifth inning with back-to-back home runs from Hanser Alberto and Mookie Betts. Edwin Rios added a home run in the sixth inning to get the Dodgers within one, 4–3.
Pittsburg brought in their best reliever David Bednar (2–1) in the eighth inning to close out the game, but Justin Turner doubled with a line drive to center, scoring Trea Turner to tie the game 4–4. Chris Taylor immediately followed with with a single to right-center scoring Turner to give the Dodgers their first lead at 5–4.
The Pirates rallied in the ninth beginning with a walk of Diego Castillo by Dodger reliever Craig Kimbrel. Michael Perez then singled to deep right to score Castillo, tying the game at five, and then advanced to to second base after Betts was unable to throw out Castillo at home.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has stated that Kimbrel, who blew his first save of the season (0–1), needs to pitch consistently in more games to maintain his usual high-level performance.
“I'll be the first one to tell you my last couple outings have been pretty bad,” said Kimbrel. “Haven’t really been like I should be. I’ve been hurting myself a lot by walking guys and throwing wild pitches or hitting guys.”
Still with one out, Pirates’ Cal Mitchell then hit a sharp grounder that came off of Freddie Freeman’s glove for an error and scored substituted base runner Michael Chavez to give Pittsburgh a final 6–5 lead.
“I missed it,” said Freeman. “We had a chance to win it and we just didn’t.”
The Dodgers lead the league with 13 come-from-behind wins, and attempted another in the final inning with Betts ground-rule double to right-center field, followed by a walk by Freeman. However, T. Turner would fly out to right fielder Jack Suwinski and Will Smith (0-for-5) struck out to end the game.
“A roller coaster,” said Bednar of the game. He threw the most pitches of this season and will likely be unavailable for the two remaining games in the series.
Betts continued to provide the hot bat, hitting 3-of-4, with an RBI and a run; Betts started with a single before the home run, then walked, before his double in the ninth.
Pirates manager Shelton won his career 100th game, adding, "That’s a huge team victory for us. We kept battling back. We continued to grind out at-bats. It was cool to see.”
The teams meet again Tuesday at 7:10 p.m. PT, with the Dodgers starting LHP Julio Urías (3–4, 2.49 ERA) versus the Pirates RHP Mitch Keller (1–5, 6.05 ERA).
