The Pittsburgh Pirates have just 20 wins this season but recent success against the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers put them into a category of their own.
According to Stats LLC, the Pirates are the only team in the Modern Era of MLB history to have comebacks in the ninth inning over a span of three days against two different clubs with at least a .640 winning percentage.
On Saturday, the Pirates went into ninth inning at Petco Park trailing 2-1. Their first two batters reached before Ke’Bryan Hayes slugged a go-ahead, three-run home run off Taylor Rogers.
Against the Dodgers on Monday, the Pirates took a 4-0 lead by the third inning behind home runs from Tucupita Marcano and Bryan Reynolds. However, Walker Buehler settled in from there and it allowed the Dodgers to chip away at their deficit.
L.A. scored five unanswered runs to take a lead in the eighth inning and were two outs away from extending their winning streak to five games.
But that’s when Craig Kimbrel issued a walk that was compounded by throwing a wild pitch. Michael Perez’s RBI single tied the game, and a Freddie Freeman error allowed pinch-runner Michael Chavis to score the go-ahead run.
The Dodgers had the tying and game-winning runs reach base with one out in the bottom of the ninth, only for Mookie Betts and Freeman to be stranded by Trea Turner and Will Smith.
Overall this season, the Pirates have won three of four games against the Dodgers entering play Tuesday.
Dodgers winning streaks against Pirates snapped
The Dodgers had their winning streak against the Pirates at Dodger Stadium snapped at 12 games on Monday night. It came weeks after the Pirates ended a string of overall losses to the Dodgers at 16 in a row when they won the series opener at PNC Park on May 9.
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