The Diamondbacks scored in the first four innings as the Pirates spotted them a 6-0 lead, but the Pirates battled back to tie the game with six runs in the 8th and 9th innings to force extras, only to lose 8-7 in 12 innings. The loss drops the Pirates one game back behind the Diamondbacks in the NL wildcard race. DiNardo and Cody recap this one on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti Bros. You can watch or listen here:

Here’s my three takeaways from this one…

What a Frustrating Game, Loss

This game looked like a loss the whole way, they spotted the Diamondbacks six runs and did nothing against Arizona’s starter Brandon Pfaadt as he fired seven shutout innings. Fans turned the game off and I can’t even blame you if you did. Then the Pirates suddenly scored six to tie the game and force extras. The game ended up going 12 as both teams scored a run in the 10th, both were scoreless in the 11th and the D-Backs scored one in the 12th and the Pirates scored none again for one frustrating loss. In the 11th inning after Wilbur Dotel kept the Diamondbacks off the board, it should have been another walkoff win, the D-Backs walked Reynolds to start the inning so two on and no out. Esmerlyn Valdez had a bad at-bat and struck out and Ryan O’Hearn grounded into a double play. Inning over. And then in the 12th when they needed at least one run to tie it, Nick Gonzales grounded out and Endy Rodriguez and Tyler Callihan both struck out. Teams that score just one run in three innings of extra-inning ball when there’s ghost runner now, aren’t going to win many extra-inning games. When you’re the home team in extras and you put up a zero in the top of the inning, you have to find a way to score a run.

They also had a chance to walk it off in the 9th inning. After the back-to-back home runs by Lowe and Reynolds and with one out, Ryan O’Hearn doubled and was stranded on second as the D-Backs reliever Juan Morillo got the next two outs. The Pirates had their chances to win this one and would have been a wild comeback victory to jump ahead of Arizona in the wildcard picture. This could have been the win of the season so far, but instead it was an incredibly frustrating game and loss.

I Didn’t Think Bubba Was That Bad

Bubba Chandler‘s final line wasn’t good:

4.0 IP
8 H
5 R
4 ER
3 K
1 BB

But I thought he was fairly unlucky in this loss. Everything seemed to be falling in against him Tuesday night. Bloop hits, ground balls with eyes, everything the Diamondbacks put in play seemed to drop in somewhere. Then the defense let him down in the 4th inning with a two-out error by Brandon Lowe that scored Arizona’s 5th run. Out of the eight hits he surrendered, only two of them were extra-base hits and Max Kepler‘s double had an exit velo of 68 mph. It’s kinda incredible how unlucky Chandler was in this one. I’m not going to harp on this outing or say he needs to skip a start or go to the bullpen, he wasn’t real efficient but he was very unlucky. He was more unlucky than bad. Move on to the next one.

That Comeback Was Fun

This game was flatlined. It sucked. It was over. Pirates were down 6-0 in the 8th inning and things looked bleak. They scored three runs in the 8th to cut the deficit in half and then Jake Mangum led off the 9th inning with a double, Brandon Lowe belted a two-run home run and Bryan Reynolds went deep in the next at-bat to tie the game with no outs in the 9th. Ironic that it came on the same day 25 years ago when the Pirates scored seven runs in the bottom of the 9th and capped it off with a walkoff grand slam by Brian Giles to beat the Astros in the greatest comeback in PNC Park history. Tuesday night was a thrilling comeback too and one that we see this offense do before when it’s hard to keep them down, but ultimately it wasn’t enough as they lost a winnable game in extras. Even with Pfaadt throwing 7 shutout innings against them, the Pirates still managed to get 14 hits and 7 runs.

Weeeeeeeee…what a stupid game: