The Pirates trailed 6-1 in the 7th inning with Shohei Ohtani still on the mound cruising and a five-game losing streak was staring them in the face, but the Pirates offense continued to battle, chased Ohtani from the game and then rallied against the bullpen in the 8th inning to come-from-behind with a wild 9-8 victory. Tyler Callihan hit two home runs, including his massive go-ahead three-run blast in the bottom of the 8th inning. You can watch/listen to Doug and Neil break this one down on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti’s Bros:

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Imagine hitting your first big league home run off Ohtani and then winning the game later off the bullpen. What a night for Callihan. Let’s keep playing him and see what we have here. His final line in this win is: 2-for-2 with three runs scored, four RBIs, two home runs and two walks. He’s now slashing .333/.529/1.000. That’ll play! Obviously very small sample size, but lets see what he has and keep playing him while the team is banged up. This was Ben Cherington’s big pick up late in spring so let’s keep seeing him. Don’t bench him Thursday, Donnie.

What Are We Going to Do About this Bullpen?

This bullpen stinks. We all know that, but now even your top three relievers are giving up runs. Tuesday night it was Wilber Dotel getting rocked for six runs with no outs of a 2-2 game. And this game after Jared Jones goes four innings with two runs allowed and hit his pitch count, Carmen Mlodzinski comes in as the “Designated Jared Jones Piggybacker” and he serves up a grand slam after walking two to load the bases. Then the Pirates bats battle back, take the lead and get two huge insurance runs on Spencer Horwitz‘s 9th home run of the season and Gregory Soto comes in and gives up a two-run home run to Ohtani to make it 9-8 before closing the Dodgers out. The Pirates won this game because of offense just outscoring the opposition because the bullpen was up to their usual tricks again. Evan Sisk, who has a 1.27 ERA on the season, came in with bases loaded on Sunday in Atlanta and immediately served up a bases-clearing double to lose 3-2. This bullpen needs an overhaul, but my goodness when Mlodzinski, Dotel, Soto and Sisk are getting hit around, something needs worked on internally. Yes, reinforcements are needed at Triple-A and through trade, but these guys just have to be better too.