The Pirates scored nine runs in an inning, blew a six-run lead and then walked it off thanks to an error by the Giants in the 9th inning to win a crazy affair 13-12. Oneil Cruz recorded four hits and four RBIs, Brandon Lowe went 4-for-6 and hit his 29th home run of the season and Nick Gonzales had three hits. Tyler and Neil broke this one down on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti Bros. You can watch/listen here:

Here’s my 3 takeaways from this wild win.

Oneil Cruz is Making Things Happen

How good has Oneil Cruz been since returning to the team on August 18? He’s helped this team in so many ways. Tuesday night against the Giants, Cruz went 4-for-5 with 4 RBIs and a run scored. He singled in the second run of the game in the bottom of the 1st inning and then had TWO run-scoring singles in the 3rd inning! First, he singled in Bryan Reynolds to make it 5-3, he came around to score to tie the game and then later in the same inning, he ripped a two-RBI single to make it 11-5. Two hits, three RBIs all in one inning for Cruz. He’s now had nine hits in the past four games.

Cruz has been a breath of fresh air since returning and has helped stabilize this lineup against righties and lefties. And we know his arm in center field keeps baserunners honest when trying to move up and take an extra base. If anyone forgot what Cruz can do while he was out, he’s been putting on a show since returning and making fans remember who he is.

Skenes Couldn’t Put Away a Triple-A Lineup

In case you were wondering if maybe, just maybe Paul Skenes was back after his last start, this start should have ended that silly thought quickly. Skenes struggled in a couple different parts of the game Tuesday that was telling to me. The first one was with the Pirates up 2-0 in the 2nd inning, Skenes had a chance to shut this less-than-stellar lineup down and put together two good consecutive starts. Instead, Skenes struggled again with control, gave up hits, got horrible defense behind him and then gave up a three-run bomb to Rafael Devers to make it 5-2 Giants in a hurry.

Then when the Pirates gifted Paul a nine-run inning to take an 11-5 lead, Skenes just had to get three more outs in the 5th inning to qualify for the win and pick up the easiest win of his career. He got the first two outs on the 5th and then gave up a single to Osleivis Basabe, a .211 hitter, on a two-strike count and then on another two-strike count, Drew Cavanaugh, a .243 hitter, ripped a double to left field to end Skenes day. Skenes was lifted for Yohan Ramirez and did not get the win. This is the most worrisome thing to me—Skenes couldn’t put away these two slap dick hitters on two-strike counts when he needed it to finish five innings to give himself the chance for the win. This has been a theme with Skenes this season, struggling with control and putting away hitters. Skenes gave up more hits (8) and more hard hits (7) than he had whiffs (6). It’s just not a good trend and not what we’re used to seeing from Skenes.

This was a Giants lineup that featured the likes of Turner Hill, Jonah Cox, Shay Whitcomb, Christian Koss and Basabe and Cavanaugh. This…wasn’t exactly the ’27 Yankees facing Skenes. Paul Skenes of 2025 would have chopped this lineup up, but that’s the problem isn’t it? The Skenes that we saw in 2024 and 2025 is not here in the room with us right now. And it’s why I said this problem he has won’t get fixed in between starts this season. He needs a full offseason to figure out his mechanics and get right.

Dumbest Win of the Year?

Seriously though, what in the hell was that game? Here’s the scoring changes:

Pirates 2-0 B1
Giants 5-2 T2
Pirates 11-5 B3
Pirates 11-7 T6
Pirates 12-7 B7
Tied 12-12 T8
Pirates win 13-12 B9

The Pirates had 19 hits for 13 runs and 17 of those hits were SINGLES. This team goes back and forth on being a power team and then will hit nothing but singles for the longest stretch. They had a 9-run inning that saw 15 baserunners come to the plate that featured nine runs on nine singles. Oneil Cruz had two hits in the inning and three RBIs. Then of course Skenes can’t throw strikes or put away bad hitters. And then the bullpen blows a big lead to lead to a walkoff groundout error in the 9th inning. What a wild, stupid, crazy, good win Tuesday. At the end of the day, you’ll take a dumb and ugly win over a pretty loss. Pirates somehow win their third straight game and we can dream for at least one more day that they might run the table.