The Pirates improved to 2-3 with their 8-3 win over the Reds in Cincinnati Tuesday night. The struggling Pirates offense roared to life, hitting four home runs and sending Brandon Williamson to an early shower. The Pirates look to take the rubber match Wednesday with Paul Skenes taking the bump before heading back to Pittsburgh for the home opener. These are my three takeaways from this surprisingly comfortable victory.
Ryan O’Hearn is Going to be a Local Legend
Ryan O’Hearn has only been here for a week of professional games, and he’s already becoming a fan favorite. He hit one of the four dingers tonight, a massive three-run blast that put the Pirates ahead early. He hits, he is a clear leader in the clubhouse, and he is a sound bite machine. You can tell he wants to be here and play for us, which is a long time coming from Jarrod Dyson publicly admitting he only came to Pittsburgh due to lack of options. While he obviously isn’t going to keep an OPS of 1.200 throughout the whole year, he has been a middle of the order bat that this team has desperately needed. I am already tempted to buy his jersey.
Hitting Home Runs Fixes All
The Pirates finished dead last in home runs last year by a sizable margin. Looking at MLB team stats and seeing this iteration of the Pirates being top three is almost unbelievable. I have lost count of how many times we have stated on the podcast that you can steal games from simply hitting the ball over the fence. Oneil Cruz has struggled mightily this year at both the plate and in center field, and yet he was able to turn this game on its head with his two home runs that put the game officially out of reach. Having at least five guys who can reliably hit 20 home runs (Reynolds, Lowe, Cruz, O’Hearn, Ozuna) makes winning games a heck of a lot easier. It’s been a weird paradox this season, because while we have been bemoaning the offense, there are some tangible signs that this could be at least a league-average offense (especially with Konnor Griffin coming up soon…hopefully). If you’re going to hit under .200 with RISP, home runs are the great equalizer.
The Pitching is Getting Boring (in a good way)
The Pirates’ starters not named Paul Skenes have posted a 2.18 ERA over 20 innings of work, and the bullpen has also been absolutely money as well. It was expected that we would have a good pitching staff, but I think it is understated just how well they have been performing on a consistent basis since the beginning of 2024. Bubba Chandler had his struggles today, with his six walks to go with his six strikeouts. However, the bullpen picked him up the most important way. Yohan Ramirez came in to relieve him with the bases loaded and one out, and Ramirez responded to a potentially game-changing inning by striking out Matt McLain and Elly De La Cruz to get out of the jam. The pitching staff amassed 12 strikeouts throughout the game, and Reds hitters had very few answers for what the Pirates were dealing. Yet, the Twitter timeline and postgame discussions are almost completely on the offense (which is fair; we needed that offensive outburst). However, this pitching staff deserves its flowers and praise because I don’t want to ever get accustomed to how good these guys are.
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