The Pirates fell behind the Reds 9-0 Saturday night but rallied for the biggest comeback victory in their 137-year history, downing Cincinnati 13-12.
The Reds got to starter Bailey Falter for eight runs in the first two innings, blasting back-to-back home runs in the first inning and getting an inside-the-park homer by TJ Friedl in the second. After Kyle Nicolas gave up a run in the third, the Pirates were behind 9-0.
But the Bucs’ bats chipped away at the deficit. They scored a single run in the fourth inning, then five more in the sixth inning, aided by a three-run home run by Bryan Reynolds. They scored three in the seventh inning and four in the eighth to complete the comeback and take a 13-11 lead into the bottom of the ninth, aided when Ji-Hwan Bae made a brilliant sliding stop of a grounder up the middle that he turned into a rally-killing double play to end the Cincinnati eighth. Earlier, Bae’s two-run double had driven in the final two Pirates runs.
Carmen Mlodzinski came on to pitch the 9th inning for the Pirates (closer David Bednar was unavailable because he’d pitched the previous two nights). The rookie Mlodzinski gave up a single to Joey Votto and a double to Friedl and an RBI groundout to Jake Fraley before getting Reds’ rookie sensation Elly De La Cruz to strike out by chasing a sweeper, and then Jonathan India to fly out to center field to end the game.
Jared Triolo was 4-for-5 for the Pirates and Alfonso Rivas was 3-for-5 with five RBIs. Bae had two hits and three RBIs and Reynolds had three RBIs. Rookie Jose Hernandez earned his first-ever MLB win and Mlodzinski got his first-ever MLB save,
In their history, the Pirates were 0-819 when trailing 9-0. MLB teams were 205-0 with 9-0 leads this season.
The series concludes this afternoon at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati.
