PHILADELPHIA -- Good teams must beat other good teams to become great. The Pirates have proven to be a good team 85 games into 2026, producing a .500 record. Though to break a 10-year playoff drought -- the longest in the National League -- Pittsburgh must begin to beat the best.
Monday night’s game was the first of 22 straight for the Pirates against teams with a .500 or better record. While things didn’t go quite according to plan at first, Pittsburgh battled back from a five-run deficit to capture an 11-7 win over the scorching hot Phillies.
“We’re starting a stretch here and taking it game by game,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said postgame. “I thought we did a great job of that tonight. Inning by inning. A lot of times, you get down five on the road like that, you can get down, and there's a lot of fight in this team.”
The Phillies were in a similar spot to the Pirates just a few years ago. Philadelphia had an 11-year playoff drought from 2012-21, finally breaking through by winning the National League pennant in 2022. The Phillies are now vying for their fifth postseason appearance in a row.
Pittsburgh has never made the postseason in five consecutive years. Though, with one of the top offenses in baseball, the Pirates have shown signs of reaching the upper echelon of the NL. Amid the pivotal 22-game stretch, Pittsburgh will face the Nationals, Braves, Brewers and Cubs, all of whom are currently ahead of it in the standings. The Phillies hold the top spot in the NL Wild Card race, and have a 38-19 record under interim manager Don Mattingly.
“We're .500 too,” Kelly said pregame of the upcoming schedule, "and I think that as we've gone through this season, we've talked about taking it day by day. I know it's cliche … that's what we've tried to approach every single day. I think that we've done a really good job of continuing to compete. Yes, we've had some really good games, we've had some tough games, and we continue to show up every single day.”
The Phillies initially tagged Braxton Ashcraft for a career-high three homers. Trea Turner led off with a solo shot, and Brandon Marsh followed a few batters later. Bryce Harper hammered a two-run shot in the third to put Pittsburgh in a 5-0 hole. Then the Pirates' offense awakened against Aaron Nola, catching fire in the blink of an eye.
After Esmerlyn Valdez’s two-run shot in the fourth inning, Pittsburgh’s offense came out of the gate in the fifth to put up a six-spot and flip the game on its head. In the frame, the Pirates batted around, tallied four hits and six runs, and chased Nola from the game. Highlights of the inning included a Jared Triolo home run to dead center field, a bunt single by Konnor Griffin and a game-tying single courtesy of Ryan O’Hearn.
Brandon Lowe recorded a sacrifice fly amid the mayhem, his 57th RBI of the year to lead the team. Lowe, one of the squad's veterans, has played on a team that reached the World Series. He said he doesn’t think looking at records truly matters, explaining that anyone can win in the big leagues. As an anchor of the Pirates’ lineup, he feels among the best of the best.
“It's an elite lineup, that's for sure,” Lowe said. “The numbers don't lie; they kind of speak for themselves. ...This has probably got to be the best offense, I think in totality that I've ever been part of.”
Ashcraft settled in after the three-home run barrage, retiring 11 of his last 12 with six strikeouts. Phillies veterans attempted to slow Ashcraft down by stepping out often. Eventually, Ashcraft returned to form despite the antics. Pittsburgh’s bullpen did just enough to hold on as Endy Rodríguez added much-needed insurance in the eighth with a three-run blast.
The Pirates are still 23-22 against teams with a record of .500 or better after Monday’s win. Pittsburgh remains a few games outside the Wild Card race amid a crowded group. But this 22-game span is the litmus test of all litmus tests for the Pirates. If Monday was any indication of the next three weeks, Pittsburgh will be all right.
“We knew coming in, it's gonna be a tough series, and we just got to do all the little things right and take advantage of big moments like that,” Griffin said. “If we continue to do that over the next few series, I think we're gonna be in a pretty good spot.”