For the first time since 2021, the Pirates won a series against the Atlanta Braves. The clinching win came for Pittsburgh yesterday as the team prevailed 4-1 against the visiting Braves ball club.

Regardless of what happens today in the Sunday matinee, the Pirates will still have won the weekend homestand against a very good Atlanta team. On the broadcast of Saturday’s game, the booth noted that this was the first series win against the Braves since the 2021 season.

And while a three year gap is relatively insignificant, especially for teams that only see each other a few times a year, I did find it fascinating that the last team to accomplish this feat was the rag tag team known as the 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates.

Why? That team lost over 100 games. They were one of the worst teams in baseball. Yet, a team that was willingly employing players like John Nogowski, Phillip Evans, Will Craig, and others managed to topple the eventual World Series champions that year.

So, I decided to revisit that early July series for the Bucs.

This series was quite the wacky one. Despite it only being three games, it saw both the pendulum swing entirely in both Pittsburgh and Atlanta’s direction during it.

It is important to note some recent history before we get into this series. Back in May down south at Truist Park, the Braves had claimed three of four games from the Pirates, including a vicious 20-1 defeat that saw the Pirates throw Wilmer Difo off their ship in an act of desperation.

Already down 12-0, the Pirates put infielder Wilmer Difo in the game as a relief pitcher in the eighth inning, so as to not waste another arm for future games. Maybe the hope was that Atlanta would see it as the ultimate waving of the white flag, but the Braves showed no mercy.

Atlanta hung 8 runs on Difo in the eighth to turn a blowout into a massacre.

Now, six weeks later, these two teams met again at PNC Park.

Game 1 – July 5th

The Braves opened the scoring in this game, scoring the opening run off of Pirates’ starter Chase De Jong in the first inning. The run was aided by an error on the right fielder Phillip Evans, but the 1-0 score would stand until the fourth inning.

Ben Gamel would smack a 2-run homer off of Braves starter Max Fried to take the lead for the home team. Then in the sixth inning, the Pirate offense really started to come alive. Fried allowed four straight hits before he was chased in favor of former Pirate reliever Edgar Santana.

Santana didn’t fair much better, and in all the Pirates tallied 4 runs in the sixth to take a 6-1 lead over Atlanta.

Gamel would add a second homer the next inning, this time a 3-run shot off Braves reliever Josh Tomlin, and in the eighth inning Ke’Bryan Hayes added another home run off of Tomlin to give the Pirates a 11-1 lead.

Any hopes of a Braves comeback were slim at best, but the Pirate bullpen completely locked down Atlanta’s chancs.

Sam Howard and Kyle Keller both recorded 3 strikeouts in this game as the Pirates, and Clay Holmes earned his fifth hold of the season.

It was De Jong’s first credited win of the season after he went 5.0 innings and allowed just 4 hits and 1 run. He struck out 4 and the Pirates as a team struck out 12 Braves batters.

Game 2 – July 6th

Things were a lot tighter in the second game of the series. Pittsburgh put Chad Kuhl on the mound for the Tuesday night matchup, and Atlanta countered with Ian Anderson.

The Braves really stepped up their pitching and defensive game, but Pittsburgh met that challenge head on.

Kuhl and Anderson traded scoreless first and second innings before the Pirates lucked into some small ball that was capped off by a Bryan Reynolds sacrifice fly to score first for the Pirates.

Kuhl kept the Braves off the scoreboard until sadly a small slip up allowed a two out solo home run to Orlando Arcia to tie the game.

The bullpens would trade scoreless innings all the way until the ninth. For Pittsburgh, that included Chris Stratton and David Bednar appearing in relief of Kuhl, while the Braves’ Luke Jackson, Chris Martin, and AJ Minter matched the Pirate effort.

Finally in the ninth, Pirate reliever Richard Rodriguez pitched a scoreless top of the ninth, which gave the Pirates one last chance to end things before extra innings. They caught Braves closer Tylr Matzek on a very off night. Matzek walked two batters and allowed a single to load the bases with no one out.

Then, Matzek walked in Bryan Reynolds to score Rodolfo Castro, ending this game on a walk-off, walked in run.

Rodriguez, who was credited with the win (his fourth of the year) was traded to Atlanta mere weeks later in exchange for Ricky DeVito and Bryse Wilson.

Game 3 – July 7th

After getting blown out in the first game and handing the Pirates a walked in run as the walk-off play the night prior, perhaps the Braves were tired of the embarrassment and decided it was time for revenge.

Atlanta started Drew Smyly, who actually had a rather subpar day on the mound. In 5.0 innings, he allowed 9 hits and 3 runs (although they all came off of a home run, more on that later), and walked 3 batters as opposed to 4 strikeouts.

His counterpart, Wil Crowe, went 4.2 innings, giving up 6 hits and 2 earned runs.

The first inning saw a lot of action; Crowe gave up back to back hits to give the Braves a 1-0 lead. But in the bottom of the first Jacob Stallings slammed a three run homer off Smyly in an inning that saw all 9 Pirates starters be up to bat.

Crowe would give up a solo homer in the third inning to cut Pittsburgh’s lead to 3-2, and things would stay pretty quiet until the sixth.

Pirate relievers Kyle Crick and Chasen Shreve both got into some trouble in the sixth; the former gave up two runs and the lead, and the latter let things get out of control to extend Atlanta’s lead to 7-3.

Things were probably out of reach by the time the eighth inning rolled around, but literally the worst game of Duane Underwood Jr.’s career put the game entirely out of reach.

Atlanta’s ruthlessly killed Underwood Jr. for 8 hits and 7 earned runs, and at no point during the 11 batters faced did the Pirates take him off the mound as he turned a 7-3 deficit into a 14-3 nightmare in the middle of a workday.

By the time the ninth inning arrived, the Pirates decided it couldn’t be any worse if they just threw some position player in there. First baseman John Nogowski, who to his credit had a terrific game with 4 hits, continued to impress when the Pirates had asked him to pitch in the ninth.

Nogowski faced the minimum, including getting former Pirate Guillermo Heredia to ground into a double play. Right after his day on the mound was over, Nogowski notched his fourth hit of the day, but the Braves secured three quick outs to end the game, a 14-3 final.

(Featured photo by Matt Freed/AP)