Reynolds Walks It Off as Pirates Survive Milwaukee's Fifth-Inning Surge

Pittsburgh held on for a 3-2 win over Milwaukee on Saturday, but it took a sixth-inning single from Bryan Reynolds to do it. The Pirates nearly let a two-run lead slip away entirely before answering right back.

Pittsburgh built its cushion in the fourth inning the hard way — Esmerlyn Valdez launched a 385-foot home run to left, scoring Reynolds ahead of him and putting the Pirates up 2-0. It looked like a comfortable margin against a Milwaukee lineup that had done nothing through four frames, and with Bubba Chandler working through traffic, the story of the night appeared to be Pittsburgh's offense doing just enough early.

Then Brice Turang happened. With Milwaukee trailing heading into the fifth, Turang laced a double to center that scored both Jackson Chourio and Joey Ortiz, knotting the game at 2-2 and swinging Pittsburgh's win probability from 76% all the way down to 53% — a 22-point collapse in a single swing. That's the kind of at-bat that reframes a game entirely, and Milwaukee looked like the team with momentum heading to the sixth. Chandler had already exited by then, having gone 4.2 innings and allowing both Milwaukee runs on five hits and three walks. The bullpen was now Pittsburgh's problem to solve.

Mason Montgomery answered first, throwing a clean inning with two strikeouts and no hits allowed. But the Pirates didn't need to wait for the bullpen to win it — Reynolds took care of that himself. In the bottom of the sixth, Reynolds singled to right, scoring Brandon Lowe and putting Pittsburgh back in front 3-2 for good. Reynolds finished 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run scored, and he looks like the quiet engine of this Pittsburgh lineup on a night when the box score could have gone either way. Dennis Santana closed things out with a scoreless inning, and Shane Drohan — who gave Milwaukee 6.1 innings of three-run ball with six strikeouts and zero walks — ends up with nothing to show for a genuinely strong outing. That's the brutal math of a 3-2 game: Drohan was efficient and sharp, but Pittsburgh's offense found the one crack in the sixth inning that mattered most.