Eldridge's 10th-Inning Double Breaks Pittsburgh's Heart, SF Wins 5-4
Bryce Eldridge doubled to left in the 10th inning to score the go-ahead run, swinging Pittsburgh's win probability from 50% to 24% in a single swing. San Francisco survived a late Pittsburgh rally to take this one 5-4.
Rafael Devers set the tone immediately, launching a 415-foot home run to center in the first inning to put San Francisco on top. Pittsburgh answered in the fourth when a walk to Valdez brought Horwitz home to tie it, but the Giants reclaimed the lead in the fifth — Eldridge's sacrifice fly scored Koss, and Hill followed with a single to right that scored Gilbert and pushed it to 3-1. That two-run fifth looked like it might be enough cushion. It wasn't.
Pittsburgh chipped away. Horwitz grounded out in the seventh, but it was productive — Flores Jr. scored to make it 3-2. Then in the eighth, Cruz reached on an infield single to shortstop and Reynolds crossed the plate to tie the game at three. The Pirates had erased a two-run deficit and, with Carmen Mlodzinski throwing three scoreless innings of shutdown relief — zero hits, zero walks, two strikeouts — Pittsburgh looked like the team with momentum heading into extras.
The 10th inning is where this game was decided, and it wasn't subtle. Eldridge's double to left scored Koss and moved Devers to third, the single play that swung Pittsburgh's win probability from 50% to 24%. Hill then hit a sacrifice fly to right, Devers scored, and San Francisco had a two-run cushion. Pittsburgh refused to go quietly — Gonzales singled to center to score Reynolds and make it a one-run game — but that's where it ended, SF 5, PIT 4. Eldridge finished 1-for-3 with 2 RBI, Hill went 1-for-4 with 2 RBI, and Devers scored twice to go with his first-inning blast. On the mound, Landen Roupp gave San Francisco five solid innings — 2 hits, 1 earned run, 4 strikeouts — and Dylan Smith closed it out with a clean inning of two-strikeout relief. The story of the night was San Francisco's ability to answer every Pittsburgh punch, and when the Pirates finally drew even, Eldridge had the last word.