Valdez Blast Breaks It Open, Pirates Down White Sox 4-2
Esmerlyn Valdez's fifth-inning home run to right — 361 feet — swung Chicago's win probability from 52% to 37% and set the tone for everything that followed. Pittsburgh never trailed, rolling to a 4-2 final on September 9.
The story of the night was a Pittsburgh offense that did its damage in two concentrated bursts and then let its pitching staff handle the rest. Valdez got things started in the fifth, going deep to right for the game's first run and delivering the single biggest momentum shift of the evening — that 15-point win-probability swing was the clearest signal that this was Pittsburgh's game to lose. Chicago starter Davis Martin labored through five innings, allowing 4 hits and 1 earned run against just 1 strikeout, and the Pirates made him pay.
The seventh inning is where Pittsburgh put the game away. Flores Jr. singled to center to score Cook and push the lead to 2-0, with Horwitz advancing to third. Then Griffin followed with another single to center, scoring both Horwitz and Simon to make it 4-0. That's three runs on two singles in the same inning — efficient, unspectacular, and completely effective. Chicago answered in the bottom half when Antonacci reached on an infield single to first, scoring B. Montgomery to make it 4-1, but the damage was already done. Murakami added a solo shot to right center — 381 feet — in the eighth to cut it to 4-2, and he and Antonacci were the only White Sox who looked capable of doing anything with Pittsburgh's pitching all night.
On the mound, Brandon Eisert was the story Pittsburgh's front office will want to highlight. He went 2.1 innings, allowed zero hits, zero walks, and struck out 5 — that's a dominant stretch by any measure, and it looks like he kept Chicago's lineup completely off-balance early. Lake Bachar followed with 1.2 innings of his own, giving up 2 hits but no runs while adding 3 strikeouts. Trevor Richards was the one bright spot for Chicago's bullpen, tossing 2 clean innings with 3 strikeouts and no hits allowed, but by the time he took the mound the deficit was already insurmountable. Brandon Lowe's 2-for-4 night quietly anchored Pittsburgh's lineup at the top, and Griffin's 2-RBI single was the knockout punch. Pittsburgh's pitching and timely hitting were simply too much for a White Sox offense that managed just 2 runs on the night.