The Pittsburgh Pirates avoid sweep of the opening series, win their first game of 2026, and get out of New York with something to build on. Final score 4-3 in ten innings at Citi Field on Sunday. Carmen Mlodzinski was the best Pirate on the field, Brandon Lowe hit another home run, and a relay throw in the tenth inning slammed the door before this thing could blow up. Good. Win. Now let’s talk about what this week actually was.
Pirates Avoid Sweep but the Rotation Already Owes the Bullpen a Debt
Mlodzinski struck out the side in the first inning. Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Bo Bichette, all three gone. He went right back out in the third and did the exact same thing to the same three hitters, setting a career high for strikeouts in the process. Against a Mets lineup built to grind, Mlodzinski was genuinely dealing. He held New York to one run through four innings before leaving in the fifth with the game tied 2-2.
That is an encouraging performance from a pitcher who spent most of 2025 looking lost. It is also five innings.
Go back and add up the rotation work across this series. Paul Skenes lasted two-thirds of an inning on Opening Day. Mitch Keller gave Pittsburgh six solid innings on Saturday and they still lost. Mlodzinski gave them roughly five today. The rotation has combined for about eleven innings of work in the first three games of the season, and Jared Jones is already on the 60-day injured list with an elbow issue before April gets here. This team was sold to Pittsburgh fans as a pitching-first club. Through the opening series the bullpen has been asked to eat more than half the innings every single game.
Yohan Ramirez, Mason Montgomery, and everyone else in that pen did their jobs today. They gave up one run over the final five-plus innings and held on for the win. Nobody is faulting them. But it is March 29 and the pen is already taxed, and getting starters to six or seven innings was not some bonus objective, it was the whole plan.
The Relay From Cruz to Triolo to Davis Was the Play That Ended It
Pittsburgh went into the bottom of the tenth up 4-2, then Juan Soto ripped a double to deep left-center and a run scored to make it 4-3. Francisco Lindor was running from first, trying to score the tying run. Oneil Cruz fielded it off the wall, threw to Jared Triolo cutting in at shortstop, Triolo made the scoop and fired home, and Henry Davis caught it and applied the tag. Lindor was out. Inning over.
That relay had to be perfect. Any throw that drifts, any hesitation in the chain, and Lindor scores and this thing goes to the eleventh. The Pirates needed all three of those guys to execute in sequence, and they did. That is the kind of play a winning team makes and the Pirates made it when it mattered.
Lowe and O’Hearn Are Carrying the Offense and the Pirates Avoid Sweep Because of It
Brandon Lowe has now hit three home runs in three games. His solo shot off Mets rookie Nolan McLean in the third inning put Pittsburgh up 2-1 and was the kind of swing that changes how a pitcher attacks you for the rest of the afternoon. Lowe has been the most consistent offensive player on this roster through the opening week, and that is not something anyone projected going in.
Ryan O’Hearn went three for the day with two RBIs. O’Hearn hit the go-ahead single in the tenth inning to put Pittsburgh up 4-2, and Henry Davis added the two-out insurance single right behind him. These two have been steady all series and they deserve credit for keeping runs on the board when the offense was otherwise scuffling.
The problem is that Lowe and O’Hearn are not supposed to be the guys carrying this lineup. Marcell Ozuna is hitting cleanup. Ozuna was the offseason addition who was supposed to change how opposing pitchers approach this order, and through three games he has not been that. Three games is too small a sample to write him off, but the Pirates needed Ozuna to be a threat immediately, and right now Lowe and O’Hearn are doing the work while the middle of the order stays quiet.
First Win, Real Problems, and a Long Season Ahead
The Pirates avoid sweep and that matters. One win does not fix anything but 0-3 would have been a worse conversation. Mlodzinski looks like a genuinely changed pitcher and if he can give this rotation a real innings presence going forward, that changes the math on everything else. The relay in the tenth was exactly what good defensive baseball looks like.
The rotation still has to answer a question it has been ducking for three games. Getting to Cincinnati with a 1-2 record is fine. Getting there with a bullpen already burning in March is not. The Pirates avoided the sweep. The harder tests are coming.
