Oakland Athletics at Pittsburgh Pirates: Final Score & Recap

The Pittsburgh Pirates held off the Oakland Athletics 5-4 at PNC Park on June 5, 2023, in a game the DiamondIQ model had largely decided before the first pitch, assigning Pittsburgh an 85% pre-game win probability that climbed to 100% by the final out. Pittsburgh scored the decisive cluster in the sixth inning, plating three runs to push ahead after Oakland had taken an early 3-0 lead through three innings. The Pirates added an insurance run in the eighth, which ultimately proved necessary as Oakland mounted a late charge.

The eighth inning contained the game's sharpest single swing in either direction. Aledmys Díaz delivered a double off Rob Zastryzny that represented a +21.9% shift in win probability, briefly tightening a game that had appeared to be slipping away from Oakland. However, the rally stalled when Nick Allen flew out to Angel Perdomo for a -15.2% probability swing, and Pittsburgh's bullpen ultimately extinguished the threat. Díaz's bid to do further damage ended in the ninth when he flied out against Colin Holderman, a -21.7% swing that effectively ended Oakland's realistic path to a comeback, with Carlos Pérez's subsequent strikeout off Holderman costing another 15.2 percentage points.

Among individual performers, Brent Rooker led all position players with a +29.0% WPA and a +1.2 RE24, providing the offensive backbone of Pittsburgh's win. On the mound, JP Sears paced all pitchers at +29.0% WPA despite pitching for the losing side, while Angel Perdomo at +22.3% and Colin Holderman at +15.2% were the key contributors in preserving Pittsburgh's lead through the final frames. Andrew McCutchen's second-inning pop out off Sears cost Pittsburgh 16.0 percentage points of win probability, a missed opportunity that briefly kept the door open for Oakland.