Pittsburgh Pirates at St. Louis Cardinals: Final Score & Recap
Line Score
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PIT | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 1 |
| STL | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 0 |
The Story
The Pittsburgh Pirates rallied for three runs in the tenth inning to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals 4-2 at Busch Stadium on September 1, 2023, erasing what had been a tight, low-scoring game and handing St. Louis a loss the DiamondIQ model's estimate had given St. Louis a 51 percent chance of avoiding before first pitch. Pittsburgh scored its only regulation run in the second inning, and the Cardinals answered with a Willson Contreras home run off Mitch Keller in the sixth to tie the game, a swing that added 14.8 percent to St. Louis's win probability and represented the Cardinals' best offensive moment of the night. From there, both clubs traded zeros through the ninth, setting the stage for the extra frame.
The tenth inning proved decisive and was defined almost entirely by JoJo Romero's inability to strand the automatic runner. Miguel Andujar's ground into a double play in the top of the ninth had been the single most damaging moment for Pittsburgh, costing the Pirates 22.0 percent in win probability and leaving Romero in position to close the game. He could not. Liover Peguero opened the tenth with a single that swung win probability 32.0 percent in Pittsburgh's favor, the largest single-play shift of the game. Andrew McCutchen followed with a single worth 16.4 percent, and Ji Hwan Bae added another for 14.7 percent, as Pittsburgh pushed across three runs to take a 4-1 lead before St. Louis could manage one in the bottom half.
Among individual performers, Peguero finished as the game's most impactful batter with a combined WPA of plus-31.2 percent and an RE24 of plus-1.4, while McCutchen contributed plus-16.4 percent and plus-0.6. Contreras led St. Louis at plus-11.8 percent despite the Cardinals' loss. On the pitching side, Dakota Hudson led all pitchers with a WPA of plus-26.5 percent, followed by Keller at plus-18.9 percent and Carmen Mlodzinski at plus-10.9 percent, a trio that kept Pittsburgh in the game long enough for the offense to deliver in extras.