Pittsburgh Pirates at Baltimore Orioles: Final Score & Recap

The Baltimore Orioles walked off the Pittsburgh Pirates 9-8 on February 29, 2024, at Ed Smith Stadium in a game that appeared competitive through eight innings before collapsing dramatically in the bottom of the ninth. The DiamondIQ model entered the game giving Baltimore a 54% home win probability, a figure that climbed to 100% by the final out as the Orioles staged a four-run rally to close things out.

Pittsburgh had taken a 8-5 lead into the bottom of the ninth, but Connor Sadzeck could not hold it. The decisive sequence began with Daniel Johnson delivering a single off Sadzeck that added 35.9% to Baltimore's win probability, and Errol Robinson followed with the game-winning single, the single biggest swing of the night at plus 52.6%. Those two plays alone effectively transferred the outcome. Earlier in the game, Baltimore had closed a deficit in the sixth inning on the strength of a Jorge Mateo home run off Colin Selby, which added 20.8% to the Orioles' win probability, and a Jackson Holliday triple in the same frame that contributed another 17.5%. Pittsburgh's most significant offensive moment came in the top of the seventh, when Jack Brannigan singled off Jacob Webb for a plus 15.6% swing, part of a two-run frame that extended the Pirates' lead temporarily.

Among individual performers, Robinson finished as the game's top batter by WPA at plus 47.2% with a RE24 of plus 1.0, while Johnson posted plus 31.8% WPA and a RE24 of plus 0.8. Mateo led all batters in run-environment impact with a RE24 of plus 2.5 to go along with his 24.9% WPA. On the pitching side, Anthony Solometo led Pirates arms with plus 13.3% WPA, followed by Paul Skenes at plus 8.9% and Thomas Harrington at plus 8.8%, though none of those performances proved sufficient to preserve the lead Pittsburgh carried into the final inning.