Tampa Bay Rays at Pittsburgh Pirates: Final Score & Recap

The Tampa Bay Rays handed the Pittsburgh Pirates a 3-1 defeat at PNC Park on June 23, 2024, erasing what the DiamondIQ model had pegged as a 53 percent pre-game probability of a Pirates home win. Pittsburgh's Aaron Civale absorbed the loss despite a strong outing, while Paul Skenes delivered the most impactful pitching performance of the night by the DiamondIQ model's estimate, generating +29.8 percent win probability for the Pirates across his time on the mound. The Rays scratched out a run in the first inning and held that slim lead until Bryan Reynolds briefly flipped the script in the bottom of the fourth, launching a solo home run off Civale worth +11.9 percent win probability that gave Pittsburgh a 1-1 tie and its best moment of the evening.

The decisive turn came in the top of the eighth inning, when Richie Palacios singled off Colin Holderman in a sequence that added +12.3 percent win probability for Tampa Bay, igniting a two-run frame that put the Rays ahead 3-1. Pittsburgh's best response came from Oneil Cruz in the bottom half, but his groundout off Jason Adam cost the Pirates 12.3 percent in win probability, effectively closing off the comeback. Pete Fairbanks then retired Jared Triolo on a strikeout to end the ninth, a moment that carried a +14.4 percent swing and brought the DiamondIQ model's estimate of a Pittsburgh win to zero percent.

Among position players, Palacios finished as the Rays' top contributor at +15.7 percent WPA and +0.7 RE24, with Josh Lowe adding +9.1 percent WPA and +1.1 RE24 in support. Reynolds led all Pirates batters at +13.8 percent WPA and +1.2 RE24, driven entirely by his fourth-inning home run. On the mound, Skenes was the night's most impactful arm by win probability at +29.8 percent for Pittsburgh, though his effort ultimately went unrewarded as Civale and the offense could not sustain enough to overcome Tampa Bay's eighth-inning surge.