Cincinnati Reds at Pittsburgh Pirates: Final Score & Recap

The Pittsburgh Pirates held off the Cincinnati Reds 6-5 at PNC Park on August 23, 2024, in a game that turned dramatically in the middle innings before Pittsburgh's bullpen slammed the door in the ninth. The DiamondIQ model entered the day with a 54 percent home win probability, a figure that shifted violently across a pivotal stretch. Cincinnati scored first with a run in the top of the first, but Pittsburgh answered with four runs in the bottom of the fifth, a frame in which Bryan De La Cruz delivered the key blow — a double off Alan Busenitz that swung win probability 15.5 points in Pittsburgh's favor. The Pirates added two more in the sixth to build what proved to be a necessary cushion.

Cincinnati mounted a genuine threat in the ninth against closer David Bednar, and Will Benson's double off Bednar briefly re-ignited the rally with a 20.4-point swing, the single largest win-probability play of the game. But Bednar recovered, inducing a lineout from Elly De La Cruz that flipped the needle 15.2 points back toward Pittsburgh and then struck out Santiago Espinal to kill the inning and the threat. Earlier, Dennis Santana had helped smother a Cincinnati opportunity in the seventh when Noelvi Marte hit into a double play, a sequence worth 13.2 win-probability points for the Pirates.

Among Pittsburgh's standout performers, Bednar and Dennis Santana led all pitchers with 15.2 and 14.5 win-probability points added respectively, while Buck Farmer contributed 11.9. On the offensive side, Will Benson paced all batters at plus-20.4 percent WPA, though his efforts came in a losing cause. Spencer Steer added 14.2 percent WPA with a 0.9 RE24, and Rowdy Tellez posted a plus-1.2 RE24 to go with his 10.4-point WPA contribution. The DiamondIQ model closed the game at 100 percent probability for Pittsburgh, reflecting a finish that was never truly in doubt despite Cincinnati's ninth-inning push.