Detroit Tigers at Pittsburgh Pirates: Final Score & Recap

The Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Detroit Tigers 3-1 at LECOM Park on March 18, 2026, a result the DiamondIQ model anticipated from the outset, with a pre-game home win probability of 68% that climbed to a certainty by the final out. Pittsburgh built its advantage early, doing its most decisive damage in the second and fourth innings, while Detroit managed just a single run across nine frames.

The game's key turning points were clustered in the middle innings. Joey Bart's single off Casey Mize in the bottom of the second moved Pittsburgh's win probability up 7.3 percentage points, and Tyler Callihan's home run off Mize in the fourth added another 8.0 points, extending the Pirates' lead to three runs and effectively putting the game out of reach. Detroit's best response came in the top of the fifth, when Riley Greene singled off Braxton Ashcraft to account for the Tigers' lone run and a 9.4-point swing in win probability, the largest single-play movement of the game. Any Detroit momentum stalled quickly, however, as Javier Báez grounded into a double play off Jaycob Deese in the sixth, costing the Tigers 7.0 percentage points of win probability.

Callihan and Bart led Pittsburgh's offensive contributors by the DiamondIQ model's estimate, finishing with WPA figures of plus-7.4 and plus-6.2 respectively, while Zach McKinstry also registered plus-6.2 WPA after reaching on a fielding error in the seventh. On the mound, Carson Fulmer was Pittsburgh's most impactful arm, generating plus-14.4 WPA, with Dennis Santana adding plus-7.2 in support. Detroit's pitching staff, by contrast, yielded all three Pittsburgh runs through Mize, and the Tigers' defense contributed an error to the final line, finishing the afternoon with a 1-5-1 box score entry in a game that was rarely competitive.