Ryan O’Hearn put on a show Tuesday night that the Pirates had never seen before.
He blasted three home runs and drove in a franchise-record 10 runs as Pittsburgh rolled past the Atlanta Braves 12-4. By the time the night was over, O’Hearn had authored what may go down as the most explosive offensive performance in Pirates history.
The third homer came in the sixth inning off Braves reliever Connor Thomas and gave O’Hearn a place in a couple of club and career milestones at once. It was his 100th career home run and his 16th of the season, which is now a new personal best.
O’Hearn still had a shot at even more. In the eighth inning, he came up with a chance to chase a fourth homer and RBIs Nos. 11 and 12, which would have matched MLB single-game records, but Braves position player Jorge Mateo kept him to a single.
The Pirates’ left-handed bat did most of his damage early. He opened the scoring with a grand slam off Braves starter Hurston Waldrep in the first at-bat, then came back in the third and crushed a three-run homer that turned the game into a rout.
By the end of the night, O’Hearn had accounted for all but two of Pittsburgh’s runs and the first 10 in the 12-4 win.
The 10-RBI game is a rare club in baseball history, with only 18 such performances in MLB history. The last one before O’Hearn came from Shohei Ohtani in 2024.
For the Pirates, it was even more exclusive. Only seven players in franchise history, including O’Hearn, have ever had eight or more RBIs in a single game.
Before Tuesday, the team record belonged to Johnny Rizzo, who had nine RBIs in the second game of a doubleheader on May 30, 1939, in St. Louis, according to Stathead.
The night also marked just the fourth multi-homer game of the 32-year-old’s nine-year career. Remarkably, two of those have come in the last two weeks, after he also hit two home runs against the Cincinnati Reds on June 28.
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