The Pirates still have a sliver of life in the 2026 playoff race, but the road ahead is brutally narrow, and Bryan Reynolds sits right at the center of it.
Pittsburgh opened September with a wild win over the San Francisco Giants, a result that keeps the conversation alive for now. But the margin is gone. If the Pirates are going to somehow climb into the postseason, they need one of their most important bats to drag them there.
Reynolds has been steady enough overall, hitting .263/.369/.420 with 15 homers entering play on Thursday. The problem is the split underneath that line.
At PNC Park, the 31-year-old has been sensational, putting up a .920 OPS at home. On the road, though, that number drops all the way to .672.
That kind of gap is hard to ignore. Home-field comfort can help plenty of hitters, especially younger ones, but Reynolds is supposed to be the seasoned presence in this lineup. The Pirates need more than a player who only looks like a star in Pittsburgh.
What makes the trend even stranger is that it hasn’t really defined his career. Reynolds has been much more balanced historically, with a .821 OPS at home and .786 on the road. This season’s split is the outlier.
And he’s not the only Pirate carrying a home-road problem. Pittsburgh’s offense has earned praise for its improvement in 2026, but the numbers tell a mixed story. The club owns the third-best home OPS in baseball at .789, while its .686 road OPS ranks 25th.
That helps explain why the Pirates are sitting so far back in the chase for the final NL Wild Card spot. They are 33-39 away from PNC Park, and that road record has been a major drag on the season.
The schedule does them no favors, either. Pittsburgh has nine road games left, spread across three series: three against the Chicago White Sox from September 8-10, three against the Cubs from September 11-13, and three more against the Detroit Tigers from September 25-27.
If the Pirates are going to make this thing interesting, they probably need to win most of those games. Reynolds has to be part of that push. He’s also been stuck in a rough second-half slide, and with the season tightening, Pittsburgh needs him to answer the bell and set the tone for the younger players around him.
In Other News...
Pirates Catching Depth Move Could Hint At Something Bigger
The Pirates added another name to their catching mix this week, signing Jose Herrera to a minor league contract and sending him to Triple-A Indianapolis. Herrera had spent time in the Texas Rangers organization and also played in the Mexican League after his release, but his best-known work has come in the majors with the Arizona Diamondbacks. For Pittsburgh, it is the kind of depth move teams make when they want another experienced hand close to the big league picture.
Herrera is expected to help stabilize the catching inventory in the Pirates minor league system, giving the organization some insurance behind the plate. Moves like this do not usually draw much attention on their own, but they can say plenty about how a club wants to protect itself over a long season, especially at a position where bodies can disappear quickly. [Read more 🡒]
Pirates Suddenly Have A Tough Decision On A Forgotten Top Pick
Lonnie White Jr. has pushed his way back onto the Pirates radar in a real way this season, and its not just because he was once viewed as one of the organizations more notable young talents. After years of uneven development, the former top prospect has put together a strong 2025 across Hi-A and Double-A, showing the kind of production that can change how a club views a player in a hurry. His combination of power and speed has stood out, and the overall line has made it hard to keep treating him like a forgotten name in the system.
For Pittsburgh, the question now is less about whether White has re-entered the conversation and more about how to handle the next roster crunch. Adding him to the 40-man roster would be a way to keep him out of Rule 5 Draft risk, even if he is not yet ready for a big-league call-up. It is the sort of decision teams prefer to make before the deadline pressures pile up, and it gives the Pirates a small but meaningful test of how much they still believe in a player whose stock looked far more uncertain not long ago. [Read more 🡒]
Pirates Suddenly Have A Bullpen Problem At The Worst Time
The Pirates added another layer of uncertainty to a bullpen that has already been asked to do a lot, placing right-handed reliever Kirby Yates on the 15-day injured list retroactive to Aug. 31 because of a right shoulder impingement. Pittsburgh moved quickly to cover the opening, recalling rookie right-hander Khristian Curtis from Triple-A Indianapolis before its series finale against the Giants, a sign the club needed fresh arms available right away.
Wilber Dotel also got the call back up as part of the same round of roster shuffling, while Evan Sisk was optioned to Indianapolis. The timing is less than ideal for a Pirates team trying to keep its late-game options intact, and Yates injury leaves the staff waiting to see how deep the bullpen hole becomes before the next stretch of games really settles in. [Read more 🡒]