The Pirates have done the part that seemed impossible a couple of weeks ago: they’ve made September matter.
Pittsburgh was six games under .500 as recently as Aug. 28, a team that looked like it was drifting toward the finish line with nothing left to chase. Then came Wednesday night’s 4-2 win over the Chicago White Sox, and suddenly the Pirates are 73-73 and back at .500 for the first time since Aug. 3.
They’ve won 10 of their last 14 games and taken five straight series, which is something the franchise hadn’t done since 2015 - the same year Pittsburgh last reached the postseason. That alone says plenty about how hot they’ve been lately. It also says just how steep the climb still is.
Entering Thursday, the Pirates were five games behind the San Diego Padres for the third and final National League Wild Card spot. Their surge has at least simplified the picture in front of them, with the Arizona Diamondbacks now the only team standing between Pittsburgh and San Diego.
But Arizona is hardly a small obstacle. The Diamondbacks are just a half-game behind the Padres and remain 4.5 games ahead of the Pirates, which means Pittsburgh needs help from more than one direction. The path is narrow: the Pirates have to keep winning, and they need two teams to stumble.
That’s why the projections still paint such a bleak picture. ESPN has Pittsburgh’s playoff chances below 1%, Baseball Reference has them at 0.7%, and MLB.com lists their elimination number - combined Pirates losses and Padres wins - at 10.
So there’s a pulse. It’s just barely there.
What makes this stretch feel different is that the Pirates are finally playing like a team worthy of the conversation. This is the first time since 2018 that they’ve been .500 or better this late in a season, and they’ve at least made the rest of the schedule worth watching.
After finishing with the White Sox, Pittsburgh heads to Chicago’s North Side for a weekend series against the Cubs. Then comes a nine-game homestand that opens with an NL Central matchup against the Milwaukee Brewers.
The last nine games give the Pirates their best shot at making this absurd run real. They’ll face the Kansas City Royals, St.
Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers, all of them currently below .500. If Pittsburgh is going to keep this thing alive, that’s where the push has to happen.
Of course, the teams ahead of them have their own paths. The Padres still have the San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies left, while Arizona will see the Colorado Rockies and the Miami Marlins. And San Diego and Arizona still have three games against each other to close the season, which means somebody up top is guaranteed to keep banking wins.
That’s the tough part of showing up this late. The Pirates have earned the right to make people look at the standings again, but the margin for error is still brutal. Even so, after most of August looked like a dead end, Pittsburgh has given itself something it didn’t have before: a reason for fans to check every morning.
In Other News...
Ex-Pirates Reliever Became A Painful Wild Card What-If
Dennis Santanas year has become the kind of reminder Pirates fans know all too well about how volatile bullpen arms can be. In Pittsburgh, the right-hander struggled badly enough in 2026 to post a 6.05 ERA, and by July he was off the 40-man roster entirely, a move that seemed to close the book on his role with the club.
The frustrating part for the Pirates is what came next. After landing with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Santana found his footing almost immediately, putting together a 1.29 ERA and collecting saves in important spots, the sort of late-inning stability Pittsburgh could have used in a postseason push. It leaves the Pirates looking at a reliever whose turnaround arrived just as their own margin for error got tighter, another hard lesson in how quickly bullpen fortunes can swing. [Read more 🡒]
Pirates Suddenly Need A Lot From One Rookie At Wrigley
A late change to the rotation has put Wilber Dotel in the spotlight at Wrigley, where the Pirates will hand the rookie right-hander his first big league start on Sept. 11. Dotel has already worked in relief for Pittsburgh this season, but this is a different assignment entirely, coming after Braxton Ashcraft landed on the 15-day injured list with right-side discomfort.
The Pirates do have some coverage behind him if the outing goes sideways, with rookies Khristian Curtis and Antwone Kelly among the available arms along with middle relievers Carmen Mlodzinski and Yohan Ramrez. Still, the bigger question is how much the club can ask from a pitcher making his first start in the majors, especially in a park that tends to make every early mistake feel bigger. [Read more 🡒]
Pirates Just Lost A Young Starter At The Worst Possible Time
Braxton Ashcrafts late-season emergence has been one of the more encouraging developments for the Pirates, which made the timing of his latest setback feel especially brutal. The right-hander was placed on the 15-day injured list retroactive to September 7 because of discomfort in his throwing arm, and Pittsburgh had to react quickly by bringing up a right-hander from Triple-A Indianapolis to take his roster spot.
Manager Don Kelly said Ashcraft will not pitch again in the 2026 season, even though tests have not shown any structural damage. For a club trying to piece together its rotation down the stretch, the Pirates are now set to turn to a bullpen game for their next start, leaving one of their most promising young arms unavailable at exactly the point when they could least afford it. [Read more 🡒]