Nick Gonzales finally gave the Pirates the hit they’d been hunting all night.
After Pittsburgh spent inning after inning coming up empty with runners in scoring position, Gonzales lined a full-count fastball back through the middle in the 12th, scoring Jared Triolo and sending the Pirates to a 3-2 win over the Padres at Petco Park. Yohan Ramirez then shut the door in the bottom half, striking out three to finish off a game that stretched nearly four hours.
The victory pushed Pittsburgh to 64-69 and gave the club a needed response after opening what could be a season-defining road trip with three straight losses at Dodger Stadium. It also lifted the Pirates to 6-9 in extra-inning games this season.
Kirby Yates, the former Padre, earned the win.
For a long stretch, it looked like the Pirates might let the game slip away for good. They were 0 for 13 with runners in scoring position before Gonzales came through, stranding 12 along the way. Even so, they kept creating chances, and one of them finally stuck in the 12th.
The late-inning drama started to build well before that. In the 10th, the Pirates had Jake Mangum on third with nobody out, but Bryan Reynolds struck out, Oneil Cruz bounced to Padres pitcher Adrian Morejon, and Brandon Lowe grounded out to shortstop to end the inning.
In the 11th, after Pittsburgh made three straight outs to open the frame, Yates walked Jake Cronenworth with one out and then issued another walk. He escaped with a strikeout and a lineout to center.
The Pirates also had a chance against two-time All-Star Mason Miller (Bethel Park) in the ninth. Triolo walked, Gonzales singled, and Mangum pinch hit and rolled a ball to the right side, but Cronenworth made an acrobatic play to get the third out.
San Diego had its own missed opportunity in the bottom half when catcher Luis Campusano was doubled off second after Spencer Horwitz caught a poor bunt attempt from left fielder Dustin Harrison. Camilo Doval then struck out right Fernando Tatis Jr. to push the game into the 11th.
Cronenworth was all over the game for the Padres. He drove in the tying run in the eighth, robbed Mangum with a diving stop in the ninth, and later used a fancy glove flip to get Spencer Horwitz in the 11th.
Pittsburgh knew this series would be a tough one. The Padres had won 21 of 28 since July 24, the best record in baseball over that span, and they entered with top-10 marks in ERA and runs scored this month.
The Pirates didn’t do much against Robbie Ray through the first five innings, collecting only three singles and getting a runner to second just once. Then Esmerlyn Valdez broke through with the loudest swing of the night.
Valdez crushed a 1-1 fastball from Ray that caught the middle-away part of the plate, driving it 414 feet to center at 111.6 mph for a 1-0 lead. It was his 15th homer of the season, his first since July 26, and it ended a 24-game drought without a home run.
The blast also snapped the Pirates’ scoreless streak at 22 innings, matching their previous 2026 total.
Rafael Flores Jr. added to the lead by hammering a 2-2 fastball from Padres reliever Bradgley Rodriguez that stayed over the heart of the plate, bringing home Bryan Reynolds for a 2-0 advantage.
San Diego answered in the sixth on a strange sequence. Braxton Ashcraft, who has found another gear this month, was called for a balk because he didn’t declare his intent to deliver from the windup with a runner on third, and that allowed Freddy Fermin to score and cut the lead to 2-1.
Ashcraft had otherwise been cruising. He worked six innings, allowed one run, gave up four hits and a walk, and struck out two. It was his third straight quality start and his 13th of the season, and it dropped his ERA to 3.59.
Working again with Flores, a pairing that has clicked, Ashcraft stayed committed to his sinker and mixed in spin nearly half the time. The sinker averaged 97.8 mph, which was 0.9 mph above his season average.
The recent stretch has been strong for Ashcraft. Over his past three starts, he has given up three earned runs in 23 innings, a 1.17 ERA, with two walks and 16 strikeouts. In August, he has allowed one earned run or fewer in four of his five starts, posting a 1.91 ERA and 0.67 WHIP for the month after a 7.78 ERA in July.
The Padres tied it in the eighth after Luke Weaver ran into trouble. Dustin Harris doubled to left with one out and scored on Cronenworth’s line-drive single up the middle. Cronenworth connected on a 2-2 cutter from Weaver that stayed down in the zone to make it 2-2.
Gregory Soto had kept San Diego off the board in the seventh before the late twists kept piling up and, eventually, Gonzales ended it.
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