The Pirates answered Saturday’s frustrating loss the right way on Sunday, beating the Rays 6-3 at PNC Park to take two of three in the series and continue their strong start to the 2026 season. Pittsburgh improved to 13-9 and 8-5 at home with the win, and the club remains right in the thick of the National League Central race, sitting one game behind Cincinnati.
Mitch Keller once again looked like the steadying presence this team needed. The right-hander gave the Pirates seven strong innings, allowing five hits and two earned runs while striking out five and walking nobody. After the bullpen was pushed to the limit in Saturday’s 13-inning loss, Keller’s outing gave Pittsburgh exactly the kind of stability it had to have, and manager Don Kelly made that clear afterward, calling it “probably the biggest start of the year” given where the bullpen stood coming into the finale.
The Pirates did their damage with both timely hitting and power. Bryan Reynolds drove in three runs, including the go-ahead two-run single in the fifth inning that swung the game back in Pittsburgh’s favor. Nick Gonzales tied the game earlier in that same inning with an RBI single, and the Pirates finished with 12 hits on the afternoon. Later, Spencer Horwitz added a solo homer in the sixth and Nick Yorke followed with another solo shot in the eighth, giving Pittsburgh the breathing room it needed.
That is what made this series win feel especially satisfying for the Pirates: it easily could have been a sweep. On Saturday, Pittsburgh built a 4-0 lead and had Paul Skenes rolling before a 2-hour, 27-minute rain delay completely changed the day. Skenes was lifted after four scoreless innings and 64 pitches, and Tampa Bay stormed back after play resumed to hand the Pirates an 8-7 loss in 13 innings. It was the kind of game that can linger if a team lets it.
Instead, the Pirates responded like a club that believes it has something real building. Kelly said after Saturday’s loss that the group would learn from it and keep battling, and that is exactly what happened less than 24 hours later. Pittsburgh came back Sunday with a cleaner, sharper performance, got the length it needed from Keller, and made sure the momentum from the first two weeks of the season did not slip away.
There were plenty of smaller moments that mattered, too. Joey Bart opened the fifth inning with a double, Jake Mangum set the tone again at the top of the order, and Wilber Dotel made his major league debut in the ninth. Dotel did allow a leadoff homer to Junior Caminero, but he recovered to retire the next three hitters and finish off the win. After Saturday’s marathon drained so many arms, even those final three outs carried some weight.
For a Pirates team trying to prove this hot April is more than a nice early stretch, Sunday felt important. They took the series from a Tampa Bay club that came in playing well, they bounced back immediately from a brutal rain-soaked loss, and they did it behind another strong Mitch Keller performance. The record is 13-9, the offense continues to find contributions throughout the lineup, and the Pirates left this homestand looking like a team that should be taken seriously.