As PNC Park’s regular-season curtain fell on Sunday, the Pirates sent their home fans out happy with an emphatic 11-0 drubbing of the Oakland Athletics. It marked their second straight shutout, coming off a 2-0 blanking on Saturday, and their 19th shutout of the season, the most in Major League Baseball.
Mike Burrows set the tone on the mound, firing four scoreless innings with five hits allowed and three strikeouts, before Carmen Mlodzinski followed with three more scoreless frames. Yohan Ramírez and Dauri Moreta closed out the eighth and ninth, respectively, preserving back-to-back shutouts and capping a masterpiece of bullpen execution.
The offense was just as dominant. Andrew McCutchen’s RBI single and Nick Gonzales’s run-scoring double fueled a two-run first, and Jared Triolo’s two-run homer in the second made it 4-0. Pittsburgh tacked on three in the fourth, three in the fifth, and added one more in the eighth,to finish with 11 runs on 15 hits, highlighted by solo homers and four-hit nights from both Triolo and Joey Bart.
That offensive outburst helped Pittsburgh close out 2025 at home with a 44-37 record, their best mark at PNC Park in a losing season since going 45-36 back in 2012. It’s their sixth-best home winning percentage (.543) since the ballpark opened in 2001.
On Tuesday, the Bucs kick off a six-game road trip in Cincinnati. Right-hander Johan Oviedo (2-0, 3.52 ERA) takes the ball for Pittsburgh against Reds ace Brady Singer (14-10, 3.86).
The sweep of Oakland granted Pittsburgh its first series victory over the A’s since 2019.
(photo courtesy of MLB.com)