Ryan O’Hearn set a Pirates record with a 10-RBI game, helping Paul Skenes stop the swing.

The Pittsburgh-sized nightmare is over. The Pirates ended up winning on another pitch by Paul Skenes. They beat the Braves, 12-4, on Tuesday evening and Skenes won. This ended a nine-game losing streak for the Pirates in Skenes that started when they beat the Rockies on May 12 and continued into July.

Skenes wasn’t even the biggest story in this one, though.

Ten of the 12 runs came off Ryan O’Hearn’s streak. Indeed. He hit a grand slam in the first inning, a three-run homer in the third and a three-run home run in the sixth. That’s three homers and 10 RBI in six innings! The Pirates had 10 runs in six innings and it was all O’Hearn.

The 10 RBI set a team record for the Pirates. This is an organization that has been around since 1882 and has monster running producers like Honus Wagner, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Ralph Kiner and Barry Bonds. O’Hearn dominated them all on Tuesday.

Here’s the slam:

And here is the third explosion, which ended up being history:

He had a chance at a fourth homer in the eighth inning against a righty, but singled instead. Still, the 4-for-5 night with three hits and 10 RBI is one of the best individual performances in MLB history.

The MLB record for RBI in a game is 12, set by Jim Bottomly in 1924 and tied by Mark Whiten’s four-homer game in 1993. Tony Lazzeri in 1936 and Phil Weintraub in 1944 drove home 11 runs in a game. Those are the only times in history a player has had more RBI than O’Hearn in this one. He is now one of 17 players to reach 10 RBI in a single game. The most recent came in 2024 when Shohei Ohtani pulled off the feat.

This was the 10th time in MLB history that a player hit three homers and had 10 RBIs in the same game. The latest was Ohtani in that same game.

It was the 25th time in Pirates history that a player hit three home runs in one game. It last happened on August 2 of last season when Oliver Peguero did so shockingly. The list includes four Kiners, four Stargells, three Andrew McCutchens and two Clementes, among others.

O’Hearn played a big role for the Pirates this season. They had the worst offense in baseball last year and were in dire need of a few upgrades. You have been given one. He is hitting .293/.351/.500 now with 16 homers and 61 RBI. Along with another newcomer Brandon Lowe and a resurgent Bryan Reynolds, the middle of the order has been strengthened.

Skenes has a strong output after a rough stretch

Now let’s get back to Skenes. He wasn’t coming off this one, but he was good enough and his teammates gave him run support, something that had been missing in most of those nine losses.

Skenes’ final row: 6 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 4 K.

Like I said, he wasn’t in charge. He allowed a high number of hits and didn’t strike out many Atlanta batters. He allowed eight hard touchdowns. Out of 31 swings on his fastball, only eight missed and six were hard hit. If he’s going well, we’ve seen a lot of whiffs and a few hard-hit balls. It should be noted that there have been concerns about the drop in spin pitches and, certainly, Skenes’s spin rates on all but one of his pitches have been significantly below the long-term average. His splitter spin rate, however, was 1,716 rpm compared to an average of 1,630. Overall, however, these concerns have not gone away.

Still, great pitchers struggle even without their best stuff and that’s what he did here. He went six innings and allowed just two runs. That’s a 3.00 ERA, indicating it was a relatively successful outing.

During a nine-game hitting streak in his first start, Skenes had a 5.36 ERA, so he was wrong in a few outings. He had one of the worst starts of his career last week. There was also a five-game stretch where he had a 2.57 ERA, and the problem was either run support (three two-run games, one with one out) or the bullpen (eight runs allowed on June 3). Sometimes it was a combination, like on May 17, when he gave up five runs in five innings and got no support.

Things got back to normal Tuesday night at PNC Park. O’Hearn was a star, and one of the highlights was that the team finally won another game with their ace on the hill.