PITTSBURGH — Coming off a pair of draining, tight losses and facing an early deficit against perhaps the best team in baseball, the Pittsburgh Pirates could have bailed.
It’s August. They’re essentially out of the playoff mix following a scorching start. Their focus over the final third of the season is essentially trying to see how far along the young core they’ve been cultivating has come.
That core provided a pretty emphatic answer on Thursday, rallying past Atlanta 7-5 to earn a four-game split against a team that has long been where the Pirates are trying to go.