Good teams must beat other good teams to become great. The Pirates have proven to be a good team 85 games into 2026, producing a .500 record. Though to break a 10-year playoff drought -- the longest in the National League \-\- Pittsburgh must begin to beat the best. Monday night’s game was the first of 22 straight for the Pirates against teams with a .500 or better record. While things didn’t go quite according to plan at first, Pittsburgh battled back from a five-run deficit to capture an 11-7 win over the scorching hot Phillies. “We’re starting a stretch here and taking it game by game,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said postgame. “I thought we did a great job of that tonight. Inning by inning. A lot of times, you get down five on the road like that, you can get down, and there's a lot of fight in this team.” The Phillies were in a similar spot to the Pirates just a few years ago. Philadelphia had an 11-year playoff drought from 2012-21, finally breaking through by winning the National League pennant in 2022. The Phillies are now vying for their fifth postseason appearance in a row. Pittsburgh has never made the postseason in five consecutive years. Though, with one of the top offenses in baseball, the Pirates have shown signs of reaching the upper echelon of the NL. Amid the pivotal 22-game stretch, Pittsburgh will face the Nationals, Braves, Brewers and Cubs, all of whom are currently ahead of it in the standings. The Phillies hold the top spot in the NL Wild Card race, and have a 38-19 record under interim manager Don Mattingly. “We're .500 too,” Kelly said pregame of the upcoming schedule, "and I think that as we've gone through this season, we've talked about taking it day by day. I know it's cliche … that's what we've tried to approach every single day. I think that we've done a really good job of continuing to compete. Yes, we've had some really good games, we've had some tough games, and we continue to show up every single day.” The Phillies initially tagged Braxton Ashcraft for a career-high three homers. Trea Turner led off with a solo shot, and Brandon Marsh followed a few batters later. Bryce Harper hammered a two-run shot in the third to put Pittsburgh in a 5-0 hole. Then the Pirates' offense awakened against Aaron Nola, catching fire in the blink of an eye. After Esmerlyn Valdez’s two-run shot in the fourth inning, Pittsburgh’s offense came out of the gate in the fifth to put up a six-spot and flip the game on its head. In the frame, the Pirat
