Ryan O'Hearn has been a quietly productive piece of the Pirates lineup for a while now, but on July 7 he had the kind of night that gets your bat shipped to a museum. He went deep 3 times and drove in 10 runs in a 12-4 demolition of the Braves, and by the time it was over he'd rewritten a 145-year-old franchise record book.
O'Hearn rounding the bases on one of his 3 homers, with the Pirates dugout hoisting the traffic cone in celebration.
The damage started early and never let up. O'Hearn opened with a grand slam in the 1st inning, added a 3-run shot in the 3rd, and after a rare out in between, closed the show with another 3-run blast in the 6th to push his RBI total to double digits. According to MLB.com, no player in Pirates history — going back to 1882 — had ever driven in 10 runs in a single game. O'Hearn also became just the 11th player since RBI became an official stat in 1920 to log 3 home runs and 10 RBI in one game, and the first to do it since Shohei Ohtani pulled off the same feat against Miami in September 2024.
It wasn't just a franchise milestone, either. The final homer of the night was also the 100th of O'Hearn's 9-year career, a nice round number to hit on the same day the Pirates put his name in the record books. The bat is reportedly headed to PNC Park's Legacy Hall and the helmet to Cooperstown, which is a pretty good haul for one Tuesday night against Atlanta.
The scoreboard swing from PIT 7 to PIT 10, plus the 373-foot, 101.3 mph exit velo readout on one of O'Hearn's blasts.
Naturally, the Pirates clubhouse had jokes once the dust settled. Paul Skenes sat down for his postgame interview and, in a bit that was clearly more comedy than critique, ribbed his teammate for stealing the spotlight — cracking that O'Hearn's outburst was "kinda selfish" since "home runs are rally killers" and everybody else deserved a chance to get on base too. It's the kind of line that only works because the stat line backing it up is absurd.
Skenes' tongue-in-cheek postgame take on O'Hearn's night, delivered with a straight face.
For a Pirates team that hasn't had much to celebrate in recent years, a night like this is worth savoring even if it's just one game against a Braves team having a rough stretch. O'Hearn has quietly become one of the better value signings in baseball over the last couple seasons, and this is the kind of performance that gets him a permanent line in the franchise's history section no matter what happens the rest of the way.