The headline is a bit dramatic.

We are just talking about a 5-4, 11-inning victory over Baltimore at PNC Park on Saturday that improved the Pirates to 7-2 in the very early stages of the 2024 campaign. You mean to tell me that a 6-3 mark would have been that much worse?

Possibly.

Pittsburgh started the season 6-1 on the road but did so against two teams–the Marlins and Nationals–that aren’t exactly the cream of the crop in the National League. True, the Marlins were a wildcard team in 2023, but they’re currently 0-9. As for the Nationals? They are 2-6 as of this writing.

On the other hand, the Orioles won 101 games in 2023 as well as the American League Eastern Division. They have impressive starting pitching. They have a stacked hitting lineup.

And they quietly had their way with Pittsburgh in a 5-2 victory in the 2024 Home Opener at PNC Park on Friday afternoon.

Big deal, right? This is baseball. People make too much out of Home Openers, anyway.

That is true, but context is everything. Again, Baltimore is an impressive club, one that still appears to be in the early stages of a resurgence following many years at the bottom of its division.

The Pirates want to be like Baltimore. They, too, stripped it all down to the studs and started over. They endured a few horrible years in the process.

Then, last season, Pittsburgh started out a surprising 20-8 and had everyone dreaming of the return of relevant baseball and the first Buctober since 2015. Then, the bottom fell out. The Pirates won 27 games over the next three months and ultimately finished with a 76-86 record. True, they finished with a flurry, and their win total was a 14-game improvement over the previous season. They even finished out of last place in the National League Central Division.

But the Buccos clearly weren’t ready in 2023.

Are they ready in 2024? Have they arrived? It may be early, but the Orioles might be a decent barometer of where Pittsburgh is at as a budding, young roster.

Bailey Falter, the beleaguered starting pitcher who quickly became the number-one target for fan wrath after his brutal start in Miami on Easter Sunday (it actually wasn’t that bad after he survived the first inning), took a no-hitter into the sixth inning on Saturday. Joey Bart, the recently acquired backup catcher, hit a home run in his first Pirates at-bat. Pittsburgh had built a 3-0 lead and could have added on many times over.

Baltimore scored two runs in the top of the seventh to climb to within two.

No worries, though. Aroldis Chapman, the Pirates flame-throwing setup man, easily dispatched Baltimore’s bats in the top of the eighth. Now, it was up to David Bednar, the Pittsburgh native, to close the deal in the top of the ninth.

Bednar didn’t do that. Instead, the Orioles tied the game.

Yikes.

You just had a bad feeling after that. I mentioned earlier that the Pirates had plenty of chances to add on, but instead of that, they stranded a lot of guys on base (they would finish with 12).

Major League Baseball has that new rule where each team has a runner at second base to start the top and bottom half of every inning past the ninth.

The Orioles plated their runner in the top of the 10th to take a 4-3 lead.

Ouch. This loss was going to hurt.

Fortunately, the Pirates quickly loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom half of the 10th. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh could only tie the game on a bases-loaded walk and failed to score the winning run.

This was going to be ugly.

Thankfully, the Orioles failed to score in the top of the 11th, and long story short, Oneil Cruz singled to score Henry Davis with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th to give Pittsburgh a 5-4 victory.

A loss on Saturday could have had a long-term negative impact on the Pirates. It had nothing to do with the standings. It had everything to do with the collective psyche of these young Buccos and who they were going up against.

Instead of long-term negative consequences, maybe Saturday’s win can have a long-lasting positive impact on the Pirates.

Pittsburgh snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the top of the ninth inning against one of the best teams in baseball, only to turn around and do the opposite in extra innings.

Saturday’s game may have just been one of 162. Then again, it may have been a sign of a young Pirates team coming of age.