Less than 24 hours after the Pirates rallied to secure their first win of the season when trailing after six innings, another opportunity presented itself this afternoon. 

The Pirates faced a 5-2 deficit heading into the eighth inning and managed to get runners on second and third thanks to two Cubs miscues, but they couldn't do enough to come back for a second straight game, suffering an 8-3 loss in the finale of a three-game series at PNC Park. 

"That's baseball," said Bryan Reynolds, who homered in the first inning and drove in a run in that aforementioned eighth inning with a 4-3 groundout. "It would have been nice, but we gave ourselves a chance. That's really all you can ask for." 

Some quality at-bats and a little bit of good fortune allowed the Pirates to gain some momentum for a short period in the eighth. Henry Davis led off the inning by sending a 2-2 fastball down and out of the zone into center for a single. Oneil Cruz followed and missed a chance to do some damage on a sweeper right down the middle of the plate, instead grounding one to Michael Busch at first. Busch fielded the ball cleanly, tossed it to second in an attempt to turn a double play and Dansby Swanson mishandled the throw, allowing both runners to reach safely. 

Soon after, Porter Hodge threw a wild pitch, once again giving both Davis and Cruz an extra 90 feet. Reynolds cashed in with his groundout to score Davis, but Andrew McCutchen hit one back to Hodge for an easy second out. After an Enmanuel Valdez walk put runners on the corners, Ke'Bryan Hayes lined out on this first-pitch fastball to end the threat: 

MLB.com

It wasn't the first time Hayes went to the plate with the idea of being aggressive. In two of his three previous at-bats, he swung at the first pitch. In both instances, he saw fastballs from Colin Rea -- one middle away and another high and out of the zone. Hayes popped out to Nico Hoerner at second base in each of his first three at-bats before his sharp liner in the eighth. 

Perhaps Hayes could have altered his approach in those situations, especially that final at-bat with runners on in a two-run game. Hodge was erratic in his matchup against Valdez and maybe Hayes could have seen a pitch or two before turning to a more aggressive approach. But let's face it, that first-pitch fastball from Hodge was one Hayes should have been able to drive into a gap. Instead of getting the job done in that situation, Hayes and the Pirates fell short in being able to build on what initially looked like a promising opportunity to once again mount a comeback.

"To get an opportunity to push one across and trying to get that other one, Ke'Bryan put a really good swing on that ball that went right to Happ it left," said Don Kelly, who served as the Pirates' acting manager this afternoon. "Just got to continue to battle, continue to get pitches to hit and put good swings on it in those situations."