San Francisco Giants at Pittsburgh Pirates: NL Wild Card Game Time, Pitchers, TV Coverage

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San Francisco Giants at Pittsburgh Pirates — 8 p.m. ET

National League Wild Card Game

PNC Park — Pittsburgh, PA

TV: ESPN

Weather: 67 degrees, partly cloudy

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Game Notes

The San Francisco Giants are in the postseason again after sitting out a year following a humiliating World Series defeat of our Detroit Tigers two seasons ago. They will face the Pittsburgh Pirates, playing in their second straight postseason after winning this game last year, also at home.

Pittsburgh won the regular season series 4 games to 2.

The winner of this game will face the Washington Nationals in an NLDS matchup starting Friday.

Interesting Fact

These two franchises have been facing each other for 126 seasons dating back to the Pirates ascension to the National League in 1888. The Giants began play in New York in 1883. Pittsburgh beat San Francisco in the 1971 NLCS en route to the franchise’s third World Championship in 1971.

How We Got Here

Giants: The last two times San Francisco got into the postseason (2010, 2012), they won it all fulfilling the mindset of all you gotta do is get in. The Giants spent a lot of the start of the 2014 regular season in first place until the favored Los Angeles Dodgers eventually took over.

Pirates: It didn’t look good for Pittsburgh to return to the playoffs, especially when their best player, Andrew McCutchen, missed an extended amount of time this year. But they were the hottest team in baseball throughout September, but ran out of gas with two games to play and just missed out on the NL Central title.

Pitching Matchup

SF: Madison Baumgarner (11-4, 2.22 on the road this year) vs. Edinson Volquez (1.78 ERA over last 12 starts).