Pirates complete stunning collapse in 33-run barnburner

You read that right: The Pirates and Rockies combined for 33 runs and 40 hits.

Colorado's victory was the first for a team that had allowed nine runs in the first inning since Cleveland pulled off that feat back in 2006. 

For the Rockies, this win also represents a rare feel-good moment during an otherwise horrid season. The club still has yet to eclipse 30 wins on the year (29-80), though at least for one night, they can let that historic futility slide. One could easily make a case for this contest as the game of the year in MLB.

On the flip side, the Pirates suffered one of their biggest losses in recent memory, a nail in the coffin of what has been yet another dreadful campaign in Pittsburgh. They're left to pick up the pieces from here, but when they score 16 runs and still lose to this Colorado team, the Pirates only have themselves to blame.

To further illustrate just how rare a loss of this caliber is for the Pirates, one would have to go back to 1901 for the last time Pittsburgh scored this many runs and did not come away victorious. 

That's not the kind of history a team wants to be making in any context. But as former Rockies manager Bud Black would be the first to say, "That's baseball."

That is baseball indeed.