As he came up through the Pittsburgh Pirates system, Clay Holmes had been told how electric PNC Park could be when it was sold out for a big game.

He just needed to come back as a New York Yankee on Tuesday night to finally experience it in person.

“When I was here, I always heard about the ‘Black Out Game.’ The wild-card games here,” Holmes said Wednesday in the Yankees locker room. “What this place is like when it’s packed out. (Tuesday night) it was the atmosphere people talked about. This place, what it can be like when the fans are into it. I’m glad I got to experience it.”

Holmes rarely got to soak in that atmosphere when he pitched in Pittsburgh from 2018-21. In fact, it took an appearance from the Yankees this week for a two-game series on the North Shore to sell out the stadium for the first time since August 2019.

New York rolled in with a gaudy, MLB-best 58-22 record to begin the set. Meanwhile, the Pirates are mired in what will likely be another sub-.500 season within their perpetual cycle of rebuilding.

But, for two nights, the disparity didn’t seem to matter. Only the games themselves did.

What a concept!

Hate the Yankees or love ‘em, they are the best show going in baseball today. They are big city. They are bright lights. They are power hitting with Aaron Judge. They are power pitching with Gerrit Cole.

They are pinstripes. And history. And tradition. And they happen to be torching the rest of baseball with a bunch of ex-Pirates like Cole, Holmes and Jameson Taillon.

On Tuesday, the ragamuffin Pirates did to the Yankees what they frequently do to the best teams in baseball. They beat them. Like they did five out of six times against the Los Angeles Dodgers this year, New York’s big money clone in the National League.

Because the Yankees bring Broadway with them wherever they go, opposing teams always seem amped up to give their best performances.

Over 81 road games, you’d think that may be draining, but the Yankees don’t seem to mind.

“We’re used to that,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Generally speaking, it’s something our guys enjoy and feed off of a little bit. We do take a lot of pride in understanding that we — more often than most — do get somebody’s best shot on a given night. That’s part of playing (with the Yankees), and one of the privileges of playing (with the Yankees).”

In fact, Holmes went so far as to say that the natural energy pumped into stadiums the Yankees visit actually helps the team get through long road trips.

“On the road, when you have a little fan base, there is some energy and buzz to the crowd. It gets you going a little bit. It’s nice to have a little bit of that on the road. The following the Yankees have. It’s fun,” Holmes said.

And the Yankees responded Wednesday night as you would expect, thumping the Pirates 16-0.

• Yankees pummel Pirates by blasting 6 homers, including 2 grand slams • Pitching to Yankees' power hitters in 9th inning 'scary' for Pirates infielder Josh VanMeter • Derek Shelton acknowledges where Pirates failed to get the most out of Clay Holmes •

Regardless of the two juxtaposed outcomes, one consistency between the games was the crackle in the crowd Holmes mentioned. Yankees fans are everywhere and always fill up the seats to make the crowd sound split even in opposing venues.

On Wednesday, slumping Joey Gallo got booed by Yankees fans when he struck out and serenaded with cheers by Pirates fans as he went back to the dugout. In the sixth inning when Gallo homered, things flipped 180 degrees, and the audience sounded split 50-50 in its response.

During the third inning Tuesday, when Bryan Reynolds made an excellent diving catch in centerfield, you couldn’t tell if it was Pirates fans cheering his effort or Yankees fans mistakenly thinking the ball fell in for a hit.

“A lot of Yankees fans. A lot of Pirates fans, too,” said Wednesday’s Pirates starter Mitch Keller. “When we can have an environment like that, I think we all feed off of it. I think we all play better when we have that type of crowd.”

It was great. It was two nights strictly about baseball. Two nights about the results. The outs, the hits and the final scores.

Not individual story lines about developmental progress on the fly. It was Wil Crowe getting Judge to hit into a double play in the seventh and David Bednar striking him out to end Game 1 in the ninth.

Then it was Judge going 3 for 4 with a grand slam on Wednesday for his MLB-leading 30th homer. The reaction was so loud from the fans behind the first base line I was almost expecting a road curtain call.

“He’s probably going to be the MVP of the American League. And (on Tuesday night) we did a good job holding him down. It’s tough to hold this lineup down. You don’t see it very often. They score a bunch of runs, and he is the catalyst for that,” Shelton said.

The games matter for the Yankees as they are chasing a division title and maybe a Major League Baseball wins record. The games mattered for the Pirates because the city — for 48 hours anyway — seemed to care about who won or lost.

In Pittsburgh. Not in Greensboro or Altoona.

The stats that mattered were the Pirates getting the Yankees out seven times in nine tries with runners in scoring position Tuesday and stranding nine runners on base. Not Oneil Cruz’s exit velocity or Keller’s spin rate.

Daniel Vogelbach and Jack Suwinski worked full counts on Taillon and hit homers Tuesday to help win the game. And that felt like it didn’t happen in the vacuum of what will eventually be another season with more than 90 losses.

Well, until the team was sucked into the vacuum of a two-touchdown loss Wednesday, the club’s seventh defeat by nine runs or more this season already.

Yet somehow, I’m guessing that’ll still be more interesting and fun than anything else we see the rest of the way this season at PNC Park.

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