PITTSBURGH — Craig Wilson dislikes being a bench player. He wishes he weren't being mentioned weekly in trade talk. So he's doing the one thing a bench player can do to get regular playing time, and that's force his manager to play him.

Wilson hit a pair of two-run homers, including a go-ahead drive in the seventh inning that was his third homer in two games, and the Pittsburgh Pirates rallied for a 9-5 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday night.

The Pirates came back from three runs down against the Dodgers for the second night in a row — they won 7-6 Tuesday — and did it again with home runs. They have eight homers in two games, four in each game, and 17 in 10 games after ranking 12th in the NL with 139 homers last season.

Pittsburgh had hit four homers in a home game only four times since PNC Park opened in 2001, only to do so on successive nights.

"I'm not saying we're Murderers Row," Wilson said in a reference to the power-heavy 1927 Yankees. "But, if a pitch is there, we can put good swings on the ball."

Wilson, starting because first baseman Sean Casey sat out the last two nights with a bruised rib cage, followed Jason Bay's leadoff walk and stolen base in the seventh with an opposite-field drive into the right-field seats off Hong-Chih Kuo (0-1) to make it 7-5.

Wilson led the Pirates with 29 homers in 2004, but missed two long stretches of last season with hand injuries and finished with five homers in 197 at-bats. He began this season on the bench after the Pirates added Casey and right fielder Jeromy Burnitz, but has homered in four of his 20 at-bats.

"You always want to play," Wilson said. "You want to be out there. All you can do is to try to do well when you're in there."

He doesn't have to convince manger Jim Tracy of his value.

"He's got himself a backer here," Tracy said. "I've made him aware: 'You will find yourself on the field."'

Freddy Sanchez must be trying to follow the same strategy. Playing because third baseman Joe Randa had soreness in his abdomen, Sanchez hit a solo homer in the fourth and Jack Wilson and Craig Wilson each hit two-run shots against Brett Tomko in a four-run fifth that temporarily put the Pirates up 5-3. Jack Wilson also homered Tuesday as the Pirates rallied three times from three-run deficits.

"We've given up a lot of long balls, and it's purely missing location," Dodgers manager Grady Little said.

Salomon Torres (2-1) allowed three consecutive singles in the seventh, but got Jason Repko to hit into an inning-ending double play to pick up the victory for the second night in a row. He worked two scoreless innings Tuesday.

After Roberto Hernandez followed with a scoreless eighth inning, Matt Capps finished up in the ninth.

Notes: Pirates starting pitchers have a 6.88 ERA. ... Craig Wilson is 5-for-11 with three homers against Tomko. ... Jack Wilson also had a sacrifice fly in a two-run eighth, giving him nine RBIs in five games. He drove in 52 last season. ... Kent's RBI in the third was his first since he had four RBIs on opening day against the Braves. ... The Pirates stole four bases from the sixth inning on, three against Kuo, with Jason Bay getting two steals.