Pirates Lose 5-4 On Walk-Off Home Run

The Bucs fell in extra innings to the Philadelphia Phillies 5-4 today on a walk-off 10th inning home run by Luis Montanez.

The Pirates got a pretty solid three innings from James McDonald, who went three innings and gave up a solo run on two hits while striking out one. The Phillies did hit him pretty a hard a few times, but McDonald was the beneficiary of some good luck getting a double play on some poor Ty Wigginton base running, and J-Mac ended his day on a positive note.

Danny Moskos was another bright spot today, pitching two hitless inning. Bryan Morris and Michael Crotta added scoreless innings. Justin Wilson had a rough outing, giving up a hit to Jim Thome before granting three straight free passes and allowing a run before being yanked for Brian Tallet, who left all three inherited runners on base. Michael Dubee pitched the 10th in front of his father and gave up that walk-off home run to Montanez to end the afternoon.

On offense, the Pirates had a nice day again, with 10 hits. They got three runs in the 6th inning on hits by Josh Harrison, Casey McGehee, and Rod Barajas (with a Matt Hague RBI groundout mixed in there as well).

Starling Marte got the Pirates their fourth run with a solo homer in the 8th that extended his streak to eight straight hits.

However, Marte flew out on a well hit ball in the 10th to end the streak.All-in-all it was another solid day at the plate for the Pirates, which is becoming common.

The Pirates played the Phillies tough today, which is nice to see considering they didn’t have a lot of major league guys. Garrett Jones, Pedro Alvarez, Jose Tabata, Neil Walker and Andrew McCutchen were just some of the Pirates major league players that didn’t make the trip today. The Phillies had a bunch of major league guys in the lineup, so a minor moral victory for the Pirates there.

The Buccos play the Red Sox in a night game tomorrow at 7:05.