Florimon walk-off triple pulls Pittsburgh Pirates past Arizona in 9-8 win in extras

Looking to bounce back from a disappointing outing on Monday, the Pittsburgh Pirates (69-47) hosted the Arizona Diamondbacks (58-59) in game two of a three-game set. Scoring early and often, the Pirates were poised to run away this one, but had to hold off a late Arizona comeback, as Pittsburgh won by the final of 9-8 in extra innings.

In the top of the first inning, with A.J. Pollock on third, Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt singled to center field, scoring Pollock, and giving Arizona the early 1-0 lead. Later in the inning, with Aaron Hill on third, Yasmany Tomás hit into a double play, scoring Hill in the process, extending the Diamondbacks’ lead to 2-0.

In the bottom of the first inning, with Gregory Polanco on third base, Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen hit a sacrifice fly to left field, scoring Polanco, putting Pittsburgh on the board, with the score now 2-1 Arizona. Later in the inning, with Starling Marte on third, Aramis Ramirez hit a sacrifice fly to right field, scoring Marte, tying the game at two-all.

In the top of the second inning, after a triple put Nick Ahmed into scoring position, Chase Anderson reached first base on an infield single, scoring Ahmed in the process, giving the Diamondbacks the 3-2 lead.

In the bottom of the second, with Pedro Álvarez on first base, starter Francisco Liriano helped his own cause, hitting a double to deep right center, scoring Álvarez, tying the game at three-all.

In the bottom of the third inning, Marte homered to center field, claiming the Pirates’ first lead of the game, the score now 4-3. With that home run, Marte only trails McCutchen and Álvarez on the team with 12 homers on the season.

Off to the bottom of the fifth inning, with Jung Ho Kang on second and Ramirez on third, and Álvarez singled to center field, scoring both Kang and Ramirez, extending the Pittsburgh lead to 6-3.

Later in the fifth, with Neil Walker on second, catcher Francisco Cervelli singled to center field, giving the Pirates’ the 7-3 lead.

Off to the bottom of the seventh inning, when Kang homered to left off of Diamondbacks’ relief pitcher Josh Collmenter, extending the Pittsburgh lead to 8-3.

In the top of the eighth, things got interesting. With the bases loaded, Liriano walked Goldschmidt scoring Jarrod Saltalamacchia, cutting into the deficit, as the Pirates’ led by three runs at 8-4.

Later in the inning, with Pollock on third, Welington Castillo hit a sacrifice fly to right, scoring Pollock and moving Hill to third, and cutting down the Pirates’ lead to 8-5.

In the next at bat, with Hill on third base, Tomás singled to center, scoring Hill, as Pittsburgh’s lead was cut down to two runs at the end of the eighth inning at 8-6 heading into the ninth.

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In the top of the ninth inning, trailing the Pirates by the score of 8-6, Ender Inciarte and Hill scored on an error by Pittsburgh first baseman Sean Rodriguez, tying the game at eight-all.

The game would go into extras.

And in the bottom of the 15th inning, with Cervelli on second base, Pedro Florimon hit a walk-off triple to deep right field, scoring Cervelli, and giving Pirates the 9-8 victory in extra innings.

What Stood Out

In the bottom of the 15th, Florimon hit his first RBI as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The winner of the game was Pirates’ right-handed reliever Joe Blanton, who went three innings, allowing only three hits, while throwing two strikeouts and two walks in the victory.

With the win, and National League Central-leading St. Louis Cardinals losing, Pittsburgh currently trails the Cardinals by five games heading into the last month and a half.

What’s Next

Looking to take the series from the Diamondbacks, Pittsburgh sends out lefty J.A. Happ (4-7, 4.64 ERA) to face Arizona’s lefty Robbie Ray (3-8, 3.29 ERA) in the rubber match on Wednesday night. In his last out against the Mets, Happ went 5 1/3 innings, allowing one earned run off of seven hits, seven strikeouts, and two walks.

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