At the end of a tightly contested, 11-inning affair, Tuesday night’s game between the Pirates and Orioles at Camden Yards was decided by a crew chief challenge.
With the bases loaded in the bottom of the 11th, Orioles catcher Samuel Basallo drove home the game-winning run with a pop fly that brushed Tommy Pham’s glove in left field and caught the edge of the left-field foul line.
The hit was first ruled a foul ball before the call was overturned by crew chief Alan Porter, and shortstop Gunnar Henderson was allowed to score for Baltimore’s 3-2 win.
“It was a tough ending right there,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “We fought to come back. I mean Tommy had a huge at-bat to hit the home run and the pitching was really good to keep us in it all night. Unfortunately, we just didn’t come up with the big hit.”
Despite both teams scoring a run in the first inning — Pirates designated hitter Andrew McCutchen drove home first baseman Spencer Horwitz in the top half and Orioles designated hitter Ryan Mountcastle responded with a sacrifice fly in the bottom — this one was decided in the final three innings.
Pham tied the game at two in the ninth inning with his ninth home run of the year, a 372-foot shot over the wall in left-center field. Pham worked a 2-2 count and fouled off three straight pitches before jumping on a 95-mph sinker on the inner half from Orioles reliever Yennier Cano.
Reliever Isaac Mattson kept the Pirates’ hopes alive in the 10th inning as he stranded the bases loaded while throwing 15 straight fastballs.
After left fielder Dylan Beavers laid down a sacrifice bunt to move baserunner Jorge Mateo to third base, Mattson walked Dylan Carlson and second baseman Jackson Holliday to load the bases. He then battled back to strike out Daniel Johnson before inducing an inning-ending groundout from Henderson.
“He was just competing, finding ways to challenge them, came up with the big punchout and was able to get out of it,” Kelly said of Mattson’s outing. “Just a great job.”
The Pirates’ offense, which mustered just five hits, two of which went for extra bases, was shut down in extra innings.
Right hander Dauri Moreta worked the 11th inning, gave up two hits and didn’t record an out. After getting ahead 1-2 on Basallo, the right-hander threw a fastball above the zone that Basallo flared out to left field.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before,” Pirates reliever Braxton Ashcraft said of the final play. “It’s tough. It’s a tough situation. … It’s baseball at the end of the day and stuff happens. Plays are made, plays are not made.”
The ending overshadowed a pitchers’ duel between Pirates starter Mike Burrows, Ashcraft and Orioles starter Kyle Bradish.
Burrows worked the first four innings and didn’t allow a hit after the first while walking one and striking out six. The 25-year-old who has started 17 games this season and produced a 3.99 ERA over 85 ⅔ innings, threw 56 pitches, 37 of which went for strikes.
He found success with his changeup and slider, throwing them 13 and 11 times, respectively, and produced whiff rates of 75% and 67% while drawing a combined 17 swings. The right-hander also threw 19 fastballs and topped out at 97.2 mph, two miles per hour faster than his yearly average.
“I was just locating it well and executing it was the best part,” Burrows said of his slider.
Ashcraft worked the next three innings and allowed two hits while setting a career high for strikeouts in relief with four. However, he walked two and gave up a go-ahead home run to right fielder Jeremiah Jackson in the sixth inning.
“I was a little, uncharacteristically, out of the zone,” Ashcraft said of his outing after locating 36 of his 63 pitches for strikes. “I have got to the point where I am now with leveraging counts, being in the zone and getting ahead of guys. That’s the one thing in the past two outings that I’ve taken away, is that I just haven’t leveraged counts like I normally do.”
Bradish allowed just two hits through his final six innings of work, giving up singles to center fielder Oneil Cruz in the fourth and second baseman Nick Gonzales to lead off the seventh.
However, the Pirates weren’t able to capitalize on either opportunity as Bradish struck out six and walked two while throwing 10 pitches or less in the third, fifth and sixth innings.
“It seemed like early on against Bradish we got into a good rhythm, we were able to scratch across a run there early and then he settled in and we didn’t make the adjustment,” Kelly said. “Later on in the game, I thought we had better at-bats. We were able to stack them together, get guys on base and give ourselves a chance. Through those middle innings, he just seemed to go to the curveball and keep us off balance.”
Paul Skenes will take the mound Wednesday in the second game of the Pirates’ six-game road trip. The Cy Young hopeful will square off against Baltimore right-hander Tyler Wells.
Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)