Carlos Santana’s walk-off HR completes Pirates’ rally past Brewers

July 1 – Carlos Santana’s two-out, two-run homer in the ninth inning gave the Pittsburgh Pirates an 8-7 win over the visiting Milwaukee Brewers on Friday night.

Trailing 7-5 against Matt Bush (0-2), Ji Hwan Bae singled and, an out later, scored on Andrew McCutchen’s double. Another out later, Santana hit his ninth homer, to right for the walk-off victory.

McCutchen earlier added a homer and an RBI single, Nick Gonzales a two-run double and Jack Suwinski an RBI single for the Pirates, who have won four straight.

Pittsburgh starter Osvaldo Bido allowed four runs and four hits in 3 1/3 innings, with one walk and no strikeouts.

Carmen Mlodzinski (1-1) pitched two scoreless innings.

Brice Turang hit a two-run double, Christian Yelich and Owen Miller each an RBI double, and Rowdy Tellez an RBI single for the Brewers.

Milwaukee starter Freddy Peralta gave up three runs and three hits in 5 1/3 innings, with eight strikeouts and two walks.

In the third, Milwaukee’s Joey Wiemer got hit by a pitch and went to second on Raimel Tapia’s infield single. Yelich knocked in Wiemer with a double to right for a 1-0 lead.

Tapia scored on William Contreras’ fielder’s choice to make it 2-0. Tellez’s base hit to center drove in Yelich. Willy Adames’ sacrifice fly to center brought Contreras home for a 4-0 edge.

McCutchen led off the bottom of the fourth with his 10th homer, off the foul pole in left, to cut the deficit to 4-1. Henry Davis walked and went to second on a wild pitch. After Santana struck out, Suwinski walked. Davis and Suwinski scored on Gonzales’ first career double, to right, to close it to 4-3.

Yelich reached on second baseman Gonzales’ fielding error in the seventh. Contreras was hit by a pitch. Two outs later, Miller and Turang hit back-to-back doubles to push the lead to 7-3.

In the bottom of the seventh, Tucupita Marcano singled to right. Two outs later, Josh Palacios walked. McCutchen drove in Marcano with a single to left, making it 7-4.

Santana doubled to center and scored on Suwinski’s single to right to draw it to 7-5 in the eighth.

–Field Level Media

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