Jay Bruce’s RBI triple in the bottom of the ninth inning gave the Reds a 2-1 walk-off victory over the Pirates on Sunday and two of three games in the series.
It is Cincinnati’s first 5-1 start to a season since 2011.
Brandon Phillips led off the inning with a lined single to center field against reliever Arquimedes Caminero. On a 2-2 count, Bruce lined a ball that landed near the right-field line and rolled towards the corner away from Gregory Polanco for the three-base hit as Phillips was able to score the winning run standing up.
“I didn’t hit it very hard so it took a while to get there,” Bruce said. “It took a while for [Polanco] to get to it. I think they may have been pinching to the middle a little bit. Whatever happened, it worked out.”
Following three scoreless innings from Dan Straily and a scoreless eighth by Jumbo Diaz, Ross Ohlendorf picked up the victory after he worked a scoreless top of the ninth. That came despite two hits as Pittsburgh went 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position for the game.
Overall this weekend, the Pirates went 5-for-35 with men in scoring position and stranded 34 runners on base.
“You move on from it, learn from it. It’s baseball. Next time we get those runners on, we’ll score them,” Pirates second baseman Josh Harrison said. “There’s going to be some games, some series where guys get stranded. You can’t get frustrated.”
Left-hander Jeff Locke, making his season debut and unveiling his revamped delivery, held the Reds to one run, Eugenio Suarez’s homer, over six innings.
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